Wharfedale W90D

elitopus

elitopus

Addicted Member
So I found this pair on Facebook marketplace. I picked them up untested. The woofers and mids (are they really tweeters?) work fine. The cabinets are in really good shape, with the exception of one back panel has some separation on the outer layer of plywood. I should be able to glue that back and clamp with no issues.

From the date on the woofers they were made in 1967. S/N D01274 and D01275.

I have a couple questions. What freq range are the purple tweeters supposed to reproduce. I don’t hear any sound out of them. I was just testing on FM radio, so maybe I need to listen to something with more HF content?

Also on two of the purple tweeters the edge of the cone (mylar?) is separated from the surround. Can these just be glued back together?

The woofers are ceramic magnets right? The purple tweeters and mids have what type of magnets? I’ve heard these came with both ceramic and AlNiCo. Do I need to take the backs off the mids to tell what they are?

Is the insulation in there Kimsul?

Here are some pics.

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I was looking closer at these and i think the tinsel wires going to the voice coil on the tweeters is corroded and broke. One of them I touched the tinsel and the wire crumbled. So, I gotta figure out how to solder it back to the VC, without melting the Mylar dome.


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According to this the tweeter xover point is 4khz, so I definitely should be getting some sound out of the tweeters.

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Yep, those tweeters are fragile at this point. Man they made a lot of variations of the W90. What does the back panel look like? Slot vented? On mine woofers are completely separated left and right one vented, one ported. .
 
My speakers are sealed. The back panel is one piece. Still sand filled.

I’ve read that about one woofer being vented and one ported on some of these. Does the ported woofer have like a rectangle port or port tube, and the other woofer have some kind of aperiodic vent?
 
I popped the dome off one of the tweeters that was loose around the surround. I stripped back the tinsel wire and get 5.5 ohms on the coil. If I can unwind the coil enough to get some slack, maybe I can solder the tinsel back to the posts where they go. And if I get really lucky the other 3 tweeters are the same and I can do the same to them. Probably not likely, but we’ll see. What do I have to lose?

Oh and then I have to get the VC centered in the gap again using the old glue line. Easy money right? :crazy:

:biggrin:


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elitopus said:
My speakers are sealed. The back panel is one piece. Still sand filled.

I’ve read that about one woofer being vented and one ported on some of these. Does the ported woofer have like a rectangle port or port tube, and the other woofer have some kind of aperiodic vent?
Click to expand...

Mine are round port out the front on one and multi slot vented rear. The slot one has the flat foam woofer like yours. Some also came with the "Super 3" tweeter which is a 3 inch cone tweeter with a huge magnet.

These should probably be kept stock if in nice shape but there should be drop in replacements that actually out perform the purples. They are good tweeters just old and tired.
 
elitopus said:
I popped the dome off one of the tweeters that was loose around the surround. I stripped back the tinsel wire and get 5.5 ohms on the coil. If I can unwind the coil enough to get some slack, maybe I can solder the tinsel back to the posts where they go. And if I get really lucky the other 3 tweeters are the same and I can do the same to them. Probably not likely, but we’ll see. What do I have to lose?

Oh and then I have to get the VC centered in the gap again using the old glue line. Easy money right? :crazy:

:biggrin:


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Click to expand...

Nice work. Bet the other is the same. That's typical with the failing ones. Leads did not like decades of environmental exposure.
 
I guess I need to read up on the best way to repair the tinsel wire. Im nervous that if I try to unwrap them one turn they’ll break off at the coil. The alternative would be to try and extend the tinsel with a strand of wire or something. I’ll probably try that first.
 
So what are these metal cased capacitors anyways? Are they NPE? Oil caps? Mine has two 12uf and one 30uf per speaker.
 
I love my Ashly’s. They’re my go to amps. I have all FTX series, but would like to find some FET series, and maybe even an MFA to play around with.

I have been experimenting with some different brand Mosfet amps also. I have a couple Haflers, and recently bought an SCS Mosfet amp. It’s on the way.
 
elitopus said:
I love my Ashly’s. They’re my go to amps. I have all FTX series, but would like to find some FET series, and maybe even an MFA to play around with.

I have been experimenting with some different brand Mosfet amps also. I have a couple Haflers, and recently bought an SCS Mosfet amp. It’s on the way.
Click to expand...

Mine is the FET-1500c, sounds fantastic on every speaker I strap it to. Has more control of the bottom end then most any amp I have tried. I've always loved the bass on my Speakerlab 7's but also found them semi sloppy at times. I have never tried the Ashly on them until a while back and was shocked how much better cleaner the bass response was. It's not just the power but the amazing control. And these amps are built so stout. Love it.
 
Ok the first purple patient is in recovery. I wasn’t able to solder on extensions to the tinsel wire, so I unwrapped them half a turn and was able to solder them to the posts again. I get good continuity now.

I put 4 little spots of Aileens glue to hold the surround down for the night. Tomorrow I’ll run a signal through it and see how far off center I am with the VC. If it’s good I’ll run a bead of glue around the surround.
 
elitopus said:
Ok the first purple patient is in recovery. I wasn’t able to solder on extensions to the tinsel wire, so I unwrapped them half a turn and was able to solder them to the posts again. I get good continuity now.

I put 4 little spots of Aileens glue to hold the surround down for the night. Tomorrow I’ll run a signal through it and see how far off center I am with the VC. If it’s good I’ll run a bead of glue around the surround.
Click to expand...

Nice work! You did run tape under it so it does not ground out on the magnet right?
 
I did use tape under the wires, but I’m not sure they need it. The wires have some kind of insulation on them. I had to scrape it off with a knife where I soldered them onto the posts. I only scraped off just enough for the connection.
 
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