Listening to the W45’s

transmaster

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These W45’s definitely need to be re-capped. They are a bit on the harsh, and muddy side right now. Turned down the tweeter that helped a bit. I know the 10” Wharfedale woofer can produce more bass then it is now. Listening to various musical genera I can hear the Wharfedale anchromatic sound but the 48 year NPE’s are getting in the way. It is a good thing I know what these Wharfedales sound like. Will pop out a crossover and see what I need to order in Mundorf E-Cap’s from Sonic Craft. Very pleased with this purchase there is real potential here. What you see it the correct orientation for the W45. I need to move around some speakers but this is about we’re they will be located.

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I is apparent these speakers have not been played in awhile. They are smoothing out. I am listening to my favorite Moody Blues album, In Search of The Lost Chord (1968) I was inspired to do this by another thread started on 12 Dec 2016 by Apolek and his restoration of a pair of W45's. I am still going to recap and I have ordered a pair each 3.9 μF and 8.2 μF Mundorf E-Cap Plains from Sonic Craft to replace the 4 mFd, and 8 Mfd Minerva NPE's installed.

Listening to Days of Future Passed (1967) I have listened to this album for 50 years and right now I am in a state of grace. These W45's have a open detailed 3 dimensional sound stage. They have the sound I love with the W35's but there is just more there.

These W45's are currently playing from an Echo Dot Amazon Music via a Dayton Audio BT120 Class "D" amp. What I have decided to do is I am going to purchase another BT120 amp and plug it into the ASUS Xonar Essence STX sound card on the PC and use these W45's with it.
 
Here is a schematic for the W45's crossover this was posted by wasillaguy in a thread he started Aug 1 2013. It is as my W45’s except the 6μF cap in the schematic is an 8μF in my set. My W45’s were assembled late in 1970. In many of the postings on these crossovers they tell you to bypass the pot's I do not think this is a good idea. you can use them to tweak their drivers to compensate for any changes you detect in their output after a recapping.

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I am presently blowing my brains out with Euro Trance. The W45’s are coming to life. I am Gobsmacked by their sound, these are 48 year old speakers with unmolested crossovers!!! I have the replacements on the way I can’t wait to listen to them after I recap them. The E-Cap’s really improved the sound of the W35’s.

I at last know the power spec’s for the W25, 35, 45, and W60E, 8 Watts minimum 40 Watts max. The Dayton Audio DTA-120BT is perfect.
 
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I am presently blowing my brains out with Euro Trance. The W45’s are coming to life. I am Gobsmacked by their sound, these are 48 year old speakers with unmolested crossovers!!! I have the replacements on the way I can’t wait to listen to them after I recap them. The E-Cap’s really improved the sound of the W35’s.

I at last know the power spec’s for the W25, 35, 45, and W60E, 8 Watts minimum 40 Watts max. The Dayton Audio DTA-120BT is perfect.
The day I got my W70E's finally put together electronically, I set them up and was just amazed at how full they sounded. I heard stuff in my older recordings I haven't heard in years. Van Morrison "Into the Mystic" was amazing. The high point was playing a live recording of Tocatta and fuge in D minor (played on a pipe organ) through them at full "live" volume. When I closed my eyes I could have sworn I was in the cathedral. The low pipes shook the house. I grew up with KLH Model 5's but these are definitely better.
 
These Wharfedale’s are amazing. As I have said many times it was the Wharfdale W25, and W35 that ended my AR snobbery. I realized somebody else could build speakers that were in every way as good if not better. The Achromatic Wharfdale’s are amazing. Their only down side, if you can call it one, is they are not designed to handle the power of modern audio amp’s. Back when these speakers were designed an audio amp that actually put out more than 40 Watts was very rare, and were very expensive. Instead you had the absolutely bogus “The Blast-O-Sound 2000 Amplifier has an impressive 200 Watts per channel music power. Put it on instruments and you find out it might actually have 25 Watts per channel. Come forward 50 or so years. “I used to play these speakers an a Blast-O-Sound it had 200 Watt per channel it will be OK this Yamaha just puts out 150 Watts per channel”. Later he wakes up in the emergency room after the Doctors removed a 2 1/2 in voice coil that was imbedded in his forehead.
 
“I used to play these speakers an a Blast-O-Sound it had 200 Watt per channel it will be OK this Yamaha just puts out 150 Watts per channel”. Later he wakes up in the emergency room after the Doctors removed a 2 1/2 in voice coil that was imbedded in his forehead.
That's what headphones are for!;) I'm just happy to have decent sounding speakers again after having suffered so many years with these ridiculous 5.1 micro-sized speakers and a boomy sub. Music just doesn't sound right through these things. Now that I have these ready to set up, my next task is to find an amp to pair them with. I've been looking at "vintage", and I'm not sure I want to go that route. A lot of what people think are good actually aren't. Most receivers made during the 70's actually sucked (BTW I'm actually 63 - I lie about birth date, etc. to throw the wolves off). Receivers made in the 70's generally had anemic power supplies, transformers that were barely adequate, filter caps that were too small, etc. to keep size/weight down. Even though the distortion specs looked OK, the inter-modulation specs were never printed because the were terrible. IM is tested by injecting two signals one at 200 Hz and another at 1KHz (for example). When viewed on a O-scope what you see is the 1KHz signal with the 200Hz signal modulating the sine wave. Makes for some muddy sound, and that's what you get with a "mushy" power supply. I have an inexpensive HK receiver now and it uses a switching power supply and the IM is so low it is unmeasurable. Also sounds pretty damned good, but over powered for the W's. I've been looking at the switching amps as well, and as you said, 35 watts per channel at 8 ohms is just about right - and these amps are really clean. My ultimate plan is to find a 60's style credenza and set up my turn table, amp, and these speakers in my living room. The only thing I haven't figured out yet is how to keep my a-hole cats from using the speakers as scratching posts. I have them locked in a bedroom now. What's going to happen when I set them up?
 
What is really surprising is there are audiophiles that are starting to take these class ”D” amps seriously. The Dayton DTA-120BT is so perfect for vintage speakers. My Wharfedale’s will never be connected to my Yamaha it is just too powerful. Some vintage speakers are up to the task of handling modern amp’s take the Polk Monitor Speakers of the 1980’s. My Monitor 10B’s are rated for well over 200 Watts they take everything the Yamaha can dish out and more.

Here is the present setup for W45’s. This will change when I get 2nd 120BT and it is connected to the ASUS Xonar Essence STX sound card in my PC.

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Copper, or Bronze mesh is the solution to your cat problem it looks great is sonically transparent.

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Copper, or Bronze mesh is the solution to your cat problem it looks great is sonically transparent.

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Had a similar idea. I have a sheet of 1/4 inch plywood. I was thinking of cutting new inserts, then staple or glue durable metal screen on them and put some sort of then brown fabric over this. They would look similar to the originals but I wouldn't worry about them being ruined by the cats. Hell, I could even take an impression of the nameplates and resin cast them as well. OK so I get a little nuts at times...
 
You can solder copper and bronze mesh. I have looked at speaker grills entirely made out of this stuff seeing the speakers under it looks fabulous. The Bronze mesh darkened to the bark bronze finish is beautiful.
 
The 2nd BTA-120 is on its way. The problem I have now is the Blue Jeans RCA cables I have. They will be like hooking a fire hose to a lawn sprinkler size wise. I think I’ll order an Amazon Basic cable good quality but not so big and heavy.
 
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Listening to the W45 with their own DTA-120BT. It sure was interesting setting things up I never used the analog line level output from the Xonar SC.it took a while to get everything working together. Listening to the W45’s I keep thinking of my favorite earphones the Etymotic Hf-3’s and their ”Accurate Sound” description. If you are a fan of the balanced armature Ety’s. When you first start listening to one of these Ety’s you think we're is all of the bass, the next thing you hear is everything else in wonderful clarity, finally, the real bass line kicks in you realize you hear it but not at the expense of the rest of the sound environment. This is the sound I have always liked about vintage acoustic suspended speakers. AR had it, KLH did too. But the Wharfedale Achromatic's did it best of all.

Here is a listening tip. Pull up anyone of the numerous Buddha Bar compilations. I have lost track of how many Buddha Bar compilations there are, around 40 I think. If you have never listened any of them they are new age lounge music. They sound wonderful on vintage Wharfedales.
https://m.buddhabar.com/musiques/

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One interesting thing about these W45’s it has been reported the W45 sounds the best horizontally positioned. This puts the Tweeter and midrange vertically oriented, and the woofer on the inside. I have found this to be true. Back circa 1970, the W45 was considered a bookshelf speaker. If you can believe it so was the W60E.
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