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Wharfedale Dovedale III advice

seaneee

seaneee

Active Member
I have a slim window of opportunity to pickup a set of Dovedale III speakers for $50. From what I can tell they seem to be in good overall shape, cabinets are a little beat up, nothing I can't fix. Assuming that when I go over them a bit better, how's that price sitting with you all?

I don't know much about these, but I would be driving them with a Luxman sq38d tube amp, so these seem like a good match. Advice would be amazing. Thank you.
 
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Wonderful speakers. They were my mains for quite awhile. I also drove them with tubes — Quad IIs, 15W. Exquisite. A steal at that price. I'd check to be sure all drivers are original. I have no idea what kind of work would be needed due to age (caps etc), as I had mine a long time ago, and the xover components were still good.
 
The Dovedale IIIs have a large number of fans. I haven't heard them, but $50 seems to be a very fair price.

GeeDeeEmm


From the Interweb: Wharfedale Dovedale III
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I hope you bought them. I recently restored a pair of these and even though I've been collecting Wharfy's for some years, they really showed what could be done in a relatively compact enclosure. They are very efficient and never need anything more than about 20 watts to make them go loud, which is typical of early Wharfedale's. They also go nice and low.
 

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Reviving an old thread, but...

Just picked up a pair of immaculate" Dovedale 3's AND a lovely pair of Denton W20's, all for the bargain price of €50. Lady luck gave me a beautiful pair of KLH 5's last week, from the same seller. The Wharfedales aren't a million miles from the KLH 5's. Missing at the top end, but mid and bass equally rich and warm: (typical 70's British speakers). Sadly, the sellers father passed away, but I ensured him, that they will continue to be loved in a new home.
 
Both the Dovedale 3's and the Denton W20's are very nice. I have kept the D 3's and added them to my collection. I also restored a pair of W20's which are now being used by my daughter in her pioneer receiver/turntable system. Yep, a 19 year old who listens to vinyl.
Also, b_saddy, if you are missing a bit of top end in the D 3's, you might consider re-capping the entire system which is easy to do and have the tweeters checked over by your favourite speaker repair guy. Remember we're talking early 1970's for these speakers and they'll be due for a hair cut.
 
AvSat44 said:
if you are missing a bit of top end in the D 3's, you might consider re-capping the entire system which is easy to do and have the tweeters checked over by your favourite speaker repair guy. Remember we're talking early 1970's for these speakers and they'll be due for a hair cut.
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I meant to add to my earlier comment, that you Dovedales will benefit from a recap, at their age. My Dovedales — which I had 30 years ago — had wonderful highs, which never glared in your face. Great overall balance is the main characteristic I remember,

I had them in Cape Town and moved back to US — an 8,000 mile shipping challenge and I had to leave many things behind. I was shipping Stacked Quad Electrostatic plus a pair of single Quads, and decided not to take the Dovedales. I wish I had them now.
 
AHHHHH!

Just taken off the second grille. No Velco, just six small pin nails. One of the woofers, although sounding OK, is stuck, fast. Touching the surrounds, it's gone completely hard. The other side moves OK. I assumed that they were both OK, but only by chance did I remove the second front. Aware that the original material is now unobtainable, I'll probably go down the route of refoaming. Done plenty in the past, and each new set gets easier....BUT. Initial outlay of €50. €15 for surrounds and upto €50 for recapping. Will I regret selling on 'as spares' or should I invest time and money? Already have nice pair of KLH 5's, and Leak Sanwiches. Don't really need another set. Selling on for spares would help finance recapping for Leaks....
 
Removed the woofer and scraped away all the hard surround. It was like working with ice, although not so cold! Just kept shattering into shards. Anyway, completed cleaned up, & has luck would have it, I've located a supplier of surrounds to fit. I'm so happy that the VC is ok, and it was only a hard surround. Surrounds are €25 delivered. Have plenty of tacky glue. Caps are coming in at €20. So we're approaching the 100 mark. Me thinks it's going to be worth it, and they'll stay around for a while......dovedale woof1.JPG
 
This leads me to believe that this must have been a quality control problem from whoever supplied the butyl rubber as the other speaker was ok. Burly usually doesn’t degrade.
 
The rubber surrounds of that era really were the worst that Wharfedale used so fitting others can only be an improvement. When the job is complete you definitely won't want to part with them. They're not hi end but they certainly do the job. I have an old Marantz 1040 amplifier (20w/ch) which is a great fit for these speakers.
By the way, I have restored many 60's Wharfedale systems and one of the first things I do is pull the pins that hold the grilles and replace them with Velcro.
Cheers.
 
Hey folks,

Hope you don't mind me reviving an old thread here but I just came into a pair of these tonight and just want to share how impressed I am. I'm running them with a Harman Kardon Citation 12 and a First Watt B1 passive preamp and they sound absolutely incredible. They are the 1969 Dovedale IIIA in all black with the very fine wood lattice grille. The cabs are pretty scuffed up so I will likely sand them down and give them a fresh coat of paint at the very least. There are a couple small cracks in the grilles but I figure I'll just leave those for now. Will likely do the binding posts as well.

Interestingly, I also picked up a pair of Wharfdale Meltons yesterday which sound like absolute garbage compared to these. I figured it may have been bad caps in the crossover so I gave one of them a quick recap today and they still sound super muffled and veiled. Am tempted to pull the original heavy cloth grilles off and see if that opens them up at all but now that I've got the Dovedales, these might slip onto the back burner.

Anyway, just wanted to share my excitement. Am open to and tips or suggestions about repairing and restoring these vintage beauties. Will post some pics tomorrow.
 
Spackler said:
Hey folks,

Hope you don't mind me reviving an old thread here but I just came into a pair of these tonight and just want to share how impressed I am. I'm running them with a Harman Kardon Citation 12 and a First Watt B1 passive preamp and they sound absolutely incredible. They are the 1969 Dovedale IIIA in all black with the very fine wood lattice grille. The cabs are pretty scuffed up so I will likely sand them down and give them a fresh coat of paint at the very least. There are a couple small cracks in the grilles but I figure I'll just leave those for now. Will likely do the binding posts as well.

Interestingly, I also picked up a pair of Wharfdale Meltons yesterday which sound like absolute garbage compared to these. I figured it may have been bad caps in the crossover so I gave one of them a quick recap today and they still sound super muffled and veiled. Am tempted to pull the original heavy cloth grilles off and see if that opens them up at all but now that I've got the Dovedales, these might slip onto the back burner.

Anyway, just wanted to share my excitement. Am open to and tips or suggestions about repairing and restoring these vintage beauties. Will post some pics tomorrow.
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If you think they sound good now, they will amaze you after a re-cap (if it hasn’t been done already).
 
Spackler said:
Ok, good to know. That's the next step for sure. I think I'm in love with these speakers. : )
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When I first got my W70E's (same speaker compliment as the Dovdale III, but with a 15 inch woofer), I had a burned out tweeter and woofer, and the other woofer had a large rip in the cone. Needless to say they sounded terrible. I was able to repair the ripped cone on the one good woofer using thinned white glue, coffee filters, and a bit of magic with dryer lint. I managed to source replacements for the tweeter and the bad woofer on ebay (haven't seen any 15 inch woofers for this model on ebay since.). I rebuilt the crossovers and replaced a missing potentiometer for one of the tweeter controls. When I got them all put back together, my jaw hit the floor; they sounded incredible.
 
AvSat44 said:
The rubber surrounds of that era really were the worst that Wharfedale used so fitting others can only be an improvement. When the job is complete you definitely won't want to part with them. They're not hi end but they certainly do the job. I have an old Marantz 1040 amplifier (20w/ch) which is a great fit for these speakers.
By the way, I have restored many 60's Wharfedale systems and one of the first things I do is pull the pins that hold the grilles and replace them with Velcro.
Cheers.
Click to expand...
Can you send me a link for the velcro,I've just picked up a pair of D3's they sound amazing.
 
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