Wharfedale melton 2

[pingu_turbo]

Wharfedale melton 2 unusual sound

I bought acquired some wharfedale melton 2's recently from gumtree for £30.

I did listen to these speakers at the buyers home to to make sure they worked, as that was all I was interested in.

However, I am a bit curious as to what I should be expecting. Having compared to my Dovedale sp's they are producing a little too much mid and a serious lack of bass. The bass driver is working on both bins, but I feel like I want to leave the loudness on when listening to them.

They are a sealed cabinet with a woofer and a tweeter. The woofer has an inverted rubber surround on it. To push the cone on the woofer is quite hard, I do realise that being sealed it would be, but It sounds like the woofer is being held back, like someone has a hand on it.

I removed the woofer to have a look. It still feels hard to push the cone, but is this wadding normal, just sorta thrown in?

The wadding is touching the back of the driver when installed, but it is really soft.

I like this stamp on the back of the woofer magnet.

Not much of a crossover?

Does anyone have any ideas, or have experience with these speakers? Do the rubber surrounds go hard, they don't seem perished at all,actually in quite good visual order?

 

[Gang-Twanger]

Lots of woofers are rigid like that and don't have that kind of excursion that you see with modern woofers (Old Wharfedale woofers included). Doesn't mean they can't put out the bass. It's just the way they were designed. JBL, Altec, Wharfedale, and many other speaker manufacturers made woofers like this (My W60E's have that type of woofer... So do my W60's and W90's). I've seen the Melton 2, but I haven't heard them. Have you recapped them? Also, with these old woofers, it's good to rotate them 180*. Also, my W60's and W60E's both opened up quite a bit over the first few weeks/months I owned them, as have my W90's.

But yes, the rigid woofer feel is normal. As for weak bass, I can't say anything for sure since I haven't heard them.

 

[pingu_turbo]

Hi Gang-Twanger, I had a feeling you would reply being a fellow wharfedale man.

Thanks for the clarification with the woofer stiffness. The only problem with using them for a few weeks is they are not my main speaker. I suppose I could rest the dovedale sp's for a while to put them as a main?

I haven't recapped them as yet, that was kinda the next thing on my list to do to them. There is a 4 & 6 uf coupled bipolar caps on the crossover (i dont know if you can see from the pic above?). Do you have any suggestions as to what to change them to? I think coupling is the way to go, I like the way my little goodmans maxim sang after putting in coupled caps!

I also did try them on their sides too as I saw a wharfedale add showing a picture like that. The sound was marginally different like this. Is it better to lay them both on the same side, eg both left side or right, as opposed to one on its left side or one on its right, to keep the tweeter at the same height?

 

[pingu_turbo]

Well, after GTs advice, yesterday I decided to move Dovedale sp's out of play and fix up these Meltons. I left them all day hooked up to my sony crappy tuner receiver surround unit playing the radio at a reasonably moderate volume. I came home to a somewhat transformed speaker. Played all day today too, with my ipod, again better still.

It does seem to have re broken them in somewhat. I guess they may have been standing for a while? Either that or I have forgotten what they sounded like. They do play classical beautifully, I love listening to some einaudi on occasion anyway, the piano and strings sound quite special with these. I know it is a bit of an oddball but 'kasabian - thick as thieves' is quite a different song on the meltons, quite acoustic.

I was going to recap the crossovers anyway, any recommendations on brand or type. I was thinking of some polycaps, possibly a single 10uf one, or stick with the 6 & 4uf 50v parallel setup?

I am in a bit of a quandary over these speakers, I don't often listen to classical, but these speakers voice them so well, I quite like the vibrant slightly forward midrange. But I find this is no good for my more modern music. They are hardly floor shakers like my dovedales, but the bass (when it is there) is so punchy and tuneful (bit stuck for words). Maybe the dovedales and the meltons would be good together..... may try that sometime.

But in the meantime, recap them crossovers! And see what's left. :scratch2:

 

[pingu_turbo]

Well after some time now I have managed to get my arse in gear and replace those crossover caps.

I ended up getting some solen 10uf 400v bipolar polycaps. They were reasonably priced and were only just small enough. I had them come in with my leak sandwich caps that you may have seen me fit previously.

So here we are set up on the bench, ready to go.

Woofer out, reference shot for the crossover, as was.

The new caps

Old ones coming out

New one in, comparison on the size.

Almost wedged in

Paired with my sansui 331 receiver.

The sound now (30 mins in) is much better. There is now bass and the tweeter has quietened down quite a bit.:yes:

I was falling out of love with these speakers, I just couldn't get them to emit any bass to speak of and the tweeter was having the lions share of the signal. Now the woofer is tight and punchy and the tweeter sounds much tighter. I have trying to figure out, looking at the crossover but I can only think that the old caps were wasting and burning off some of the signal?

The only thing I want to understand now is how would one allow less lower frequency to the tweeter, would I increase or decrease the caps?:scratch2:

 

[kfa888]

I bet the caps were going out of range and allowing the tweeter to be to hot and cover more range than intended. Added top end makes a speaker seem bass shy. Also probably why the mid seemed somewhat overpowering.

as for the bass drivers those rubber surround Wharfedales should be nice a loose out of the cabinet. If the rubber has started to harden this will effect the bass response and mid response too.

 

[edmundhill68]

Interesting to read this thread, pingu_turbo(!)
I have a pair of Wharefedale Dentons (Melton's baby brother) also run by a Sanusi 331 and found about the same.
They're OK although bass is lacking. Tried replacing the 47 MFD 50v capacitors with some new Mundorf capacitors of identical spec. They immediately sounded awful, so didn't leave them in for any more than the length of a single track before taking them out and putting the orignal ELCAPs back in.
Don't suppose you have any theories? Perhaps I should have left them to run for 30mins as you did before condeming them?

 

[onwardjames]

I'm resurrecting this thread. Found a pair of Melton 2's today, but unlike the OP's, my woofers do NOT come out the front. Screwed in thru the front, woofer rests against the baffle. Guess I go in from the back, which also is different. For one, there are nice binding posts on here, I simply disconnected my Epi's and plugged up with the banana plugs already on my wire.

Sound is certainly smooth, and I got PLENTY of bass. Actually they sound tubby on the floor, but instantly are better off it.

Going to recap, because that's the way I roll. Oh, got them for 10 bucks at a Salvation Army. Lady asked what I'd give, I said 10. She said "They've sat here for years."

 

[TonyTiger66]

This is my first post,
Hello people. I'm glad you resurrected the thread onwardjames. I have just bought a pair of these speakers.

I'm in Australia and paid AUD $180 for them. They're in very nice condition.
I intend to use them with a vintage Garrard turntable (Shure cartridge) and Akai amp I have. All are 1970-1974.

I wanted to ask some advice; without paying a crazy price, what would be a suitable speaker cable to use with these?

I'm looking at 12 metres for each speaker and suspect 8 ohms(?). The amp is 50W per channel into either 4 or 8 ohm.

I guess 14-16 AVG cable would be OK? I really want to avoid 50hz buzz, so budget well insulated cable would be superb.

Any advice would be most welcome
All best regards
Tony

 

[onwardjames]

This is my first post,
Hello people. I'm glad you resurrected the thread onwardjames. I have just bought a pair of these speakers.

I'm in Australia and paid AUD $180 for them. They're in very nice condition.
I intend to use them with a vintage Garrard turntable (Shure cartridge) and Akai amp I have. All are 1970-1974.

I wanted to ask some advice; without paying a crazy price, what would be a suitable speaker cable to use with these?

I'm looking at 12 metres for each speaker and suspect 8 ohms(?). The amp is 50W per channel into either 4 or 8 ohm.

I guess 14-16 AVG cable would be OK? I really want to avoid 50hz buzz, so budget well insulated cable would be superb.

Any advice would be most welcome
All best regards
Tony

Hello, Tony, and welcome to AK!

First, any decent wire will be fine. Some will argue other ways, but as long as it is good copper, preferably 16 gauge or so, you should be fine.

And at 12 meters, you might want to go to 12 gauge, but I can't hear it. Again, others will advise accordingly.

 

[jomel68]

Just restored one of this speaker, by the way Jose here from australia( philippines in origin), i used PIO and murdoff resistor, they are good speakers!!

 

[jomel68]

Sounds great! Using it for my earl klugh Lps

 

[markkb]

What kind of paper in oil capacitor did you use? Looks Russian?

 

[jomel68]

Hello markkb, yes they’re russian caps. The original was alcaps 8uf 50v. Replaced it with two 4uf paralleled together thes resistor was a murdoff 22ohm 20 watts

 

[jomel68]

By the way the russian PIO caps are 160vdc

 

[sj.brodie]

I acquired a pair on Linton xp2's one of which requires two replacement drivers. Luckily the issue doesn't seem to be caps/crossover. I remain hopeful once the replacements are shipped and installed, the speaker will be fine. (I have no recap experience like you guys!)

https://audiokarma.org/forums/index...acing-drivers-with-pics.869996/#post-12736114

 

[jomel68]

Hi there sj.brodie, nice looking speaker you got there! It makes a difference in sound replacing them aged capacitors (specially the elcap ones). It is very easy to replace them. Just look for the Non- polar capacitors for replacement and you can connect them otherways, you’ll never get wrong.
Dont worry about looking for the same Voltage (v) up to 400v should be ok. And for the capacitance ( uf or mfd) dont worry if it is more or less than 2 uf/ mfd you wont hear the difference. Fore a neophyte like me, i didnt.
Goodluck with your project!

 

[jomel68]

Polypropelene for bass/ mids and paper in oil (PIO) for the tweeter. The lesser the value of capacitor (uf/ mfd) is for the tweeter, the higher ( uf/ mfd) for mid or bass.

 

[sj.brodie]

Hi there sj.brodie, nice looking speaker you got there! It makes a difference in sound replacing them aged capacitors (specially the elcap ones). It is very easy to replace them.

Hi Jomel. Good to know and I'll keep this in mind. I might come back for some assistance if I need it

 

[jomel68]

Sure sj.brodie!!i when i started this hobby of collecting/ recapping and listenting to vintage, know only little about crossover, but i read all about electronics and self taught about how the component works! And this forum helped me a lot in understanding how the parts work.That’s how i got the courage and started recapping my speakers.
Just keep reading about soeaker recaps, and you’ll be alright!