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Wharfedale Linton 85th Anniversary speaker review & measurements by Erin's Audio Corner

DSJR

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right again, an active speaker would seem to be ideal for the application if it weren't for the idea that I also want to have an option to use my grandfathers Scott 296 tube amp in that room. Right now I'm using a VTV Hypex amp but that has over 300 wpc of power and will be used to driver future front channels in the movie room. Not sure what I'll use when I'm not in the mood to warm up a tube amp, maybe a used class A amp like a Krell or BAT since those have been cropping up for sale a lot lately with all the people moving to digital.
No criticism of the vintage Scott amp except to say it wil almost certainly equalise any two or more way speaker connected to it as th eamp output impedance tracks the speaker impedance curve. many folks live with that and don't even notice ;)

Old Krells were never fully Class A despite the heat I gather. The output at spec was usually biased to Class A, but typically, these amps gave far more continuously, as for example, both the KSA 50 generations were 90 - 100WPC amps as AB models but with half the power biased fully on (the 50S had two lower levels of bias to save heat depending on use). I gether thhe bigger amps weren't so different and of course whay you were really paying for back then was the doubling of power from 8 to 4 to 2 ohms, which few domestic amps came anywhere near to initially in the 80's I believe.
 
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thewas

thewas

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That's your nearfield measured response with LS/50's (meta/non-meta?)? Pretty impressive bass boost. Right now the back of my desk faces out into the room so front ported speakers do better, and there's a wall too close behind me. We are going to rearrange the room soon so hopefully the speakers will end up with less room behind them and more in front so there can be both desk and chair listening positions.

Edit- eek, those dips at 90 and 115 hz, aren't they audible with certain recordings?
Yes that's my desktop non Meta system, luckiky such narrow dips due to close reflections/SBIRs are not as audible as they seem at such a low smoothed plot, third octave or psy smoothing show better what ww perceive.
 

ROOSKIE

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I'm not baiting here, but define 'more detail.'
I have found the perception of detail is very subjective.
Are you are lean in listener? Then a laid back speaker may have more detail (often described by said person as "inner" detail)as it gives said listener space to relax and absorb the content and go "into the music"
Are you a Maxell, blow me away with a live sound kind of listener? Then detail may be very realistic and loud cymbal crashes and room energizing micro dynamics. Totally different allowing the listener to be hit with all vibrancy and aliveness of a detailed AND life sized playback.
Detail could be hearing every breath the singer takes (I think of Focal's typical house sound) or it could be noticing how lushly the sound magically "blooms" from the speakers almost like liquid(I think wide dispersion huge "halo" BMR sound)
For some it is layers of staging or pinpoint style images, and others it is wide dispersion allowing that sense of space to create a type of detail in the feeling of being enveloped.

In any case there are dozens of similar events that cast a speaker to a particular listener as "detailed to dull" experience.

The two Wharfedale's I have really listened to are the Denton 80th, I found to have pretty good detail though it was the "inner detail type/lean in".
& the Wharfedale Diamond 225 which was very warm and to my ear dull without any qualities at all that I would ascribe the word detail toward.
I am very curious to spend some time with the Linton 85th.
 

DSJR

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Like everything else about me, I'm definitely now a 'cack-handed' listener. Today, 'everything' sounds amazing after a year or three with much reduced hf acuity. Today, I played a few songs and some made me lean in and others blew me back into the sofa and back to the volume control (the strong 40 - 50hz bass drones almost certainly feeding next door (andour neighbour will certainly find a way to gently complain about it.

I have no chance of hearing the Lintons, so I find the views here interesting - a typical product where the eyes fool the ears until they're heard. I'm not sure such an old fashioned speaker *visually* would sound good if set up as a lean toned screamer, in the same way a KEF 50 Meta set up warm and soft wouldn't really 'go' visually either - see. I *do* Eye-Fi too without thinking about it... :D :facepalm:
 

ROOSKIE

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..wide dip lower (between 600 and 2000 Hz)...
That does not look EQ friendly, or what do you say? It probably matter of just/only plug and play with them. ..sound a bit warm ... and why not? :) ... Can be a really nice sound in many people's ears. Fits with the aesthetics of the speakers as well. Wharfedale got a hit with these Linton, . Well thought out design.:D
Well while it is true the wide dip here is not EQ friendly due to the directivity issues this speaker has there, that is not visible in the PIR at all. Typically a wide dip is easier to correct if the directivity is good vs high Q dips and peaks like the KEF as accurately targeting them is harder and possible unit to unit variation could throw them off by a few hundred hrz and so one may be making their sample worse.
Also wide/low Q peaks are much more audible so the narrow/high Q stuff in the KEF is very likely inaudible.

PIR
Howdy sorry but surprised with the examining of the PIR in this thread in what appears to be an attempt to hear the speakers.
It is my understanding that this is not what the PIR is.
I believe it is fairly clear in Toole's book. You can not hear the speaker from looking at the PIR - that PIR is novel and only a modestly useful component of the whole data package.
It is not granular and it is not really what is heard in room nor capable of communication what myriad of values of sound energy are hitting the ear/brain system.

So again, it is something novel and useful yet it tells you very little without the rest of the data. I could aim a speaker at the rear corner of the room and with EQ get nearly any in room energy response I want. I could publish it without context and you might think geez I bet that sounds great.
Also as predicted energy it also does not factor in any added harmonics or IMD/Doplar energy effects (increases and decreases). So actual measurements will be different even without factoring in listening distance and room qualities which change the accuracy of the PIR greatly. It also does not factor in the speakers dynamic response ability nor does it seem to handle the compelling and currently wide variety of loudspeaker dispersion characteristic's well. Also as a steady state measurement it can not parse out events taking place in time space in the way the ear/brain will. I believe there is also some debate about how vertical energy is valued in the PIR/IR vrs actually perceived.

I agree it is cool to take note of the very general trends but unless I am missing something I think it is best to follow Toole's advice from his own book and even just look at the PIR or actual IR in 1/1 or 1/2 smoothing scales.

I do look at the bass region and other areas below the transition zone in more detail as he suggests. I am careful after removing say a peak at 120hrz, that when viewed at 1/3octave the energy is not lower than I intended.


Linkwitz who I also value as a designer/ultra hobbyist researcher states similar things.

"The room response must be averaged to recognize trends in the summation of direct and reflected signals at the microphone. The resulting curves must not be taken as a 1:1 representation of what is heard as loudness at different frequencies. The room response gives a picture of the steady state SPL, where sound generation and sound dissipation in the room have reached their equilibrium." -Linkwitz

Anyway I know many of you all are indeed more experienced than myself but I see regular use of PIR analysis at a level which seems to me beyond the scope of the predictions intended value as a tool.
 

TheBatsEar

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Are this different lintons?
They are the same.

Danny does what he does best!
honks.gif
 

DanielT

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Aha, new video from Erin::D
Good educational explanation by Erin regarding the sound radiation. Pros and cons, about liking and sound taste. By the way it is wide for both of these speakers.

Old school is back. At least in terms of design. KLH also plays on vintage nostalgia looks. New trend or a coincidence?:)

 
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archerious

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My brother in law bought a pair of these, and got to say, I was impressed.

Great detail and impressive soundstage with nice bass.

I think they're nicer than my Revel M105, but hey I paid $1200 for my M105 new, these were $1499.99 w/ the stands.

20220729_231906.jpg
 

BrokenEnglishGuy

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I see many folks commenting the ls50m vs lintons... some of them are saying the lintons are good for music because sounds warm and musical

Most owners in my perspective from this speaker comment stuff like ls50m '' it needs a Rel subwoofer to bring up the musicallity '' lol, also in that group there is many folks that don't like the tweeter performance
I know very well this speaker and i didn't expected it to be measure here....
That being said I'm more curios about the Elysian line, the tweeter have a very good eyes-looking tweeter and overall looks very well, even the cabinet
ELY4_SLPP_PNG.png


3052941-wharfedale-elysian-4.jpg
 
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Ciobi69

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I see many folks commenting the ls50m vs lintons... some of them are saying the lintons are good for music because sounds warm and musical

Most owners in my perspective from this speaker comment stuff like ls50m '' it needs a Rel subwoofer to bring up the musicallity '' lol, also in that group there is many folks that don't like the tweeter performance
I know very well this speaker and i didn't expected it to be measure here....
That being said I'm more curios about the Elysian line, the tweeter have a very good eyes-looking tweeter and overall looks very well, even the cabinet
ELY4_SLPP_PNG.png


3052941-wharfedale-elysian-4.jpg
Yes i need to know about these too, even the bookshelf line, i can't find anything in the internet, i was searching about them and they look very good and hope they sound good
 

BrokenEnglishGuy

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Yes i need to know about these too, even the bookshelf line, i can't find anything in the internet, i was searching about them and they look very good and hope they sound good
Oke very good thing about elysian is his price.. The elysian 4 is a very good full range 50kg speaker and here is about 1/2the price of Kef reference 3.. A little more than the kef ref1..
 

Ciobi69

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Oke very good thing about elysian is his price.. The elysian 4 is a very good full range 50kg speaker and here is about 1/2the price of Kef reference 3.. A little more than the kef ref1..
Yes they could be found used for 4-5k but i can't find nothing online, but i am sure they sound good, even those lintons are ''cheap'' and they should sound very good as seen in the measurements, but they are 2 different speakers, i don't know how that Amt tweeter works
 

BrokenEnglishGuy

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Yes they could be found used for 4-5k but i can't find nothing online, but i am sure they sound good, even those lintons are ''cheap'' and they should sound very good as seen in the measurements, but they are 2 different speakers, i don't know how that Amt tweeter works
Unlike the lintons i remember the elysian 4 to be more precise and transparent/honest, things that im worry about are dispersion...

Hope they have good dispersion, the cabinet is a bit curved... i don't know but that tweeter+cabinet may have a very wide soundstage.. + good bass
I saw the elysian is made using HDF for bracing+front
From what hifi:
The Wharfedale’s cabinet is more than just a simple wooden box. The front baffle and internal braces are made of high-density fibreboard (HDF), while the rest of the enclosure uses layered MDF and particleboard panels in a bid to control resonances. The cabinet volume is split internally so that the bass units have their own separate space to work in and don’t disturb the midrange’s operation.
 
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DanielT

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I've seen picture of record albums stored in the stands. That is so cool!


View attachment 221518
Yup, Wharfedale got it right. Vintage design retolook that is now popular. Plus measures/sounds good.
(If you like the kind of broad sound radiation they produce)

Smart with the rack. It certainly seems to be well thought out on Wharfedale's part. I take my hat off and congratulate them for thinking exactly right. Technically and design-wish. :)
 

Ciobi69

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Unlike the lintons i remember the elysian 4 to be more precise and transparent/honest, things that im worry about are dispersion...

Hope they have good dispersion, the cabinet is a bit curved... i don't know but that tweeter+cabinet may have a very wide soundstage.. + good bass
I saw the elysian is made using HDF for bracing+front
From what hifi:
I am really temped to find them, i also saw that the center of the line is huge , it's a good thing that is big but it seems like way too much lol, guess somebody has to buy them because i don't think we will see them on a klippel, on youtube i saw the review by Andrew Robinson and the speakers are pretty linear in his room
 
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