Any info on Wharfedale W2 Dovedale?

[thevoice]

I'm looking for any info people might have on the above. I got hold of a pair a while ago and having recently got rid of the weird treble attenuation pot in the crossover am increasingly impressed with them.

They are labeled as made in England by Rank Wharfedale in Idle, Bradford Yorkshire. There is next to no info on the net.

They are an interesting design, a 2 way system with one 12" and one 5", giving quite remarkable treble response from the 5.

The drivers are very well made, strong cast baskets on both and enormous magnet assemblies on both also. The magnet on the 5" would be around 4" diameter. Both are labeled 10-15 ohm.

One interesting thing is that the 5" driver is in it's own, very small, sealed section of the box.

Partly I'm asking as it's simply nice to know things about what I've got, but also because I'll be moving back to Australia next year and if they or just the drivers are well regarded I may think about shipping them home with everything else. Particularly if the drivers are well regarded I may just strip them out of the boxes.

At the moment I'm quite enjoying the sound of them but it's a little hard to tell with a low end amp and an iriver (like an ipod)...

I particularly like to get a figure for their efficiency.

Cheers.

[ashok]

Dovedale drivers ?
Maybe I'll take them off you. You can go to Australia very much lighter and not worry about tagging along some old speakers !

There you can buy new speakers that might be as good as the Dovedales.



They might have been on the low efficiency side. Maybe 86db or so.

[thevoice]

Well keep your eye out then, it's something of a pain to ship them home, even though there will be a lot of other stuff going.

So I may just offload them as cheap as I got them...

[dnsey]

I only have data to hand on the Dovedale 3, which added a 1" tweeter to the driver complement.

Claimed FR was 45 - 17kHz +- 3dB in this version, which also used the 'electromechanical' crossover.

[ashok]

The Dovedale 3 came as a readymade unit and a kit. The kit had a larger box. I heard both but the kit had better bass. Bass went very deep and was very tight -- very punchy. Mids and highs were also good. My memeory of the 12 inch bass driver was that the cone suspension was VERY stiff . You couldn't push it in easily like modern bass drivers. Amazed me.Wish I could see how it measured. I might be lucky. An old friend with the kit turned up recently and told me he still had the unit !

Keep the drivers and build a suitable box when you get to Australia. If you can get someone to measure the TS parameters you can build an ideal box.Use the same crossover values with better parts. You could add a dome tweeter later. I can get you the dimensions of the Kit version.

Please PM me. ashokm (at ) sify ( dot ) com
Cheers,
Ashok.

[ashok]

I just got hold of the dimensions of my friend's Dovedale enclosure.

75cm (Height)x 42cm (width) x 30cm ( depth).
I'll confirm the 75 cm height. Seems this is a bit more than I remember. It could however be correct.

Cheers,
Ashok.

[g7vzq]

I have a pair of these W2's ive owned them for over 30 years. Now they are looking for a new home. if any one interested email me on g7vzq1966@gmail.com

[VaNarn]

The tweeter that is described is the Super 5 which has a sensitivity of around 94 dB, although it is a bit peaky in the upper frequencies.The magnet diameter indicates the ceramic version and this places it in the 1960's for its production date.Wharfedale wrote the date of manufacture on the rear of the cones after testing and this gives an exact indication.It would be prudent to have the drivers serviced as the coil can unravel as a result of the bonding glue failing as a result of ageing.I have seen a few of these converted for midrange duties with modified suspensions.

[kipman725]

My experiance and that of many others with warefdales of that vintage was that they were terible! but if you like them keep them. I personaly gutted mine and used the boxes to make some much better sounding/mesuring speakers.

[devilsindetails]

Originally Posted by kipman725

My experience and that of many others with Wharedales of that vintage was that they were terrible! but if you like them keep them. I personaly gutted mine and used the boxes to make some much better sounding/measuring speakers.

By the time Gilbert Briggs Wharfedale Company was absorbed and spun off into the Rank Wharfedale company so many compromises had seeped in to the manufacturing and design stages that the Wharfedales of this vintage were, at best, substandard...the new conglomerate also absorbed another fine manufacturer Leak...and eventually many of the Wharfedale and Leak speakers shared many of the same mediocre drivers...

Pics of the OPs speakers would be helpful as there were countless iterations of the Dovedales in N/America, Europe and Australia

The pics I've attached are all different versions of the Dovedale