Wharfedale Linton Heritage Speakers (Pair) Walnut

Product Information

The Lintons may not be everyone’s idea of how they want to listen, but this is a taste that's worth acquiring. These speakers do an impressive job of capturing something of an older, fuller, more easy and open style of hi-fi sound without forgetting to make the music exciting. That excitement may not come thundering out of its cones, but you don’t need whisky and elbow patches to enjoy it either. I think that we may have found a flaw in the system. A recent dinner vinyl party night with friends the 6000A started to cut out after a few hours of playing at a moderately loud level of -10. Most of those 2 hours was at -18, when we tried to increase the level the system cut out. I touched the top, thinking that it may be an overheating issue but found it only slightly warm. AS: Do you feel that these speakers offer an excellent audiophile sound reproduction within its price range ?

A dale is a broad valley. The Yorkshire Dales are broad, picturesque valleys in Northern England, mostly named for the rivers or streams that run through them. One of these is Wharfedale, which is the upper valley of the River Wharfe—and which was the original home of British firm Wharfedale Wireless Works, founded in 1932 by Gilbert Briggs. Regarding measurements, IMO JA1 should have (also) measured the speakers using the particular amps – especially the tube amps - that HR used for his listening evaluation. As seen in the Klipschorn review, the use of an amp with a non-negligible output impedance can have a significant effect upon the overall frequency response of the connected speakers.

LINTON Heritage

Which neatly brings me to the drive units! The new Linton has three of them – again in good 1970s style. The idea always was to have one driver – the midrange unit – optimised for critical vocals. Here it is a I 35mm woven Kevlar cone, for low colouration, working from 630Hz to 2.4kHz Wharfedale say. Above is a 25mm (I in) textile dome tweeter and below a 200mm Kevlar cone bass unit – identical bass/mid cone materials being important for subjective coherence. The bass unit is reflex loaded by two rear ports. The combination Audiolab - Wharfedale persuades us with sound, style and the MSRP of approx. 2500 Euro (AUD 5000, USD 3000 , GBP 2000). AS: What would you describe the greatest strength of the speaker, now that they are completely broken in. ( gated comparison. Note Linton on lower stand so gating is 3.3ms vs 5ms for D2. Linton quite flat, slight rolloff, not as bad as Stereophile. D2 gentle lift and tweeter resonance, similar to Stereophile. Wharfedale’s first Linton loudspeaker was launched in 1965 and was, says the manufacturer, “bought in its millions right across the globe.” Successive and successful models followed, culminating in the Linton 3XP, which was a three-way loudspeaker and one that marked the last Wharfedale offering to bear the Linton name. Or rather it was the last, until we come to the present day where Wharfedale has now created a Linton 85 th Anniversary Limited Edition stand-mount model (which I will call the Linton 85 in this review). According to Peter Comeau, Wharfedale’s Director of Acoustic design, the hallmarks of the original Linton design were “fine craftsmanship, natural sound quality, and affordability inside a beautifully proportioned loudspeaker,” and—not surprisingly—these same characteristics also define the Linton 85.

Here are some tips. If the Linton 85s have too much bass for your room, try moving them well away from walls, which helps. Next, for best imaging use plenty of toe-in. Last, keep the grills on; the smooth the sound, enhance imaging, and minimise diffraction. The audio system supplier first said that we were drawing too much power and the amp was protecting itself, which I thought doubtful because the amp volume would cut out at -9 at best, and that volume was only seconds. I went on a listening session when LS50 Meta appeared. I wanted to listen to it and next to it in the same salon were Blade II and Lintons. Early Reflections Directivity Index (EPDI): is defined as the difference between the listening window curve and the early reflections curve. In small rooms, early reflections figure prominently in what is measured and heard in the room so this curve may provide insights into potential sound quality.

Retro style, timeless musicality

With retro good looks and a natural, relaxed sound to match, these Wharfedales are different, but undeniably superb.” ’What Hi-Fi?’ – 5 Star review.