Wharfedale Linton Heritage Speakers (Pair) Walnut

Product Information

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. I have attached some recordings of both speakers and 3 different songs I played. Of course, given that this is recorded on an iPhone, this isn't meant to capture the full sound signature, but the hope is you can compare the tonality somewhat for yourself and see if you think there is a difference.

Distortion in room for the Linton only. Strangely the right is some what better. Both 92dBA at 1m equivalent. While I fine-tuned toe-in with dual-mono pink noise, I had it in mind that the Lintons would never achieve the same sharp focus I get with the similarly priced, narrow-baffled KEF LS50 loudspeakers—but the sound clung surprisingly tight to center for a broad-baffle design. Wharfedale, Rogers, Harbeth, Spendor: The heritage line from the above speakers seems to be exclusively British for the Lintons. On their steel stands with two robust looking inlaid wooden laths decorated with the Wharfedale logo, these loudspeakers appear like a monument of a bygone era before Twiggy-lookalike loudspeaker columns had assumed dominance in our listening rooms. This actually fits very well into the outgoing 2nd decade of the 21st century, in which it isn't difficult to sense a great extent of a return to past time values, forms and materials, not only in audio. There, we may note the return of Vinyl - even as a television series - and, more recently, the apparent interest in compact discs and matching players. When you read the youtube comments of next generation audiophiles you can sense the interest in a technology that hasn’t had a substantial presence during their upbringing and offers a 2nd wave of bargaining after vinyl had been cheap for years. However, I hear, that the sales of new CDs is in decline, the trend goes second hand. I also took my chances with some sort of short interviews with the engineering brains behind the speakers, Peter Cormeau, and the Audiolab equipment, Jan Ertner, which are echoed by a personal communication I had with Dave, an Audiophile Style user from Iowa, who owns these transducers and talked to me about his own experience with them.

Experience Timeless Tradition: Three-Way Wharfedale Linton Loudspeakers with Dedicated Stands Feature Eight-Inch Woofer, Play with Elevated Openness and Taut Bass

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. But no big deal, since grille-on was how it was done in the past, for reasons you will understand if you look at the old Wharfedale Linton XP3 with grille off – using the modern fangled internet. Not a pretty sight, even if that white Leak midrange unit, designed by Alex Garner (Leak/Wharfedale, then Tannoy) was a wondrous device even by modern standards, with damped layer plastic cone and wave breaks. Driver complement: 200mm woven Kevlar cone bass, 135mm woven Kevlar cone midrange, and 25mm fabric soft-dome tweeter. That led me to start to figure out the relationships between the mechanics of speaker design, how to interpret the measurements I was making and using those experiences to make loudspeakers which were more musically adept. I developed an iteration between measurement and listening that allowed me to fine-tune my designs and, later, added software tools into the process to speed up development.

Being that there is no downside to owning a pair of Wharfedale Lintons, we're getting straight to the point – these speakers are a must have." AS: What would you describe the greatest strength of the speaker, now that they are completely broken in. ( Peter Cormeau: For me the attraction of vinyl, the more organic feel of its music reproduction, has never gone away. I’m happy to use both analogue and digital sources for my own enjoyment. What led me to start the Linton Heritage design, over 2 years ago, was a desire to recapture the feeling that I had from the first Wharfedales that I heard, and later built myself, in the 1960s. There is a level of performance available from bigger loudspeakers that has been lost, I feel, as modern preferences have led to ever smaller speakers. Provided that you spend time properly toeing-in the speaker to the best angle for your listening position – and it can be quite a fine balance – you’ll doubtless be impressed by the stereo imaging. It doesn’t quite have the pinpoint precision of some rivals with coaxial tweeter/midrange drivers, but it’s still pretty good and gives the lie to the claim that wide baffle speakers don’t image well. Every recording I play sounds surprisingly large and expansive. Haitink’s superb reading of Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No.2 sounds wonderfully atmospheric with a great sense of the recorded acoustic, for example. Depth perspective is a real standout strength for this speaker, too. I found the Linton 85s to have considerable audiophile appeal as they were, by turns, engaging, energizing, seductive, and just plain fun to listen to. [They] tread the fine line between being revealing yet also inviting and at times downright seductive. They also can boogie, when the occasion arises."After some experimentation, I ended up with the Lintons' cabinet fronts about 43" from the wall behind them. I liked having the Lintons toed in so that the tweeters' lines of sight crossed just in front of my nose. In this position, the Dead's "Ripple" still had a touch more bass swell than I prefer, but the sound was sweet, deep, elegantly detailed, and harmonically extended overall. our measurements show the grille is acoustically transparent and makes little difference to the sound balance, unlike the Denton 85th Anniversary Edition; Wharfedale seem to be in two minds about all this. 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. The below graphic indicates just how much SPL is lost (compression) or gained (enhancement; usually due to distortion) when the speaker is played at higher output volumes instantly via a 2.7 second logarithmic sine sweep referenced to 76dB at 1 meter. The signals are played consecutively without any additional stimulus applied. Then normalized against the 76dB result.

To celebrate their corporate longevity and place of pride among traditional British loudspeaker manufacturers, Wharfedale has introduced a third "Heritage Series" model: the 85th anniversary Linton Heritage. (Its ancestral namesake debuted in 1965.) The new Linton joins its smaller brothers, the 85th anniversary Denton 85 and the 80th anniversary Denton 80, in mixing traditional Wharfedale style and old-school speaker technology with 21st century crossover and driver design. Qobuz streaming via Audirvana provided bit-perfect and comfortable solution for enjoyable everyday listening, while for critical listening I may still prefer the combination of CAPS/ROON local or CAPS/Audirvana local in best possible resolution. In mono-listening, the difference in sound was noticeable. The Linton had a slight edge to me due to its warmer sound. Their sound is on point, and it would be hard to find a living space that they wouldn't fit into or elevate. I'd be more than happy to have these front and center in my living room."

I found the Linton 85s to have considerable audiophile appeal as they were, by turns, engaging, energising, seductive, and just plain fun to listen to. I mention those last several points because I have heard any number of high-end loudspeakers that, while impressive in an abstract, theoretical, and academic sense, somehow manage to miss the deep emotive impact that music should have. Happily, the Linton 85s are not among them; instead, they tread the fine line between being revealing yet also inviting and at times downright seductive. They also can boogie, when the occasion arises. AS: What were your main design goals with the 6000 series and how would you describe the main differences between the 8300 and 6000 series of Audiolab? Taller and wider than contemporary standmount speakers, the Lintons have a unique presence. That ‘big box’ style is successfully offset by the real wood finishes and dark grille (leave this on for the recommended sound balance), making them less intrusive in your room than you might expect. That bigger, boxier design also means deep, effortless bass. 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. In this respect, the beautiful design of the Wharfedale Linton Heritage Speakers, 3-way with a wide baffle and a large woofer, which covers a frequency range from 40 Hz to 630 Hz, appears absolutely en vogue. A fact that may contribute well to their worldwide success. The other determining factors are sound quality and a comparatively low price in combination with the heavy speaker stands, which also serve as a show board for our old or newly acquired record collection.

The ESS Sabre 9018 reference DAC chip in the 6000A is an old acquaintance of the Audiolab engineers, they've already operated it with success in several standalone DACs and the 8300CDT. Their actual implementation offers three DAC filters: FAST, SLOW & PHASE, selectable via the remote control menu function. I’ve identified the phase filter as best sounding for my ears. The inputs for the conversion are limited to COAX and Toslink up to 24bit and 192kHz and in line with the needs of the 6000 CDT player. By design an USB input option is excluded. Music Direct reserves the right to change the terms of this promotion or discontinue this offer at any time. Rounding things off comes the tweeter which is – natch! – not a metal dome. It is a standard I in (25mm) textile dome that covers high frequencies smoothly – without sharpness or ringiness. SOUND QUALITYI connected the Lintons to our Creek Evolution I00A amplifier through Chord Company Signature XL Reference cables. Sources were CD and hi-res from a MacBook Pro feeding the DAC section of our Oppo BDP205D player, with its still excellent ESS DAC and linear power supply. Yeah I agree with the lads that the immediate sore thumb is the phono stage, you can do better than that in your current set up and definitely will want that upgraded if you go for the nicer speakers. I’d definitely have a look at forum favourites like the Musical Fidelity LX2-LPS and keep an eye on the review of the the Darlington one. AS: When hunting, which were the key criteria for you and which other models were in the competition? Wharfedale manufactures every piece of the Linton Heritage, including bolts and capacitors, in its 1.5 million-square-foot factory in Jiangxi Province, China. (Wharfedale's parent company, International Audio Group, is based in Shenzhen, China.) All design work takes place in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, UK, where Wharfedale maintains a 50-person research and development team. Construction seems good overall and I like that the midrange driver has its own enclosure inside the speaker. Not only does it have its own enclosure but the enclosure is round. Meaning there is less chance for standing waves compared to big rectangular speakers. There is also a liberal amount of insulation in the enclosure. Overall, I am really happy to see such thoughtfulness put into the build quality of this speaker.