A little bedtime story for you.......
In the late 80's early 90's a friend of mine had some 'hifi seperates' and a pair of wharfedale E30's and to my young untrained ears they sounded great!
Ever since I have always judged speakers with the sound they produced in the back of my mind. Modern speakers (to me) sound too crisp, glassy and clinical and I remembered how warm and interesting the wharfedales sounded.
Massively overlooked speakers in their day and seem to be making a come back so they are appreciating in value! They would certainly give expensive modern speakers a good run for their money if not showing them how it's done!to get the same quality from modern speakers your looking at 2k upwards I reckon.
I was browsing t'ebay the other week and randomly came across some wharfedale speakers (unsure what model) which lead me on to searching for the E30's I had once loved. After finding some shoddy sets I was also finding the E50's and E70's which are superior still.
After a bit of research I decided I wanted either the more desirable E50 or E70's so I began searching.........
A week or so passed and I watched a few come and go until I found some 'good condition' E50's that were the right price so after a phone call or two I went to collect them.
After getting home I spent a while wiping them down and had a good look around them. For late 70's early 80's speakers they were in pretty good overall condition. I got them wired up and had a quick listen..... WOW! They were even better than I remembered, so warm, lively and made me smile like an over excited child! The bass was punchy, the mids were perfect and the tweeters were so effective! I spent around 7 solid hours revisiting my CD collection and enjoying them more than ever.
After the excitement wore off a bit I started looking more closely as I had picked up on a slight rattle from one of the bass speakers and after further investigation I found that the alloy frame was oxidising which had made some outer edges of the speaker become unattached which at some frequencies rattled.
I scraped clean as best as I could and re glued which stuck it back down but the rattle was still there....
I looked more and found the voice coil underneath had suffered the same and was coming loose on the edges so I did the same, waited and gave them a whirl..... Success! Seems fine now, no rattle and sounding great.
However, I suspect the fix is only short term and will need sorting properly at some point at which point I will be stuck. I would ideally like to replace both bass speakers for refurbished original units to keep them balanced or have mine refurbished but finding it hard to find anywhere capable of restoring these to their former glory.
The dust covers need recovering which I thought would be a very simple job but I can't remove the side rails as they appear to have been glued onto the wooden frame 'sigh'. I prefer the look of them without the dust covers but I would still like to have them mint if possible.
Does anyone know where I may be able to source some spares or anyone capable of refurbishing them to a high standard without charging the earth?
I sit hear listening to them and smiling as I am listening to a CD I never really liked but the speakers have shown it in a different light!
Vintage hifi = better!
