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Wharfedale W90's (should they replace my Altecs???)

Well I've dropped them off at a very reputable speaker tech in the St. Louis area. We will see what he finds and I'll be holding my breath until then. I'll provide an update soon.

I got these W90s at a somewhat decent price. Hopefully the repairs will go smoothlty and I don't mind putting a little extra into these, he is planning on a recap after the tweeters and crossovers are addressed. What a mess.
 
Vintage speakers are always at least a bit risky. I have been really lucky with the ones I have bought this year but not so lucky in years past. But every time I look and listen to my vintage ones, I remember why all of my newer ones have been sold or put in the closet. To get the really cool stuff requires some risk.....
 
Repair Update: So I dropped the W90s off for repair last week and so far the tech has gone through all the midrange and tweeter components and found that they all worked and simply needed re-soldered connections. The drivers are also all in good functioning condition. What still needs to be done is a complete rebuild of the crossovers and a recap, which he will be performing in the upcoming weeks. I understand the caps are the paper in oil ones, but this guy has a ton of experience and has read up on the W90s and he said he will proceed with the best option for caps. Apparently this repair should work out fine and its a mater of patience and $$$
 
MadcapLaughs said:
Repair Update: So I dropped the W90s off for repair last week and so far the tech has gone through all the midrange and tweeter components and found that they all worked and simply needed re-soldered connections. The drivers are also all in good functioning condition. What still needs to be done is a complete rebuild of the crossovers and a recap, which he will be performing in the upcoming weeks. I understand the caps are the paper in oil ones, but this guy has a ton of experience and has read up on the W90s and he said he will proceed with the best option for caps. Apparently this repair should work out fine and its a mater of patience and $$$
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Good to hear!
 
Just curious, why replace the PIO caps, why not just disconnect them, test value and ESR, and reconnect them when they test good as I've been lead to expect that they will?
 
Just to be clear, I don't know what caps are in these originally, I just know that the common preference is to recap them with paper in oil caps. I'm not sure if I will go that route or not considering he hasn't evaluated the original caps condition so far. Updates soon to follow.
 
OK that makes more sense. If they are PIO or film caps (did film caps even exist back then?) I would probably test for value and reuse UNLESS tested bad. If they are NPEs like they were in my W70Ds I would replace with either PIO or film without even bothering to test.
 
Wow so the repair tech called me this afternoon and let me know that he had been working hard on finishing up my speaker repairs because he found out that he would to go in for surgery on Friday and would be out for three or weeks after that. So I rushed out to his house after work today and picked up my refurbed wharfedales. In a nut shell he replaced the l pads in the back for the mids and treble, rebuilt the crossovers completely recapped the speakers, and re-soldered all connections to the mids and tweeters, which were all in good working order aside from connection issues. I only had time to briefly listen to these tonight but I have had really nice results with my sansui 4000 and an iPhone for now, of course these will move into my main system with the Scott LK 72 tube amp and the AR XA table for the real show. So far my selection has included some of the more synergistic pairings like The Royale Scam by Steely Dan, and Into the Hot by Gil Evans, but it didn't take long before I had iggy pop screaming like a banshee through these and I was blown away. The clarity and snap of the bass and mids are fantastic and I had these poorly staged on the floor and one foot apart. I can't wait until these are setup properly! The stands that I have need some reinforcement, so I took the out from under the 90s.
 

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MadcapLaughs said:
Wow so the repair tech called me this afternoon and let me know that he had been working hard on finishing up my speaker repairs because he found out that he would to go in for surgery on Friday and would be out for three or weeks after that. So I rushed out to his house after work today and picked up my refurbed wharfedales. In a nut shell he replaced the l pads in the back for the mids and treble, rebuilt the crossovers completely recapped the speakers, and re-soldered all connections to the mids and tweeters, which were all in good working order aside from connection issues. I only had time to briefly listen to these tonight but I have had really nice results with my sansui 4000 and an iPhone for now, of course these will move into my main system with the Scott LK 72 tube amp and the AR XA table for the real show. So far my selection has included some of the more synergistic pairings like The Royale Scam by Steely Dan, and Into the Hot by Gil Evans, but it didn't take long before I had iggy pop screaming like a banshee through these and I was blown away. The clarity and snap of the bass and mids are fantastic and I had these poorly staged on the floor and one foot apart. I can't wait until these are setup properly! The stands that I have need some reinforcement, so I took the out from under the 90s.
Click to expand...
Very nice! Please if you can, ask the tech what he used for Lpads. Mine are very sketchy due to corrosion. Ive tried cleaning them but several are shot. Mine are stamped 50 ohm Lpad, and some have used 8 ohm when rebuilding the W90's. If yours sound great I would like to try what your tech used.
Thank you,
Paul
 
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