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Wharfedale W60's

My W70D had the grills velcroed on. Wheather this is orriginal or not I don't know. Think the speakers predate velcro, but whoever did this managed to do it so well as to leave no clue that is wasn't an orriginal setup. The mouldings are actually quite thick. I'll do a magnet nail check though, that's a good idea, hadn't thought of that. Really they're like a funky tripple toung and grove corner moulding that actually holds the sides/front to the top, you can se the architecture from the back of the cab. I'm likeing the cap talk, very instructive. Are the polarity's clearly marked on the caps, generally? I really will want to get some good ones. Not afraid to spend thirty to fifty on the two orriginal caps and a high pass to protect the mids I'm currently having repaired (didn't want a wharfy for my first project).
 
The caps are clearly marked. My W70s also in the mids are direct driven and I have thought about doing a mod but then decided against it since I do not drive my speakers hard and like the trhansitions between them and woofers and tweeters so well that I am leaving them alone. I don't drive my system hard and so far in all of my days never dropped a tonearm on a record of other place. My concern of course is more clipping since it will fry a VC but DC can not pass through a cap. I have been careful with the amp matching and this also is not a problem.
 
Wow! I thought the thread had fizzled out. Thanks for all the replies. There has been some great info shared. I think i will try some new caps in my W60's. I have a busy week coming up but next weekend i should have time. if anybody wants me to take pics of the process or of anything else I'd be glad to. Brian is right, though. "Recapping" is kind of an overstatement. its just one cap. But anything can be intimidating the first time around.

Dave, where do you get your Solen's? Mouser and Digikey don't carry them, at least in that spec. I'm going to be placing an order with mouser this week so I was hoping I could get the caps from them. And you think I could get away with DIYing a surround, huh? That would be a first for me, but I'd be up for trying!

Also, this may be sacrilage, but as a temporary "bandaid" i just took a small screwdriver and carefully scraped all the remaining surround from the rotten tweeter. it's still obviously sick, but it doesn't "fizzle" quite as much now, and its listenable (especially in mono), whereas before it wasn't.

Bigphil, do your W60's have the 5 3/8" tweeters or the super3's? I would imagine the latter would have more to offer in the high end. And, yeah, I don't see any easy way to get the grill off, either. I think they were meant to stay there!

--ray
 
W60 Caps

I get Solen Caps at Madisound. You can call toll free @ 866-883-1488 and place an order. They also have a website: www.madisound.com where you can investigate their extensive inventory.

If you have the original 2 way W60's you will need 12 mfd. caps (1500 cps xover). Solens are $5.00 each for12 mfd.
Dave :D




donnysparks said:
Wow! I thought the thread had fizzled out. Thanks for all the replies. There has been some great info shared. I think i will try some new caps in my W60's. I have a busy week coming up but next weekend i should have time. if anybody wants me to take pics of the process or of anything else I'd be glad to. Brian is right, though. "Recapping" is kind of an overstatement. its just one cap. But anything can be intimidating the first time around.

Dave, where do you get your Solen's? Mouser and Digikey don't carry them, at least in that spec. I'm going to be placing an order with mouser this week so I was hoping I could get the caps from them. And you think I could get away with DIYing a surround, huh? That would be a first for me, but I'd be up for trying!

Also, this may be sacrilage, but as a temporary "bandaid" i just took a small screwdriver and carefully scraped all the remaining surround from the rotten tweeter. it's still obviously sick, but it doesn't "fizzle" quite as much now, and its listenable (especially in mono), whereas before it wasn't.

Bigphil, do your W60's have the 5 3/8" tweeters or the super3's? I would imagine the latter would have more to offer in the high end. And, yeah, I don't see any easy way to get the grill off, either. I think they were meant to stay there!

--ray
Click to expand...
 
W60 front baffle & grill

The front baffle should be held in place with 4- 1" square battens which are accessed from inside the cabinet. Removing the 14-16 screws which hold these battens to the top, sides and bottom will free up the entire front baffle with all the components including the grill.

The trick is removing the 8 screws which fasten the tweeter housing to the front baffle. This housing must be removed because it obscures some of the batten screws. Mark the location of the tweeter housing with a pen brfore removing. The 8 screws are randomly placed and it can be a real bitch getting screws & screw holes lined up when you want to reinstall. Also recaulk the hole through which the two tweeter leads pass. Woofer pressure at high volume can cause tweeter modulation if there is air leakage. Dave :D
 
thanks for info!

Thanks for the cap info, I've bookmarked it! Was actually about to inquire in the forum. My W70Ds have no less than two caps and three chokes each. I'll read up on the caps and see if I've got more questions. I would like to know about the wiring. I'm going to have to replace some of it in order to rotate the subs. Brian and others have suggested doing so because Wharfy subs settle due to minimal support from their cloth surrounds. The stock wiring doesn't give me enough play.
It's also accured to me that when so much stress is placed and having heavy, professional quality speaker cable, does little tiny wiring inside the cabs make sense? Would something else be better? If I'm going to replace it what should I use. Would the solid copper wire used in houses for AC current make a suitable and cheap (free) replacement?
 
I have tried designer wiring in speakers before with no success. I eitehr tend to leave well enough alone now or if need to change out try to replace the original with similar construct i.e. solid with solid, etc. The only improvements I've ever had have been goign to teflon coated (not idea why but have read lots of theories). I have used this in any rewirings I've done in electronics since getting my hands on it in the early '60s from the local military base. Also, have tried silver and thin wire with mixed results; both good and bad. The Wharfedales do have short wiring. This is probably the better idea. Simply not enough distance for wiring to make much difference. On my W70s where the midrange is directly driven, there may be more of an effect with wiring for this driver than say the tweeter where the cap leads probably are the more limiting factor.
 
Tafsound said:
I get Solen Caps at Madisound. You can call toll free @ 866-883-1488 and place an order. They also have a website: www.madisound.com where you can investigate their extensive inventory.

If you have the original 2 way W60's you will need 12 mfd. caps (1500 cps xover). Solens are $5.00 each for12 mfd.
Dave :D
Click to expand...

Thanks Dave! You can order from their website now apparantly. Will be doing that today.

--ray
 
I recently picked up a pair of 1965 Wharfedale W60's 2-way from a private party for $50.00. Very nice cabinets and very very nice sound. Am using them in place of my Spica TC60's for the time being. I'm thinking of replacing the caps as these are 40 years old. There are 2 caps and a choke per crossover. But I can't read the value on the caps. Can anyone help me out here? Thanks.
 
Hmmm.... Interesting your W60s use 2 caps while my W70s of the same vintage only uses 1 plus the an inductor.
 
It's been a while since I had the backs off of my W60's but I remember 2 silver cylinders of different sizes each having a wire out of both ends and a spool with wound wire in the core hooked up to the L-pad. I know inductors come in many shapes so what I called a choke, the "spool" coulld be an inductor. Or one of those silver cylinders could be an inductor. I can't see any identification on any of them. You can tell I'm no electronic whiz.
 
The reference earlier in the thread was to replace the single cap with a 12uf. I haven't opened mine up in quite awhile either so I can't say from first hand experience.
 
W60 caps

The earliest version of W60 was a 2 way system with crossover around 1500 cps to a 5" cone tweeter. It had one inductor (choke) which rolled off the woofers' high end output and a 12 mfd. electrolytic capacitor which kept low frequency signals out of the tweeter. There was also an L pad for tweeter output level adjustment. The cap is probably dried out and should be replaced with an equivalent value Dayton or Bennic or Solen. :yes: Dave
 
Thanks for the feed back guys. I do suspect the cap(s) are dried out (although the sound is good) which is reason for replacement. Can't figure out the 2nd cap though, if it is a cap. Need to look more closly. The woofers are dated 1965 and the tweeters are red banded alnico 5 inch. I think the production run on these were from 1962 to 1966.
Archie
 
On 2nd look from the outside the tweeters look more like 4 inch. Hard to tell from the outside.
 
Here is an exerpt from PE that may explain why my W60's have 2 caps per crossover, "When electrolytics must be used, a second smaller capacitor of higher quality is often used in parallel to help improve overall performance. The greater the portion of the total capacitance that is made of the higher quality component, the better."
 
You still have what Wharfedale called a 5" tweeter---the cutout is 3-3/4"---the actual cone diameter is 3-1/4"
If you have 2 caps I would say someone has changed things inthe past 40 years. The original cap was a clearly marked dubilier brand about 3-1/2" long by 1-1/2" diameter with two terminals at one end.
The use of 2 caps is OK but I haven't seen that in practice with a w60---the original cap was of high quality but electrolytics do dry out in 40 years.
 
Thank you for that info. Tafsound. Someone could have indeed replaced the caps in the intervening 40 years. And if it was done recently there would be little reason to replace them now. However, for 10 bucks I can replace 2 single caps (1 in each crossover) with Solens polypropylene caps and be sure. In your opinion would it be OK to replace the dual cap setup with a single 15mfd cap per crossover?
Archie
 
W60 caps

I would replace the existing caps with 12 mfd. Solens. They are available @ $5 each from Madisound. I've used Solens for everything; they have great specs. I think your W60's are easily worth a $10 investment that will last another 40 years.
If you really want to be cheap you can get Bennics for $3.90 each, also made in a 12 mfd. value. Call Madisound tollfree@ (866)883-1488 They'll probably want another $1 for shipping them out. :tresbon: Dave
 
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