any way to save my wharf w60Es??

rogerfederer

rogerfederer

determined amateur
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they have beautiful cabinets, nice mid and tweeter but the 12 1/2" woofers are underperforming.

my tech says the rubber surrounds have hardened and that is why the bass is very weak. he tried applying brake fluid but that only helps the surface and the rubber is thick.

he says trying to buy old wharf woofers i'd run up against the same problem. he also says trying to rebuild woofers w/ new surrounds (which i can't find on the web anyways) would have high risk of destroying the woofer.

econowave project doesn't make sense as that assumes you have a good woofer. another idea is fit in new woofers, but i haven't seen 12 1/2" woofers so far via google searches so far.

help!
 
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really? i've seen a few pairs in the past and the cloth woofer surrounds performed fine. you can't expect to get ground shaking thumping bass out of these woofers, but should be decent bass.

there are a few listings on ebay with a pair for good price. you should check it out.
 
Cloth sounds like a different wharfdale - aren't these inverted rubber? Anyway, I dunno... did you make sure the cabinets aren't leaking? Check for VC rubbing?
 
yah, not cloth -- its the rubber surround. no VC rub. cabs are tight.

my tech is very good so i'm pretty confident he has isolated the problem.

not keen on buying more that might have same problem.

this is why the foam surrounds are better in the long run; can be replaced.
 
Many rubber and cloth surrounds can be replaced without any trouble at all. I've not looked into these. You sure about the cabs? Woofer comes up slowly if you push it in and let go? I believe you about your tech it's just that leaks look so possible with those.
 
not the real roger... I WISH!

I will try the push test for leaks

any idea where i could look for rubber surrounds for those vintage speakers? simple googling turned up nada

thanks for all suggestions!
 
So it's single roll doped cloth or... what? I guess that would be hard to replace, although if a pro sat down and tried some things I bet something would work out well. Paging Gordon...
 
Roger,
Don't count them out just yet. I have heard of these guys for decades and they are still in business.
freemantuell.com
They are located in Dallas TX, I first heard of them in the 70s and were already established.
They rebuild speakers.
Best of luck.
 
There may be a foam surround that has the same compliance as the original woofer.

Gordon would probably know.

Or give John at Vanlspeakerworks.com a call
 
The W60E has an inverted, hard-rubber surround, not cloth (The earlier W60 model, not the W60E, had the cloth/wool surrounds). The MID-woofers have a blackish, gauze-like material for surrounds. Those I would absolutely-keep original (Excellent midrange drivers). If you can't repair one of those, I would source a pair of W60E woofers. I would absolutely keep those speakers original.

They need to be off the ground about 18 inches and a few feet out from the walls if possible. Position them so that they form a triangle with your listening-spot, 8ft from each other and about 9 or 10ft back, and try not to have any clutter in the areas surrounding them. They like open space. Toe them out a bit, and that's it. You'll know when you find the sweet spot.

Those speakers have mucho potential if paired with the right gear. They have double-wall-constructed cabs as far as I know (I know they're thick as s**t), cast-framed drivers, and an isolated mid-woofer. They're rated at 50w p/c each, and I'm powering them right now with my 2000x, and I can't get the knob past 9:00 without them doing some serious thumping. They seem to like low-power/hi-current. The mid/hi controls on the back take a little getting used to, but once you get them dialed-in, the speakers smooth out, clear up, and open up. Really-great mids and highs, plus smooth, punchy bass. Not as fast as a good 10" might be, but tight with a well-built, low-powered amp/receiver. I really-like the bass. These speakers have good extension.
 
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Some people don't realize that there were two distinctly-different versions of the W60: the earlier one (W60, W60B) from the early to mid '60's, which was a 2-way ported model with alnico drivers) and the later, completely-redesigned W60 (W60C, W60D, W60E), which was a 3-way, sealed, acoustic-suspension design. I had never seen a W60C, so I didn't know if it was ported or sealed, but then I spotted one in a 1967 Radio Shack catalog and saw that it was a 3-way.

The W60 and W60B are jazz/classical speakers meant to be used with low-powered tube gear, and the W60C, W60D, and W60E are the Brits' take on the classic, 3-way east coast speakers from the US like the AR3 and AR3a (As a result of AR's complete dominance of the speaker market at the time, Wharfedale had basically redesigned their entire speaker-line from ported to acoustic-suspension models).
 
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Brad Muller said:
These have cloth surrounds.:yes: The basket measures 12 1/2.
Click to expand...

That one in the picture actually looks like the inverted hard-rubber one.

I like the sound of these woofers a lot. I think it's a big part of the W60E's sound. They can get pretty-low for an old speaker with a 12.5" woofer (Adding a DAC really-tightened them up on digital stuff).
 
For reference...

My two sets of W60D series II have inverted cloth surrounds. Very good speakers with excellent mid range and light on the top frequencies and IMHO do not have very pronounced bass but what is there is real, multi note and very musical.

763649865_wLwB5-M.jpg


763649878_kXwJ7-L.jpg


763649856_djhX4-M.jpg
 
kfa888 said:
For reference...

My two sets of W60D series II have inverted cloth surrounds. Very good speakers with excellent mid range and light on the top frequencies and IMHO do not have very pronounced bass but what is there is real, multi note and very musical.

763649865_wLwB5-M.jpg


763649878_kXwJ7-L.jpg


763649856_djhX4-M.jpg
Click to expand...


That looks different than what's in mine. Mine are front-mounted and do not have that green gasket. Also, the surround, while inverted, looks different. I even walked over and felt it with my finger. If that's cloth, it's the most-rubberlike cloth I've ever seen. Looks like black rubber. Smooth and hard. That's why I assumed that the W60D's had rubber too (because they also had inverted surrounds).

Here's what my W60E woofers look like.
121B07544E2BCA6830C69D
 
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What are the mid-woofer surrounds made of on the W60D's? They're wool on the D's, right? Or cloth? On the W60E's, the mid-woofer surrounds look like a black, treated material (It looks like treated gauze or something... Maybe it's a treated wool... I don't know for sure, but the midwoofers look very-different from the ones on the W60D's).
 
if all else fails-make a circle out of 1/4 inch plywood to act as a spacer and make up the difference between the original surround and the area of a standard foam 12 inch surround-if it sounds good -''yay''- if it dosn't you are only out 20 bucks and you can take it back off.
 
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