Early Wharfedale W70's - Biggles' dream is realized!

[drbiggles]

I'm not losing sleep just don't have the equipment to verify what my ears tell me. It seems to pass, everyone in the house has pretty much abandoned the HT rig and will even watch TV upstairs now where the Wharfedales are. That's pretty high praise I think as the HT rig is pretty good mid-fi IMHO and has a great sub.

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Totally hip to that. It can be a bit unsettling cobbling together a pair of speakers. Did we do it right? Are we hearing correctly and/or, what are we missing? If there is something missing, what can I do to make it right? Or will I be chasing my tail for the unforeseen future?

Here's how I handle my shenanigans with tossing drivers into enclosures. Do family and friends find the speakers as nice to listen to as I do? If the answer is yes, I let them be. At some point I'll find another pair of speakers that sound better to my ears. I figure at that point, I can re-do the speakers or put them into storage until I can. Be patient and move up when possible.

Nothing I put together or repair or restore is forever. If I find better cabinets, tweeters, woofers or whatever, I can swap it in and see how it plays out at that time. Stick and move baby, stick and move.

Biggles

 

[Gang-Twanger]

The tweeter that I think you guys are referring to is an Audax TWO25AO (or O... Not sure, but I think it's an 0, not an O ). That's what Sony6060 chose for a modern replacement for Brazil65's missing Super 3 pairs. However, keep in mind, he replaced a pair of Super 3's with a single Audax, mounted on the outer end. How that affects the crossover, I don't know, but Sony6060 had designed a custom crossover for those, which is why I called them "Franken90's" (or "Wharfenberries" if you want... "Count Brigula" maybe? ..... ****, I don't know... I'm practically asleep at this point... If anything's amiss when I return, I'll just tell everybody I dozed off with my hand on the mouse, er I mean tablet... No, Android....... Tabloid? .... Hey, it's the super-rare Wharfedale TMZ model!... The sound follows you around, and hacks your cellphone and stuff, and tells your wife if you've been sleeping with porn chicks ).

By the way, this tune that's playing right now... It's got Wharfedale written all over it... Cornell Dupree's "Teasin'" ... It's on a 5CD funk collection called "Right On" (I know who Cornell Dupree is, but I never heard this particular song until I got this box set... It's straight-up clavinet-style funk... He played guitar in the band Stuff back in the '70's).

Man, this is funky...

 

[drbiggles]

By the way, this tune that's playing right now... It's got Wharfedale written all over it... Cornell Dupree's "Teasin'" ... It's on a 5CD funk collection called "Right On" (I know who Cornell Dupree is, but I never heard this particular song until I got this box set... It's straight-up clavinet-style funk... He played guitar in the band Stuff back in the '70's).

Man, this is funky...

Thank you for the heads up, will have to go have a listen. More music, please. Yesterday afternoon I put Stan Getz Reflections on through the Super 12's. I don't remember the name of the song, but it's the 2nd cut on the first side. BONGOS. Badass bongos. It makes you get up and fly about the room, it was AWESOME. The midrange depth and clarity on those full rangers is pretty darned great.

Biggles

 

[drbiggles]

Oh boy, oh boy. A woofer, midrange and 2 tweeters (Alnico & ceramic) have been removed, safely packed and are awaiting the UPS driver to pick them up.

dc270 should be receiving them by Monday or Tuesday. Thiele / Small parameters, and a design for a crossover comin'!

Biggles

 

[drbiggles]

Thiele / Small Parameters for the Wharfedale W70

Hey Everyone!

Sheeyuh, guess what rolled in today at 11am? That's right, dc270 finished doing the parameters for the 1961 W70 woofer and midrange, 1963 Alnico Super 3 and a ceramic Super 3.

I've got huge plans, but will lay those out later.

Biggles

 

[Gang-Twanger]

WAY-cool, guys. Much thanks to you AND dc270 for this.

I'm not so good at reading these though. How does it translate in terms of performance? I never thought much about specs with the old Wharfie drivers, except for bass and treble extension, but they are still the smoothest, most-addicting drivers I've ever heard. Those W12 woofers do the heavy lifting as far as the lower mids are concerned, and they produce the sweetest lower-mids (When I turn the mids and tweeters all the way down on my W90's, with just the W12's going, it STILL sounds sweet. I've never heard large woofers sound like that before. They sound like a single-cone full-ranger, which Wharfedale apparently did very, very-well. You have those Super 12's, so you know what I'm talking about. Apparently, they perfected the old Wharfedale designs through lots and lots of listening tests. That Life magazine article from 1955 that somebody posted yesterday or the day before had mentioned the Super 8 CS/AL. I bet the alnico Super 8's are wonderful. Gilbert Briggs, in 1961, stated that he felt the last alnico Super 8 they introduced (maybe late spring or early summer) was the best 8" driver they ever made. He was VERY-proud of that one, and the magazine reviewers tested and auditioned it and came to the same conclusion. Hard to think about them in terms of specs. They just sound GOOD.

 

[onwardjames]

I never tire of GT's wharfedale enthusiasm.

Still regretting passing on a set of W90's for 50 bucks.

Keep rocking, men.

 

[drbiggles]

Good Morning,

WAY-cool, guys. Much thanks to you AND dc270 for this.

I'm not so good at reading these though. How does it translate in terms of performance? I never thought much about specs with the old Wharfie drivers, except for bass and treble extension, but they are still the smoothest, most-addicting drivers I've ever heard.

Hey GT, I have no idea either. dc270 is in the process of designing a crossover and asking me about octaves and slopes and frequencies that I'd prefer. He pretty much got a blank stare and I offered up my system and music taste. This is why I'm going to go through his comments to me and I'm going to put them in quotes here so the rest of us can get a grasp as to what's going on.

I never tire of GT's wharfedale enthusiasm.

Still regretting passing on a set of W90's for 50 bucks.

Keep rocking, men.

Maaaannnn, don't tell me that !!!! I've been on the hunt for 1.5 years now, still nothing I can afford. Phooey.

Biggles

 

[onwardjames]

Maaaannnn, don't tell me that !!!! I've been on the hunt for 1.5 years now, still nothing I can afford. Phooey.

Biggles

My buddy called me, said "I have some big ass, heavy speakers, and the cabs are banged up. 50 bucks?"

Why did I ever say no????????:scratch2::tears:

 

[drbiggles]

My buddy called me, said "I have some big ass, heavy speakers, and the cabs are banged up. 50 bucks?"

Why did I ever say no????????:scratch2::tears:

What's wrong with you? That's my, our calling. My universe is askew.

Biggles

 

[onwardjames]

What's wrong with you? That's my, our calling. My universe is askew.

Biggles

I'd say quite a lot, haha.

Yeah, I've mulled over my decision to not buy those for years. To be honest, it was about 10 years ago, and I knew nothing of Wharfedale's stellar reputation.

 

[drbiggles]

I'd say quite a lot, haha.

Yeah, I've mulled over my decision to not buy those for years. To be honest, it was about 10 years ago, and I knew nothing of Wharfedale's stellar reputation.

Ah, that makes more sense now. I knew nothing of Wharfedale's reputation either. And I'm not convinced I would been able to. Sure, it wasn't all that long ago. But at the time I was pushing as much power as I had through the largest speakers I could find. Ah, the joys of being young and ignorant at the tender age of 41.

Biggles

 

[drbiggles]

Here are a few excerpts of dc270's comments regarding the goings on we had over the last 24 hours.

"Your woofer has a nice low resonance of 24 hz-but will need a big , almost 9 cu ft box, to get that 24 hz.

The 8" driver is not a bad match, You could put it in a box 10" square by say 3" deep and come out fine. Build a small box as well for the tweeter

As for tweeters- I am leaning towards the Alnico as its RE is closest to 8 ohms to match up close to your other drivers, plus they typically sound pretty good!"

There was another email. Essentially, at the end of it he was really interested in buying the Alnico Super 3's from me. That right there says a lot.

Biggles

PS - More info to come.

 

[dc270]

I have also since emailed him some crossover informations on 1st order and 2nd order slopes crossovers. Centered around 500 & 4000 and 800 and 3500 freq.

He said he liked Jazz, etc so I suggested a 1st order type crossover. His drivers have a large spread and probably could handle the overlap well!

As for the drivers- I like either of those 3" super tweeters!
DC

 

[drbiggles]

I have also since emailed him some crossover informations on 1st order and 2nd order slopes crossovers. Centered around 500 & 4000 and 800 and 3500 freq.

He said he liked Jazz, etc so I suggested a 1st order type crossover. His drivers have a large spread and probably could handle the overlap well!

As for the drivers- I like either of those 3" super tweeters!
DC

Hey dc,

Thank you so much for stopping by, it's greatly appreciated!

If anyone has any opinions/thoughts as to which crossover to go with, I'm open. I'd make both, but am unable to afford that route at the moment.

Here is the data that dc270 offered to me:

Biggles

 

[Gang-Twanger]

I have also since emailed him some crossover informations on 1st order and 2nd order slopes crossovers. Centered around 500 & 4000 and 800 and 3500 freq.

He said he liked Jazz, etc so I suggested a 1st order type crossover. His drivers have a large spread and probably could handle the overlap well!

As for the drivers- I like either of those 3" super tweeters!
DC

I think all the early W*0 models used true 1st-order crossovers. The W70 must, and I think the W90 does as well. I have no doubt that Biggles and onwardjames would love the W90's. The multi-range, dual-driver configuration might be a big part of it. Having a pair of Super 3 tweeters flanking those two inner midwoofers was a good idea. Those speakers wrap around you, and the bass is a barrel of delicious fun. It's a big soundstage. Like a wall of sound. Excellent separation with lots of depth, especially for a box speaker, although the early W90 shares design similarities with the DQ10. Isolated woofer section, away from the free-air-mounted mids and tweeters, and both models have an open, airy, 3D kind of sound.

 

[drbiggles]

I think all the early W*0 models used true 1st-order crossovers. The W70 must, and I think the W90 does as well. I have no doubt that Biggles and onwardjames would love the W90's. The multi-range, dual-driver configuration might be a big part of it. Having a pair of Super 3 tweeters flanking those two inner midwoofers was a good idea. Those speakers wrap around you, and the bass is a barrel of delicious fun. It's a big soundstage. Like a wall of sound.

My 1961 W70's ran the midrange and woofer wide open. The tweeter had a 4uF oil cap. That was it and I'm sure that was part of the issue. The other one is that the midrange and woofer share the same space inside the enclosure. Back waves are messing with each other. They sounded very confused!

Biggles

 

[Gang-Twanger]

My 1961 W70's ran the midrange and woofer wide open. The tweeter had a 4uF oil cap. That was it and I'm sure that was part of the issue. The other one is that the midrange and woofer share the same space inside the enclosure. Back waves are messing with each other. They sounded very confused!

Biggles

I still say something's not right there. You should talk to Brian (That's his username... Older guy... He has a pair of early W70's with the really-ornate cabs, and he's been thrilled with them ever since swapping out the poly Solens and replacing them with n.o.s. oil caps.

Part of the alnico Super 3 attraction might just be about the way they look (I love the big, fat, gold canister... Looks like Shaft's oil filter, you know?... There's something totally-cool about those things), but I've never heard the ceramic one, except for recordings that I've compared against my own. The ceramic Super 3 OBVIOUSLY has that same voicing as the alnico one. You can tell, they put a lot of work into that tweeter. It was introduced while Gilbert Briggs was still running things at Wharfedale, part of the 1964 catalog, which I think would have been late spring.

But the alnico Super 3 has that golden touch when it comes to the various types of distortion found on classic-rock and psychedelic-rock from the '60's and '70's. A pair of them creates a super-silky leading edge that you can get lost in. There's a point where the specs stop and the magic starts. I can understand why dc270 wants a pair. That's gotta' be one of the 5 or even 3 greatest cone-tweeters ever made (Gilbert Briggs had a devotion to magnetic, cone-type mids and tweeters, and he never overestimated what could be done with them). It's all the drivers in the W90 though. The separation and driver-integration is off the hook. Says a lot about the driver quality and how nice they play together. I still don't know why they free-air-mounted the alnico mids and tweeters, but the Super 3 sure sounds good for a tweeter that was designed in 1955.

 

[dc270]

With the original having only a 4uf cap I can well understand the unnecessary interaction the 8" and 12" were having with each other and the dobling of certain frequencies in several octaves! I certainly feel it is best to let each driver "do its thang" by a slow 1st order separation of given frequencies. These drivers hold their ground very well, so let them each speak for it self with a proper crossover and sub cabinet(s).
I am not at all clear as to why they would double up a 12" and an 8"- especiallu that the 12" is 93db efficient, the 8" like 89db effiecient, the 12" wih 24hz fs the 8" with 38fs, etc, etc.?
With the iinductor insertion losses on the woofer you should see a much better combination/ integration of the 8" and the 12". Be sure to off set them on the motor board and mirror image them for best results. I bet one could tear a page out of the McIntosch bible and crossover at 300 and 2500! The given fs on ALL the driers could allow that!
DC

 

[Gang-Twanger]

I always estimated the original W90 as 93dB efficient (or at least 93dB sensitivity, however that works). The W60 is even more-sensitive, though the W90 may have it beat in actually efficiency.

That alnico W12, when you hit it with some tube power, it lights up like a Xmas tree. Sounds like a single-cone FR driver. And I know it's capable of great bass response. I have a pair of DIY corner enclosures designed for the alnico W15 or the alnico Super 12. The displacement is 9 cubic feet and the baffle and two rear panels of each have that sandwich construction, as these are meant to be the sand-filled enclosures for the big 3-way omni-directional corner speakers. I would love to try some alnico Super 12's, as that should totally maximize their performance. With the drivers mounted and the sand added, they should get maximum low frequency performance out of them.

I wish I knew the displacement amount for each of the W90's dual woofer enclosures. They aren't 9 cubic feet, but they each have more than the W60.