I have a hard time with horns. Something like the Valencia or even the A7 would be too much for me, too forward (Wharfedales aren't finicky about room-size, by design actually). The large '60's DO have clear, coherent mids and highs. But they are VERY-dependent on placement. With the distances measured spot-on, plus some quality tube gear like a Fisher, Scott, Marantz, Dynaco, Leak, etc., they will shed their cabinets. I known because I've heard it. But you have to cater to them a bit. I wasn't going to bring it up, but another AK'er with early '60's W90's was using biamped JBL L300's (seriously-upgraded L300's at that), and he pulled the tube rig (a Marantz 8b with a VERY-nice modern tube preamp) off of the L300's mids/highs and hooked that up to the W90's, and he hasn't looked back since. The JBL's had the better extension, but he said they just don't hold up to the W90's in that core frequency range (OR his AR9's for that matter, plus a list of other high-end holy grail speakers he's heard that I won't even get into). And others have heard that setup and confirmed. The old Wharfedales need synergy. I wish I knew why, but with those speakers, not all power is equal. And not all capacitors either.
I never liked The A7 or Valencia the model 19 and 14 were the Altecs to have ( I had 19's ) and some folks swear by the smaler model 14's I thoght the L300 components in a much larger custom cabinet were fine though much better than the stock cabinet my best friend had a set in custom cabs about 6' tall built to JBL plans those things were decent and very bif I'm talking referigerator big .
Did your W70D's have the purple tweeters? Those early purple tweets had issues with being overdriven, something about the glue failing and the diaphragm/membrane (or whatever) coming apart, so it wouldn't surprise me about 80wpc taking them out. The MKII purple tweeters were drop-in replacements that help up better.
The dreaded purple things . I replaced them with some nice Scan Speak textile domes big improvement.
Heard lots of good cone tweeters including the four in my Bose 301 IV's out back I like bigger cone tweeters better though cones rool off smooth sometimes
I had all the other drivers re done and the alnicos charged I dont know if they could find the OE style materials now took them 3 months
to turn them around and that was almost 30 yrs ago,
But Wharfedales aren't dragsters. They're cruising vessels. Meant to be laid-back-sounding. But I wouldn't choose anything else for old Zeppelin, Beatles, Stones, James Brown, Tower Of Power, Isaac Hayes, etc, because that's the sort of music I like. Older blues stuff, jazz-fusion, funk. I have never heard horn instruments sound so real as they do through a pair of W90's (the early to mid '60's ones with cone-tweeters), and MANY others agree on this. Not just real-sounding, but SPOOKY-real, and clear and coherent.[/QUOTE]
Just like I said comfy criusers nice looking also and you can bring them home to the family and pass them down no less how many speakers can you do that with ?
If nothing else aside from the limitations we all know the big Warfies W70/W90 are both endearing and enduring at the same time like a favortite auntie at tea time or the queen mother how many speakers can you say that about ?
I never owned 90's (wanted to )I heard them in a Pac Stereo store used on something or another they sounded good could hsve been one of those king sized BIC tube recievers with rack handles but it was tubes .
I'm not a warfie hater at all exactly the oppisite but I learned thier limitatins the hard way and I'm aware of the w70D's sonic limitations .
OTOH with the media back when they were made they werent consterained much its all different now and a lot of that old media (vinyl) was very good .
There is nothing like it today other than needledrops or flat master copys and I enjoy the digital replications of that .
Priobably sound great on a vintage warfie and a mac 240 or 225 and one of those wouldent be out of place pushing the warfies .
In bet vintage warfies would be good with a powerd sub pr two I'm sold on powred Subs there are 6 here all in all and they do what needs to be done on music without being overbearing or directionally identifiable you have to set things right but its not hard they are invisibe if you set them right most people run them way too hot like I did when I was a sub woofer newbie .
IOW you want them to totally dissapear in the room on music but if you set them right they can blow your mind with some decent speakers , speakers cant do what they do they just cant .Even the $20K JBL master refernce monitors cant do what a powered sub can in a confined space and if you finesse them it pays off thats the key . I heard my fist dub in 82 or so befiore any body evet heasrd of them didntb get ant toll 95 stuoid me .
I heard them at reistance repair in berkley if know who they were you know thats the best way ton decribe them they could get rare JBL alnicos or whatever you wanted on the planet for a price they were more like concierge than sales folks and prices to match but the best stuff not nonsense expensive .
