wharfedale glendale 3xp fault, Help!

i have a lovely pair of wharfedale glendale 3xp's which i got dirt cheap but have discovered one of the mids is faulty. no noise atall comes out of it even when connected to seperate amplifier. so i dont think is the crossover. i have no idea whats wrong with it and i cant find any information about these drivers or replacements so i cant even buy originals. would love to fix if possible or if need replacement need to know technical info to find something suitable.

anyone know anything about these lovely speakers?

thanks H
 
I used to run various Wharfedale speakers, so this is all reasonably familiar. Here's your Glendale 3XP model:

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


Crossover is 800Hz and 4000Hz. The mid is a LEAK special perforated design. The tweeter looks like Wharfedale's standard plastic cone tweeter which could crossover as low as 1200Hz.

The simple way to test a drive unit is to connect it to a 1.5V battery. It will crackle if signs of life. This is safe with any drive unit, whereas connecting to an amp is not.

Replacement is a bit rough and ready and depends on crossover and cabinet enclosure details to some extent, but best done as a pair. I would quite fancy my chances with these two drivers:
Monacor SPP-90 Tweeter
Visaton M10-8 Cone midrange.

I would have these speakers apart first and see how they work. Note the wiring polarity before you disassemble, measure the cutout holes and any sub-enclosures, and draw a schematic of the crossover with capacitor values. Unless you have a very good multimeter, you cannot realy know the coil values. FWIW, I built a very good speaker in a Wharfedale cabinet with entirely new drive units and crossover. I could help you with that if I know the cutout sizes and cabinet dimensions.
 
you are literally amazing!
i have been banging my head against the wall trying to find anything about these speakers anywhere online but to no avail. i have been almost resigning to the idea that they are un fixable but i now have hope! i did have a stroke of luck after my initial posting however in finding a replacement on a well known internet auction site which i will have and hopefully that will sort it. i am however very interested in building replica cabs from these and filling them with new gear and judging by your post you are the man to talk to. is this a realistic idea or a fantasy i should leave as is?

on another note i was looking to figure out the specs of the crossover to ry and find out more but i think one coil has been fixed judging by the red tape in this pic. its the same on both cabs so im unsure if that may be a problem with the crossovers? what do you think?

thanks again!

H
 

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Hi,

If you have swapped the midrange drivers between the speakers and
confirmed its a driver issue then fair enough get a replacement driver.

You got them dirt cheap and keep it that way, they are good
cheap and very poor if you start chucking money at them.

The red tape might be that they simply didn't have the right value tape.

rgds, sreten.

4KHz mid treble x/o frequency ? Probably applies to these Glendales :

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


Typical "it looks right to the uniformed" driver layout, its bad.
 
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Those are the XP3 Glendales you are hotlinking, sreten. Different animal altogether. Dome tweeter, you see. :D

You really need to draw that schematic of the crossover, H Burch. We've got lucky with the coils being mostly marked along with the familiar Non Polar Capacitors of which I spot a 25uF. TWO 4mH coils. These speakers have a lot of bass I reckon.

10" bass, 4" mid and 3" cone tweeter it seems.

The mid evidently sits in a stuffed cardboard tube. The tweeter will have a stuffed plastic teacup-sized enclosure glue on, IIRC.

Need the hole diameters, and the PCD of the screws is useful too, being the diameter of the circle that makes the screw centres. This is 86dB sensitivity, so I'm looking for a 86-88dB 4" mid or midbass or even full range that will fit. Or, as you say, get the eBay one.

Let's get on with it. :cool:
 
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hello again.

i was as previously stated looking to get my hands on the mid from ebay but someone has helpfully put an automated bidding program onto it and it keeps increasing way to far. i only paid £10 for the pair and aint happy payin nearly twice that for one driver!, especially considering i imagine i could find two new ones for that price. which brings me neatly onto my new/ original idea of buying two new midranges one for each.

if i was to draw up the crossover for the mid range output as you suggested steve with the capacitor and resistor values i can see and have a punt at measuring the midrange cardboard tube enclosure could someone help by heding me in the right direction for specs i would need for new driver.

I am quite new to the electronics aspect of speakers but its something i am very keen to get my head around so i can progress to building full range cabs and custom crossovers.

or if the replies above already have all i need to know i apolagise for being a tad useless but as i said the electronics are a bit new.

thanks for the help guys

Hugh
 
I like that midrange unit, sreten. :D

H. Burch, you gotta trust us on this. We need to know the hole diameters to guess what might fit physically. I'd like to know the size of the midrange enclosure too to get the Vas and Qts right too.

See if you can work out the crossover layout and as many values as you can get. It can be adjusted to fit the new midrange unit on sensitvity. We'll do that for you. Attenuators are quite straightforward. Just supply the information as requested. Sreten and me know what we are doing. :cool:
 
right then here we go!

I measured the Mid Range tube thus
diameter 12cm
length 20.4cm

the volume came out as
2268.5142857142837 cm cubed

OR

2.26851 liters (i assume this is the unit of choice)

the cap on the back of the tube is a bit warped due to age but this is as close as i can get.

the cutout for the driver is
10cm
the baffle is 1.5 cm thick

the screw holes are 13 cm apart and form a square

i have attached a schematic of the crossover on here for your viewing pleasure and as much of each component as i can read without taking it apart. (sorry its an attachment not on the post but for size seems better)

hope this is enough info for you guys
thanks again for your help

Hugh
 

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This is not a cheap fix, H Burch. Best I can see is this £33 89dB Monacor MSH-115 at Falcon Acoustics:

Monacor MSH-115. IMF 4/200 Midrange replacement

It's 101mm cutout. Looks OK on 2L enclosure size (Vas 4L, Qts 0.43). The 87dB MSH-115HQ is a possibility too, but looks awkward to fit to me with a 97mm cutout but not much margin on the screws or bolts.
Monacor: Products

Thing is this LEAK midrange you are replacing is a goodish component. I don't think a radio speaker will do.
 
mmmm. very irritating, the unit on ebay sold to the auto bidding thingy. as a radical idea what would you think of rewiring the crossover to a two way and leaving out the mids. these are going to be part of a bigger system with subs taking care of the bottom predominantly. would it be possible to bypass the mid range of the crossover and cross the high and low at maybe 1500hz or a bit above? is this feasable?
 
Be very difficult to turn these into a 2-way really. I just don't know what crossover values to use. That tweeter had a tendency to blow at parties when driven hard on a low crossover point around 1.2-1.5kHz. Reason being it really didn't like the excess midrange it was having to deal with. It would be hard also to guess how to raise the woofer crossover point.

At a guess you might run the woofer just on the 4mH coil to extend its response, and disconnect the midrange crossover components altogether because undamped crossover sections without drive units do horrible resonant things to amps. I might then experiment with some modest rolloff on the bass with a shunt of about 10uF and 2 ohms 10W wirewound. You'll be struggling with the harsh cone breakup of the woofer above 2kHz. Very DIY, but then we ARE! :D

FWIW, I did dig up some details on the Wharfedale Linton 3XP kit which was similar apart from a smaller bass unit and 1000Hz/4000Hz crossover. Here is your crossover for comparison, along with the Linton 3XP one. I found some photos of the Linton 3XP crossover which resolved some of the values.
Wharfedale Linton 3xp - a set on Flickr

Old Non Polars like yours will be ageing badly by now. Falcon Acoustics do 50V non-polar electrolytic replacements which would be worth investigating.
 

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I have just finished my summer project :)
and it sounds very good
the idea was to use a tiny speaker as a mid-tw , attached to a BIG waveguide .
So I ended with a Monacor SPX21 with a 20 cm waveguide (an old woofer cone )
and a Vifa 20 cm woofer . Crossover is very easy and the crossover frequency
is around 500 Hz .
 
Hmm, was I the only person scratching my head over doubtless worthy picowallspeaker's contribution there. :D

I did a bit of modelling in Visaton Boxsim. Looks like a twoway conversion might be doable. :)

I roughly quartered the 25uF bass shunt capacitor to 6.8uF to roughly double the rolloff frequency from its original 800Hz. Then bumped up the tweeter crossover from 4uF/0.2mH to 4.7uF/0.4mH to increase its midrange output to fill the hole. The components in red are optional if the tweeter is too bright. It's my guess at the Zobel value plus a bit of tweeter rolloff at very HF, because I believe the Wharfedale tweeter is a bit peaky at the top end.

This sort of approach is very rough and ready because I really don't know much about the drivers, but nothing will break although you've lost about 6dB Max SPL on the tweeter, so I can't guarantee it won't fry at parties. :cool:
 

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THX
:p
Best I can see is this £33 89dB Monacor MSH-115
For about the same price , you could go with the more pricey (compared to the SPX 21 ) SPX 20 , which allows for a little more power ; 8 Ω impedance would then mean using about 10 uF + 2 mH for highpass, for a Fc of 1000 Hz .
A little step above using a 10 Wmax tweeter , so it could stand 'party levels' .
A waveguide would improve its dispersion :confused:though improving directivity and allowing more control over the project .
Housing it in the box is just an irritating tought . Much better outside .
Also the box itself might be reconsidered , so I would suggest to start from scratch the whole project . Diameter of the wire of the lowpass coil for the woofer has not been mentioned ; using 1 mm or more brings betterments , but also alters woofer ( in box ) Qts .
 
hello,
'do-able' is good enough for me, this is my first project involving the actual electronics of the speakers and there is no chance of them being briven hard. they are for a small flat which doesnt need volume atall. tested them with a 2 x 1watt amp when got them and that was actually pretty much fine volume wise. the other speakes im planing to build will be the power of the setup, these are just because i like them. so i am very happy to rebuild the crossover as a 2 way instead.

if someone could help me along with that in terms of what i need to buy etc and which parts of old crossover can be used i would be very much gratefull.

worst case scenario is they dont work and rewire the crossovers back and start again.

thanks Hugh
 
Let's do a review of where you are right now, Hugh. You have some splendid old Wharfedale cabinets probably around 35 litres. A decent 10" bass and 4mH slope coil prearranged so decent bass and still serviceable. This sort of speaker would cost near a £1000 these days. Blown midrange and a rather aged tweeter is your problem.

To me, this decent old cabinet and bass is just crying out for new midrange and tweeter drivers. :D

I could suggest you think near £250 in new drivers and crossover. Visaton have a modelling program called Boxsim that will allow you to design a dome midrange and tweeter to suit your setup. The dome midrange Visaton G50 FFL would not only fit your baffle, but give you a system of extraordinary ability along wth almost any Tweeter you fancy.
Visaton - Lautsprecher und Zubehör, Loudspeakers and Accessories

You might study Troels Gravesen's 3 Way Classic to get an idea of what is doable here.

But for now, for the two way conversion, which will not be as smooth as a 3 way because you're going to hear some rough cone breakup from the bass above 1kHz, you just need some smallish 250V polypropylene capacitors as suggested. 4.7uF and 6.8uF, along with a 0.6mm wire aircore 0.4mH coil. Looks like you'll have to drill out a few pop rivets to modify the crossover as to my schematic. You can hotglue or nylon ziptie the new components. Try Falcon Acoustics or Wilmslow Audio for the bits. You'll also need an electric soldering iron, a solder sucker and some new solder. With soldering, the idea is to use a hot gun and get in and out QUICKLY. Maybe less than 5 seconds to avoid baking components. With coils you need to scrape off the enamel on the ends to get good tinning. Capacitors also benefit form being pre-tinned before final application. Soldering is about being fast and confident and bailing out quickly if it gets problematic. LOL
 
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ideally i would like to keep them as are but i dont have a spare £250 to play with for this. i get the two way conversion i think with your schematic (thankyou). i am quite tempted to build fresh two way crossovers with new components matching the originals for now and maybe keep eye out for new mid driver in the future, would this work?

or

do you think running the speakers as they are now but placing them together in the room would sound ok with one mid out? if i disconnect the driver for safety?.

they have an output on the back where the terminals are for linking another speaker on the same channel and i was considering this running from a mono source so i can use them now without loosing the mid from one channel, in essence having two woofers and tweeters and one mid. would this work? and if it does would it change the impedance of the setup?

thanks Hugh
 
I really suggest to try a pair of Monacor SPX 20/21
If the woofer is a 10" , a big waveguide to help the little mid-tw to raise the SPL,
specially at crossover frequency , which would still be determined by the 4 mH coil .
Just cover solidly the holes , remove the internal tube ( awful:gnasher:)
And you're done !
Place the Monacor+20cmWaveguide above the box ( which is turned upside down ) , make a simple 2nd
order high pass ....
:rolleyes:
 
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I really suggest to try a pair of Monacor SPX 20/21
If the woofer is a 10" , a big waveguide to help the little mid-tw to raise the SPL,
specially at crossover frequency , which would still be determined by the 4 mH coil .
Just cover solidly the holes , remove the internal tube ( awful:gnasher:)
And you're done !
Place the Monacor+20cmWaveguide above the box ( which is turned upside down ) , make a simple 2nd
order high pass ....
:rolleyes:


i like the sound of this but not to sharp on the idea of waveguards etc. could you enlighten me please?