Wharfedale W70D MK II's

[Shacky]

I recently recapped and spruced up a pair of W70D MK II's that I've had in queue for a couple years. Didn't care for them before refurb and found one reason - both lower midranges were not working due to cracked coils wires which I was fortunately able to easily repair by resoldering after cutting off damaged ends.

I took the pots apart and gave them a good cleaning. I rewired everything but existing wires to tweeter and upper midrange. Flipped woofer and lower mids 180 degrees. Restor-A-Finshed the cabs and tightened evrything down well.

Still at first I was not impressed but after letting them "break" in for a week they sound fantadtic with my little Zenith tube amp - SEP 6BQ5 putting out 5-7 WPC and bass boost removed. Not sure if caps had to break in or if woofer wool surrounds had stiffened from years of sitting but both his and bass inproved.

The Wharfedales don't have the bass of my 3a's or KLK 23's but the bass is very accurate, musical, and goes very low. I thought these might be good candidates for tube system and they are!

[speaker dave]

Pretty amazing cabinets, although you need a matching equipment cabinet to match the look! Interesting that the woofer and lower mid share the same volume. What changed when you flipped the mid polarity?

David

[Shacky]

Polarity is unchanged. I just flipped the drive 180 degrees in case of surround sag. More so on the woofer which has wool surround.

They are sounding very, very nice. I'm quite amazed at bass as I've read how they have laid back bass and when I got them there wasn't much there. Could be a mismatch in damping factor with the little Zenith amp - but sure sounds nice

Midrange is warm as can be with this setup.