Please help me identify some speakers - Wharfedale

[Salty Bear]

Hi,

Brand-new to this forum – I’m hoping some of you clever chaps (and chapets - although you are a rare breed on audio forums) can help me identify some vintage Wharfedale speakers. One of my friends on facebook is considering whether to keep a hold of her Father’s speakers. The cabinets no longer exist but she has the specifications to rebuild them but would like to know whether it is worth the effort. She advises me they were purchases around 1950s – 1960 and are the same ones used in Gilbert Briggs’s demonstrations in the Albert Hall (she also has the original Quad amps used in the same demonstration). I have photos which I will attach but she advised the following:

“should [I] keep my late Dad's sets of loose 1950's 1960's low ohm original Wharfedale speakers? Bass speakers 15inch diameter - (8 speakers covering various frequencies in total) + crossover units - (makes 2x 9 cubic feet speakers when reconstructed - for use with Quad amps - it's the exact system that was previously used in the Albert Hall). When reconstructed, they make an AWESOME Bone Shaking stereo - with low frequencies down to a range that can only be felt not heard by humans - stunning quality of sound. However, they're clearly antiquated and take of eons of room in storage - and that's without re-building the cabinets - sand bags and all! I'd value an opinion from an expert on whether these vintage pieces are 'junk' or 'treasure' LOL”

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated

[paulsherwin]

This probably isn't the best place to ask - this isn't an audio forum, as the name indicates.

I would imagine that these drivers have significant value, especially given the documented history, but most of us here just mess about with old radios and tellies so won't be much help.

A few members are keen on old hifi so may be able to give more info.

The Quad amps will be worth a fortune, but you probably knew that already.

[Radio Wrangler]

I think you've already identified the speakers, and two of the drivers look to have had new cones and surrounds. The date also sounds early for foam surrounds, so unless Gilbert Briggs was that much ahead of his time, then things have already been done to these units.

The natural place for these things to be would be in a museum in Bradford.

Quad amplifiers have a cult following, and the prices have been pushed very high, so a group of Quads with an interesting history will be sought after indeed.

David

[GrimJosef]

The individual Wharfedale drivers are closer to treasure than junk - particularly the large 15" ones. I saw a pair in worse condition than these fetch the best part of £60 at a small auction recently and they should sell for a good deal more on eBay, although the seller wouldn't end up with all of it of course.

The 8" and 3" ones suffer very badly from rot to their original foam surrounds (the flexible piece between the edges of the paper cones and the metal frame of the speaker). It looks from the photos as though some of them have been repaired although at least one (the left hand 3" one) is missing the surround entirely. It's hard to repair these well, and poor repairs will inevitably affect the value, although obviously they're useless without some repair.

As far as the original speakers go, the cabinets would take a lot of work to re-create and objectively I fear they wouldn't be worth it. These speakers date from a decade or so before serious measurement science started to be applied, by Wharfedale among others, to the design of speakers. So these had to be designed by building on experience and by endless tweaking and listening. They would have been among the best available, but they wouldn't have measured all that well by modern standards. What they would have been though was efficient i.e. a relatively low-power amp could have produced a great deal of sound from them. Efficiency was the price that was paid as speakers became seriously engineered through the 1960s and 70s. But it was a falling price because transistors were making audio power steadily cheaper and cheaper. By the time that speakers like the Yamaha NS1000s were becoming available in the first half of the 70s it was possible to get their distortion significantly below 1% for the first time. By that stage the monsters of 15 years earlier had become rather old-hat. And although originals, few as they are, fetch a pretty penny now I'd be surprised if re-builds would ever be worth on the open market what they would cost to make. (Just my two penn'orth of course.)

If you want a bit more info about some of these Wharfedale drivers you can find it at Troels Gravesen's excellent site here http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/Diy_Lou...e Loudspeakers.

Cheers,

GJ

[m0cemdave]

There was a pair of those speakers at my University in the early 1970's. They were always referred to as "Briggs Specials" and had originally come from the Wharfedale works which was only about 5 miles up the road.

From what I remember of listening to them with their original Quad II amplifiers, they sounded rather "vintage" even then, and were completely blown away in a comparison with pair of Ditton 66's and a Quad 303. This confirms GJ's view that they wouldn't perform particularly well by modern standards despite having been state of the art in the 1950's.

Reconstructing to the original spec will probably only be worth doing for reasons of historical interest and if the provenance of the components can be fully confirmed. The cabinets were of sand-filled double wall construction and extremely heavy (though fitted with castors) and a custom build would be very expensive these days.

I'd say the components are "treasure" rather than "junk", but only to the right person - such as a serious audio historian, a well-heeled enthusiast, or a museum. I'd be very surprised if the cash-strapped National Media Museum (their obvious natural home) could take on a rebuild project, but it might be worth asking them.

[Salty Bear]

Hi Everyone,

Thank you all so much for taking the time to respond in such a thorough fashion - it always amazes me the degree to which folks are willing to help on forums like this - and I am amazed even more by the level of knowledge on display. Thanks again -I will pass your comments on.

[Valvepower]

Well this thread has answered one question for me as its helped identify the attenuator I bought from Mr Lewis’s stall at a recent Harpenden!

I suppose the game plan for speaker design in the UK changed when Raymond Cook (ex Wharfedale Technical Director) left to set up KEF in 1961.

Terry.

[sparkymike]

Does the photo show the organ at Alexandra palace ?
Mike.

[Nickthedentist]

Doesn't look like AP or the RAH to me.

[sparkymike]

According to Wharfedale history, the caption to above photo states Royal Festival Hall, so assume date could be anywhere from early 1950's onwards, when said hall was built I believe.
With that size venue, the event would have been publicised in Wireless World or similar magazines of the time. The photo is much higher definition in that pdf.
I Googled "Wharfedale speaker demonstrations in 50's"
Mike.

[sparkymike]

These concert demonstrations became very famous, using Wharfedale loudspeakers and either Quad or Leak amplification. In his book, Audio Biographies, Gilbert recalls the first time he worked closely with Peter Walker, founder of Quad, at their first demonstration in the Royal Festival Hall, London. They worked well together, a relationship between the companies that is stronger today than ever before under the umbrella of the ‘International Audio Group’.
This time I just Googled " Wharfedale History" and found above quote.

If the quad amplifiers as mentioned in the first post are indeed the same ones as used in the above demonstration and others then I would think that they would command quite a premium above similar quads of that time. I would have thought that even more care than normal was lavished on the manufacture of those Quads as any breakdown at such venues would have been a disaster for the company.

[mole42uk]

Royal Festival Hall - opened May 1951
The clue is in the "Festival" bit of the name. There's not much else of the Festival of Britain left these days!

[Nickthedentist]

But that's definitely not the RFH organ either: http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/image..._rochowski.jpg

[mole42uk]

I'm pretty sure it's St. Georges Hall in Bradford.

[Station X]

Certainly looks like it:-

https://www.***********/photos/bradfo...es/6600402635/

[Nickthedentist]

Well done Richard, I'm impressed.

[GrimJosef]

Originally Posted by sparkymike

... If the quad amplifiers as mentioned in the first post are indeed the same ones as used in the above demonstration and others then I would think that they would command quite a premium above similar quads of that time. I would have thought that even more care than normal was lavished on the manufacture of those Quads as any breakdown at such venues would have been a disaster for the company.

I'm sure Peter Walker would have been very well aware of the exposure that this demo would get and would have taken the trouble needed to ensure that everything went smoothly. But his attitude always seems to have been that his kit was designed both for domestic and industrial use (a lot of Quad IIs were sold for non-hifi applications) so it had to work straight out of the box and to keep working for long periods with little attention. I'd be pretty sure that he'd have picked up several amps off the end of the production line, including of course a spare or two, wired them up for the rehearsals, confirmed that they were working and then been confident that they would be no trouble through the shows. As indeed they were.

One of the issues they had was that they organised some real-time switching between live and recorded music and challenged the audience to spot the difference. The recorded music came both from tape and disc I think (maybe at different demos) and the players both contained synchronous motors so the pitch of the recorded music would depend on the mains frequency. The ear is exquisitely sensitive to small pitch changes, so to avoid these they drove the players not direct from the mains but from a stable synthetic 240V/50Hz supply based on an oscillator and two Quad II power amps, confirming that they could be industrial workhorses as well as accurate musical sources.

Given this utilitarian approach I'd be a bit surprised if they'd bothered to keep the actual amps used in the demos separate from all the other ones they had. I wonder if the OP's friend means that these were the types of amps used ? The serial numbers would be a handy guide.

Cheers,

GJ

[roffe]

http://www.impublications.com/flip/1...1282304356.pdf
(especially p44)

A picture from a demonstration-for the first time in stereo-at the Royal Festival hall in 1959.
One of the three gentlemen sitting to the left is mr Briggs himself and to the right of him is a stack of four Quad lls,said to deliver 50Watts per channel?
Note that they almost always used four of the big loudspeakers.
[IMG]http://i.**********/8zYU2Uv.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i.**********/RsRRtqh.jpg[/IMG]

[mole42uk]

Originally Posted by Nickthedentist

Well done Richard, I'm impressed.

Thank you! I grew up about 1/4 mile away from the Wharfedale works so it's perhaps not surprising that I recognised the interior of St. Geroges Hall! Mind you, I was only a small boy at the time.

[Radio Wrangler]

I can remember one Keith Emerson attacking that organ in about 1972. There's been all sorts of music in that place, and it was used for IEE Faraday lectures as well.

David