Wharfedale Owners Thread

Daman61, that's an impressive setup!

What type of wattage are you needing to push those w90's.

edit... reread and see the fisher x-101b

(ps, like the parquet floors too!)
 
Sam/Producer, it is a Fisher X-101-B (28 W per channel). Like most of the members mentioned here, the Rosedale performs well for amplifier output of about 40 watts per channel. I drove them with an Albarry P1 Integrated and it sounds good too. However, the Fisher has a slight edge. Thanks for the compliment.
 
The recap went without a hitch. I bought some russian PIO's off fleabay. The original caps were close to their value (i only have a capacitance meter, so I cant speak on any other capacitor specs). Well...they still sound good...Lol. I sold off the ca-600 I was using and subbed in a sansui 9090db (knocking the dust off of it...it sits on the shelf and collects dust mostly). It sounds equally as great as the yamaha. It's a darker sound and adds more bloom to the bass. I bought some nice thiel speakers about 2 wks ago & they've got zero listening time, because i don't wanna move the 'dales!
 

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A new owner of Wharfedale Rosedale. Sings better than my previous Magneplanar 1.4. Having lots of fun listening to it (
driven by Fisher X-101-B).

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Rosedales don't get the attention they should.
I have W70D's and Rosedales and prefer the Rosedales.
The Rosedales have a bigger fuller richer sound.
They go very very deep as well without ever sounding boomy or too fat.

Nice setup you have.

Art
 
I love those Rosedales. Simply gorgeous. The more time I spend with my W90s the more and more I like them. They are so different than my Cornwalls. Goes to show there are multiple ways to skin a cat, even in Hi-fi terms in the early 60s. I couldnt part with either.
 
bce22, I love the Rosedales too. I've been listening to the Maggies for the last 20 years plus and kept telling myself that I simply could not listen to box speakers until the Rosedales came along. Glorious sounding speakers, simply musical.
 
Owner of a pair of w90's here. Love em!!! Some of you saw my original post in the speakers section of the forums after I got them home. My speakers have a date of mar 65. I'm patiently waiting for a cap order to arrive. I have to re-investigate an annoying subtle rattle in one woofer, but they still sound great. I have them resting on some cinderblocks to get the tweets to ear level. So far, my magic is coming from a yamaha ca-600. Oddly, it's outshining a yamaha cr-1020. Both recapped, but the 600 is chock full of nichicon audio grade caps & the 1020 has panasonic fc's. I'll definetly revisit the 1020 with some fancy nichicons for the signal path in the near future. Maybe the difference lays in the damping factor difference (70 vs 40 for the 1020). I have a nice but no frills tube I've tried. It was good but not better than the yamaha's. I'd like to try a higher end tube amp with them one day. Anybody wanna loan me one? :)

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I too had a rattle in a w90. It would present whenever some low frequency played.
I found the problem to be the nuts that hold the speaker in place had vibrated loose.
I carefully tightened them, and the rattle is gone. I might suggest some locktite to ensure they stay locked in place.
Hope this works for you. Oh, and keep your ratchet away from those magnets. They'll grab them.
 
Okay that's it! With all this Rosedale talk I am going to go grab my pair and rotate them in place of the w70b's that are in the system now.
Stay tuned.
Actually I have not even tried the Rosedales after picking them up several months ago.
 
Okay I went and got them from storage yesterday. Still not hooked up or cleaned up for that matter but here are some photos.
 

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Your woofer shows 4/69 so made April 1969. They look identical to mine, but mine show 6/72/12 on the woofer so that's June 1972. Quite a run unchanged, at least from the outside. Your crossover has some differences, but what didn't change was the old Elcap capacitors. You'll want to replace those as mine were out of spec after 43 years . These babies have high WAF, as can be seen by this;DSC02836.JPG
 
Your woofer shows 4/69 so made April 1969. They look identical to mine, but mine show 6/72/12 on the woofer so that's June 1972. Quite a run unchanged, at least from the outside. Your crossover has some differences, but what didn't change was the old Elcap capacitors. You'll want to replace those as mine were out of spec after 43 years . These babies have high WAF, as can be seen by this;View attachment 705297


Hey, I thought you just had W90s! How do the two models compare?
 
One mid not working, both tweeters not working. Ha! I'm goin in. If you don't hear from me,you know where to look for me, right?
 
I can't believe I went six months without knowing there was now a British Audio forum... :bash:

Currently-own three pairs of Wharfies. W90's, 2-way W60's, and W60E's. The W90's (in my avatar) are the first-generation, dual-3-way version with alnico drivers all around. Both 12"woofers are running full-range (And the date on the first woofer I looked at was 9/63 - That's 50 years ago this month... Pretty-cool). The W60's are from the same era and have alnico drivers and the same grillcloth. And my W60E's are actually from a good 8-10 years later (Say '71-'73).

Here's a link to the photo album on my user page for the W90's: http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/album.php?albumid=2395

And there's a link below in my signature for a W60's demo video.

Don't have any modern Wharfedales though...


I don't believe it either, that I missed this forum during all the years I've been a member. My experience with Wharfedales stops with the W90, as a friend of many years ago had a pair. I'm more familiar with the red magnet series pre-dating the early 60's. In fact, I actually collect and repair them, even to the point of hand winding voice coils if necessary.
 
Well, after removing the tweeters and mids and testing them, all 3 non-working drivers are dead in the water it appears. Each tested a big fat 0 so apparently they are open. Not sure it is going to be cost effective to track down 3 replacements in an effort to put these back into service. II've got 2 good woofers, one tweeter and the good looking grilles with badges. Cabs are generally okay but will need a little more than a light scrubbing.
 
Well, after removing the tweeters and mids and testing them, all 3 non-working drivers are dead in the water it appears. Each tested a big fat 0 so apparently they are open. Not sure it is going to be cost effective to track down 3 replacements in an effort to put these back into service. II've got 2 good woofers, one tweeter and the good looking grilles with badges. Cabs are generally okay but will need a little more than a light scrubbing.

If purple tweeters the problem is the wires where they pass under the edge of the purple plastic. The glue tended to corrode away the wire. The good news is that the break is there and not in the voice coil.

I believe they can be repaired so don't trash them just yet. I have several I need to repair, unfortunately, this is a project that I have had in my in box for several years but haven't had a chance to get to. Basically, one needs to remove the purple part from the magnet using an X-acto knife to slip between the plastic and the magnet cutting the glue. Wires need to be soldered to the leads at the break. Then insulate using varnish and reassemble etc.

Should be quite simple straightforward job, but I butchered the first one I tried. The problem is the voice coil wire is aluminum and quite fragile. To solder aluminum one, one proper solder is a Zn/Sn mix such as Kappaloy9 https://www.solderdirect.com/index.php/kappaloy9.html and the corresponding flux.

Hopefully will get back to this in a few weeks. Need to order the appropriate solder first. Will report back if I ever get a chance to do it.

In case you haven't seen it, Wikipedia has a nice table on the properties of various solders, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solder
 
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