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

[manisandher]

@manisandher I mean stock passive crossovers. Catch is there is little to none to improve when they are done as good as in this case.

I'm sure you're right. I'm not going to try to improve/modify them in any way.

On the other end you won't achieve much by moving up the mid to tweater crossover a little bit. You can either try with more capable larger one or adding super tweater.

I usually start by passing white noise through the 'naked' driver (at a low volume for tweeter!) to measure its native output. Its pretty clear where its at its 'happiest'. I then apply 24/36dB slopes (trivial in digitial domain) to keep the driver happy.

I usually high-pass the speaker's inbuilt bass driver at about 70Hz, turning it into an upper-bass driver, and easing the load on it. The subs handle everything below 70Hz, and are usually driven quite hard (to level-match with speaker). I finish by time aligning everything.

Mani.

 

[ZolaIII]

@manisandher well it's not a problem with low SPL, it becomes with high one where it brakes in this case 102 dB as shown. At that point voice coils are hot and things are only going to get worse for it (diffusion) and that's why I told you be careful and don't push it much more as it is.
Don't high pass the port response but woofer output. Conceal the port output as much as possible improving the transistence and time domain with it and lower cabinet vibrations caused by it. It shouldn't be a problem (high passing higher) with fairly capable sub's one per each speaker of course. You will also have improvement in early-to-late arriving sound energy (ISO 3382-1) that way especially with back ported designs and this is important especially where such is hard to achieve in lows.

 

[TheBatsEar]

So happy I found out about these speakers now I got a tuff chose, Wharfedale or the KLH 3. love both looks now i got to listen to them. the amp is a Audio Alchemy OM150 which is a 150 2x @8 with Speaker load impedance: 4Ω (minimum). i notice the min impedance on the Wharfedale is 3.5Ω as stated on specs, i should be good right? i listen to blues like Howling Wolf to rap like dr.dre and everything in between. Any recommendation welcome

The Audio Alchemy OM150 will suffice and not fall apart at a 3.5Ω dip.

 

[Mush888]

Allright lintoners, I might need some help here. I posted a threaed as I am about to buy my first hifi system. Decided to expand my budget to fit the Lintons heritage 85 while I initially planned to start with cheaper speakers, as the Lintons came very reccomended here. The speakers will cover both my TV and music listening needs. cant install a sub woofer as neighbours walls are too thin. Where i live there's very little chance to try any hifi system, let alone the lintons, so need your precious feedback.


I am concerned that being this an audiophile site most attention is directed to the "cleanest", most perfect sound, while I put equal emphasis on "fun", meaning that ultimately I am looking for speakers that try to be engaging as well while being generally balanced - as in not losing out significantly on some ranges. I guess fun would mean bass being well covered even at sub 40hz and generally warm sound with the highs and the high part of the mid range not being recessed either. But i am a newbie so I might be wrong on translating what fun sound is into hz, so take it with a pinch of salt. I am not producing music so I dont care too much on the perfect sound, and I bearly listen to classical music and the likes.

I am posting here a number of links of the typical variaty of music i listen to - which is heavily screwed towards bass rich electronic music. On top of that I tend to listen to A LOT of reggae, blues a la Billie Holiday, some psychedelic rock a la Pink Floyd and a decent amount of hip hop, jazz and bossa nova, quite a few instrumental stuff.

How do these tunes sound on your lintons compared to your headphones? Which tunes perform better and which ones perform worse?


I really appreaciate you guys taking some time to answer to my questions!

 

[Mush888]

Some other tunes to follow up

thanks again for taking the time to test your speakers with these tunes and provide feedback!

 

[JayGilb]

Some other tunes to follow up

thanks again for taking the time to test your speakers with these tunes and provide feedback!

Some interesting music. Thanks !

 

[TheBatsEar]

cant install a sub woofer as neighbours walls are too thin.

The Lintons aren't really bass shy. I too live in a flat and this is how i deal with it:
I don't play loud after 9pm, midday or holidays. That is only fair.
If a particularly sensitive neighbor is annoyed, i apologize and promise to turn it down, but never do. This will repeat a few times, but eventually people notice that it makes no difference to complain.

Where i live there's very little chance to try any hifi system, let alone the lintons, so need your precious feedback.

Well, in my opinion tests in show rooms aren't worth much anyway. Sure, you can look at the speaker to see if it is a good quality build, but the sound is vastly different at home. If you can, i recommend to order a few speakers and compare them at home, then send back the ones you don't like. That might cost you a bit of shipping, but it helps to pick a winner.
Another tactic is to buy used, as you can mostly sell later for the same price you paid. I do this a lot, i had probably 10 different speakers this year.

I am concerned that being this an audiophile site most attention is directed to the "cleanest", most perfect sound, while I put equal emphasis on "fun"

I believe that one enables the other. You can't get the full emotional impact of music if your speakers omit details or add distortion or resonances. The Linton 85th are not some intellectual one trick pony without bass, they can truly let it rip, if the source demands it.

This one builds up, almost brutally. If you can, get "The Very Best Of Erich Kunzel And The Cincinnati Pops" on CD, there are some awesome songs on this. It's mixed in surround too, so if you have a Hafler matrix or Dolby Sourround or ProLogic decoder, extra fun can be had:

And to give you a tune that is pure fun, here is one of the coolest bass lines in all of dub history:

How do these tunes sound on your lintons compared to your headphones?

Some new things come to the foreground, others hide. All in all i prefer the sound of speakers. None of your tunes, or any tune for that matter, is particularly bad or good for speakers, i think.

 

[Kachda]

Not sure if it helps - I used to own the KEF R3s, which I think have a marginally better spin, but I sold them for the Lintons because I enjoyed the Lintons more

 

[TheBatsEar]

Not sure if it helps - I used to own the KEF R3s, which I think have a marginally better spin, but I sold them for the Lintons because I enjoyed the Lintons more

Same here. I liked the more substantial bass and for some unknown reason the Lintons have a sweet and slightly blown up stereo effect in my room. The others are Yamaha HS7 and Edifier R1280T.

 

[Eleo]

Hi there! I'd like to share some measurements of my Lintons. Chain is as follows: Minipc fanless with Eq Apo => SMSL C200 =>Topping L 30 => ZeroZone Irs 2092 Monoblocks => Wharfedale Linton (I have also a tube preamp, showed in the fourth picture but it was not used in measurements. Recently I have added a small Yamaha sub in order to fix a nasty dip between 60 and 90 Hz. The result was really amazing. Here are the measurements before and after. In the third image I have added some eq under 300 Hz.

 

[TheBatsEar]

@Eleo That looks like a setup and CD collection i could enjoy. Nice graphs too.

 

[Ngower]

The reputation for these speakers has me at the point where I'm unsure I can ignore them any longer.

Curious if folks can chime in as to whether they might overkill or my space? They'd be in an apartment living room (~12x12 feet), about two feet from the rear wall, about 6-7 feet from me, and about 6-7 feet apart.

My major concern is their low end might be unfriendly for my living space and I'd not really be able to listen to them without pissing off the neighbors (which I don't want to do). Most of my listening is in the 60-70db range, and I'm told these prefer being played loud.

Would it be advisable to look at the Dentons over the Lintons, or do the Lintons make sense?

 

[archerious]

The reputation for these speakers has me at the point where I'm unsure I can ignore them any longer.

Curious if folks can chime in as to whether they might overkill or my space? They'd be in an apartment living room (~12x12 feet), about two feet from the rear wall, about 6-7 feet from me, and about 6-7 feet apart.

My major concern is their low end might be unfriendly for my living space and I'd not really be able to listen to them without pissing off the neighbors (which I don't want to do). Most of my listening is in the 60-70db range, and I'm told these prefer being played loud.

Would it be advisable to look at the Dentons over the Lintons, or do the Lintons make sense?

My brother in laws setup is similar to that size. He has no issues an it sounds great. He has a SVS SB2000 paired with them.

I’ll try to find a pic.

EDIT: Not the best pics but they’re close enough. Only changes after these pics were we pulled them out from the wall a bit more etc., optimized placement.

 

[TheBatsEar]

View attachment 316293

I got one of those to make my cables almost invisible:

Well worth the money. A cable mantle with cables in it will not get eaten by a robotic vaccum either.
I use them everywhere.

Size comparison to the KEF Q350 and a well known book.

 

[Ngower]

My brother in laws setup is similar to that size. He has no issues an it sounds great. He has a SVS SB2000 paired with them.

I’ll try to find a pic.

EDIT: Not the best pics but they’re close enough. Only changes after these pics were we pulled them out from the wall a bit more etc., optimized placement.

View attachment 316292

View attachment 316293

No complaints from the neighbors?

 

[TheBatsEar]

My major concern is their low end might be unfriendly for my living space and I'd not really be able to listen to them without pissing off the neighbors (which I don't want to do).

Luckily you can reduce their low end by plugging the ports or turning down bass on the amp. Best situation would be to fine tune the bass to your room with DSP. I live in a flat with 12 other families in my house and added two SVS SB-1000 recently.

Manufacturers don't want you to know this, but you don't have to use all the watts all the time ;-).

Most of my listening is in the 60-70db range, and I'm told these prefer being played loud.

They can play loud or not. I don't see that they prefer one over the other.
You may have to use a Fletcher-Munson curve compensation (aka loudness) at very low volumes, Yamaha amps for example have a variable loudness that is great for that. But that is useful for any speaker that is listened to at lower volume.

 

[Ngower]

I don't have any room correction software and don't really want to but a DSP or anything, if I'm just working with tone controls and potentially port plugs, is it still worth considering?

 

[archerious]

No complaints from the neighbors?

He hasn't, but he doesn't listen as loud as I do. I remember telling him to raise the volume when I visited my sis and him in their apartment last year. I listen about 68dB-75dB; he probably keeps it around 60dB.

 

[Mush888]

I don't have any room correction software and don't really want to but a DSP or anything, if I'm just working with tone controls and potentially port plugs, is it still worth considering?

I am in a similar situation and curious to read the the reply. Obvs wall thickness matters too and it changes from building to building

 

[TheBatsEar]

I don't have any room correction software and don't really want to but a DSP or anything, if I'm just working with tone controls and potentially port plugs, is it still worth considering?

I think so, with plugged ports and tone controls you can basically disable bass entirely.

Obvs wall thickness matters too and it changes from building to building

True.