This is a review, detailed measurements and listening tests of Wharfedale Denton 80th Anniversary bookshelf speaker. It is on kind loan from a member and costs $599 a pair.
I don't know if it is visible in the picture but there is a very thick frame with drivers and baffle recessed around half an inch. This makes it a bit odd looking and probably doesn't do much for sonics. The grill nicely counteracts the former, giving a vintage yet elegant look to the speaker:
Back panel causes a bit of culture shock with very modern binding posts:
Surprised to see two ports instead of a single larger one.
Speaker itself is quite heavy for its size and the walnut veneer gives it a quality feel you don't usually find in this price range.
Note that there is an "85th" anniversary version of the same speaker which uses a different tweeter. Wonder if every 5 years they are going to produce a different version!
As usual, I measured the speaker using Klippel Near-field scanner to produce anechoic frequency response measurements. Owner requested that I measure without its grill and since I do that with other speakers, that is what you are going to see. The "acoustic center" was selected to be that of the tweeter (doesn't make much difference in far field listening anyway). Temperature was on the cooler side at around 60 degrees F.
Wharfedale Denton 80th Anniversary Speaker Measurements
As usual, we start with our suite of frequency response measurements:
Well, that is not nice. On-axis response has pronounced peaks and dips which should have been visible in the most rudimentary measurements of the speaker. Lack of any kind of beam control (i.e. waveguide) means off-axis response as reflected in early window response looks bad as well. We see some of the issues by measuring the radiating surfaces themselves:
Back to off-axis response, here is the detailed breakdown of each reflection and their sum:
So no wonder the composite, predicted in-room response in a statistical average room looks quite wrong/colored:
Ideal response would be a straight, sloping down line.
Our directivity measurements reflects what I already noted:
Distortion is not bad at 86 dBSPL considering the small woofer but gets really bad at 96 dBSPL:
I could easily hear the issues at 96 dBSPL even with my hearing protection on during frequency sweeps. So no question they are audible.
Spec says 6 ohm impedance but in reality, it dips quite low to near half of that:
CSD/waterfall graph predictably shows a number of resonances:
Finally, here is the step response for fans of that graph:
EDIT: question was raised as to whether response gets better with the grill on. Since the impact of that is only in higher frequencies, I performed a non-anechoic measurement showing the difference (second attempt, original graph was mislabeled):
Wharfedale Denton 80th Anniversary Speaker Listening Tests
I measured a speaker on one day and listened to it a couple of days. By then I had forgotten how it measured. First impression was that of brightness and wide spatial qualities. The latter is one benefit of not having a waveguide and having the larger beamwidth of tweeter (with the price being worse off-axis response). The brightness was mostly due to the hump around 5 to 6 kHz. I pulled that down which provided some relief. Sound was still not right so I went down the rabbit hole of creating 6 filters which balanced things out but still, I was not at all a fan of my the overall speaker. My standard reference clips simply didn't sound enjoyable, hence the reason I am not sharing the EQ I developed.
Wanting to make sure it was not my mood on this day, I switched the Wharfedale out and connected my Revel Salon 2. Oh my gosh. The fidelity was so much better that it nearly brought tears to my eyes. Sometimes I forget how good my own speakers sound like in the midst of testing so many other speakers!
Knowing someone would complain that the Salon 2 costs 20 times more, I next tested the Revel M16. The M16 produced very similar tonality to Salon 2 which is to say the sound was much warmer than Denton and so much better balanced. I could sit there and listen to it for hours. The M16 costs $900 so more money than Wharfedale but still, if you are going to buy a speaker, get a proper one.
Note: our company, Madrona Digital is a dealer for Harman speakers including Revel line. So feel free to read bias into above comparisons.
Conclusions
With its grill, the Denton does it what it says it wants to do on the looks: giving you a vintage feel. Company claims all modern technology was used to get much better performance: "The original Denton was known for its warm, rich sound and the 80th Anniversary Edition manages to retain the original character while giving a more detailed, seamless performance." If the original was really warm, this version fails to deliver on that both in objective and subjective testing. Unless you want to use it for decoration, it is a failed attempt at producing a performant speaker.
Needless to say, I can't recommend the Wharfedale Denton 80th Anniversary.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
I don't know if it is visible in the picture but there is a very thick frame with drivers and baffle recessed around half an inch. This makes it a bit odd looking and probably doesn't do much for sonics. The grill nicely counteracts the former, giving a vintage yet elegant look to the speaker:
Back panel causes a bit of culture shock with very modern binding posts:
Surprised to see two ports instead of a single larger one.
Speaker itself is quite heavy for its size and the walnut veneer gives it a quality feel you don't usually find in this price range.
Note that there is an "85th" anniversary version of the same speaker which uses a different tweeter. Wonder if every 5 years they are going to produce a different version!
As usual, I measured the speaker using Klippel Near-field scanner to produce anechoic frequency response measurements. Owner requested that I measure without its grill and since I do that with other speakers, that is what you are going to see. The "acoustic center" was selected to be that of the tweeter (doesn't make much difference in far field listening anyway). Temperature was on the cooler side at around 60 degrees F.
Wharfedale Denton 80th Anniversary Speaker Measurements
As usual, we start with our suite of frequency response measurements:
Well, that is not nice. On-axis response has pronounced peaks and dips which should have been visible in the most rudimentary measurements of the speaker. Lack of any kind of beam control (i.e. waveguide) means off-axis response as reflected in early window response looks bad as well. We see some of the issues by measuring the radiating surfaces themselves:
Back to off-axis response, here is the detailed breakdown of each reflection and their sum:
So no wonder the composite, predicted in-room response in a statistical average room looks quite wrong/colored:
Ideal response would be a straight, sloping down line.
Our directivity measurements reflects what I already noted:
Distortion is not bad at 86 dBSPL considering the small woofer but gets really bad at 96 dBSPL:
I could easily hear the issues at 96 dBSPL even with my hearing protection on during frequency sweeps. So no question they are audible.
Spec says 6 ohm impedance but in reality, it dips quite low to near half of that:
CSD/waterfall graph predictably shows a number of resonances:
Finally, here is the step response for fans of that graph:
EDIT: question was raised as to whether response gets better with the grill on. Since the impact of that is only in higher frequencies, I performed a non-anechoic measurement showing the difference (second attempt, original graph was mislabeled):
Wharfedale Denton 80th Anniversary Speaker Listening Tests
I measured a speaker on one day and listened to it a couple of days. By then I had forgotten how it measured. First impression was that of brightness and wide spatial qualities. The latter is one benefit of not having a waveguide and having the larger beamwidth of tweeter (with the price being worse off-axis response). The brightness was mostly due to the hump around 5 to 6 kHz. I pulled that down which provided some relief. Sound was still not right so I went down the rabbit hole of creating 6 filters which balanced things out but still, I was not at all a fan of my the overall speaker. My standard reference clips simply didn't sound enjoyable, hence the reason I am not sharing the EQ I developed.
Wanting to make sure it was not my mood on this day, I switched the Wharfedale out and connected my Revel Salon 2. Oh my gosh. The fidelity was so much better that it nearly brought tears to my eyes. Sometimes I forget how good my own speakers sound like in the midst of testing so many other speakers!
Knowing someone would complain that the Salon 2 costs 20 times more, I next tested the Revel M16. The M16 produced very similar tonality to Salon 2 which is to say the sound was much warmer than Denton and so much better balanced. I could sit there and listen to it for hours. The M16 costs $900 so more money than Wharfedale but still, if you are going to buy a speaker, get a proper one.Note: our company, Madrona Digital is a dealer for Harman speakers including Revel line. So feel free to read bias into above comparisons.
Conclusions
With its grill, the Denton does it what it says it wants to do on the looks: giving you a vintage feel. Company claims all modern technology was used to get much better performance: "The original Denton was known for its warm, rich sound and the 80th Anniversary Edition manages to retain the original character while giving a more detailed, seamless performance." If the original was really warm, this version fails to deliver on that both in objective and subjective testing. Unless you want to use it for decoration, it is a failed attempt at producing a performant speaker.
Needless to say, I can't recommend the Wharfedale Denton 80th Anniversary.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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