WHARFEDALE HERITAGE SERIES RE-ENGINEERED DOVEDALE

Wharfedale re-engineers another 20th-century loudspeaker for the modern day, the Wharfedale Dovedale, you may well have seen and heard the new speaker at The Bristol HiFi Show 2023, now find out more about it including, specs, pricing, and the philosophy behind the redesign.

British HiFi brand Wharfedale continues to celebrate its past with the latest of its new Heritage Series, a range of classic stereo speakers from the 1960s and 1970s, re-engineered for the modern age. The first speakers to join the Heritage line were the Denton 80 and Denton 85, launched to celebrate Wharfedale’s 80th and 85th anniversaries. Then followed the Linton.

Wharfedale Dovedale Loudspeakers 2023

BRISTOL HIFI SHOW 2023

At the Bristol HiFi Show 2023, Wharfdale released the new Wharfedale Dovedale, the biggest Heritage Series speaker yet. Also catching the eye of many visitors was the very cool Wharfedale Dovedale drinks cabinet.

Read our full Bristol HiFi Show 2023 Report here.

The Bristol HiFi Show Wharfedale Dovedale Loudspeaker Drinks Cabinet…we heard many people asking if they could buy one!

WHARFEDALE DOVEDALE LOUDSPEAKERS

Named after a valley in England’s Peak District, the first Dovedale speaker launched in 1965 as an updated version of Wharfedale’s W2 model. It was originally a two-way design but was later adapted to a three-way with separate bass, midrange and treble drivers. There were several versions of the Dovedale during the 1960s and ’70s, but perhaps the most fondly remembered is the Dovedale 3, which arrived in 1971.

Wharfedale Dovedale front and back

A MODERN LOUDSPEAKER

The re-engineered Dovedale takes inspiration from the Dovedale 3 and the corresponding Unit 5 build-at home kit. The new speaker’s cabinet is a touch taller, a little wider, and considerably deeper than the standard production Dovedale 3, but similar in size to the largest home constructors’ version, and its proportions will be recognisable to anyone familiar with its forebear. At the time, the Dovedale was not considered a particularly large speaker, but by modern standards, it has a substantial physical presence. Its width, in particular, signifies its vintage heritage, but speaker cabinets were broad for a reason, to incorporate larger bass units and therefore shift more air.

True to their heritage but with modern tech

WHARFEDALE DOVEDALE DRIVE UNITS

The 10in (25cm) bass and 5in (13cm) midrange drivers incorporate cones made from woven Kevlar, a strong and stiff synthetic fibre discovered in the same year as the original Dovedale’s release and not used for loudspeaker diaphragms until a decade later. The midrange unit is housed in its own internal enclosure, and woven Kevlar is used for both units.

The Wharfedale Dovedale drivers

The 25mm fabric-dome treble unit with a ceramic magnet, featured throughout Wharfedale’s Heritage Series, has been further improved by incorporating a rear chamber, damped to absorb the output from the back of the dome. This also has the advantage of reducing the resonant frequency of the treble unit to well below the crossover region, allowing full treble detail and harmonics to be revealed.

The midrange and bass cabinet enclosures are both critically damped using a carefully calculated combination of acoustic foam and long hair fibre. The bass unit is able, in the damped and ported enclosure, to reach a depth of 25Hz.

THE CROSSOVER

The crossover components have been chosen for their revealing and transparent character and have been laid out on twin PCBs with careful spacing to avoid electromagnetic interference.

The impedance characteristic of the Dovedale is a 6 Ohm load with a minimum of 3.6 Ohms and the speaker has a high sensitivity of 89dB for 1 Watt input.

WHARFEDALE HERITAGE CABINET

All Wharfedale’s Heritage Series cabinets use a combination of woods to scatter panel resonances rather than having a single, audibly obvious resonant frequency.. An inner layer of high-density particle board is bonded to an outer layer of MDF by an inter-layer of high-damping glue; specially chosen figured-grain, real-wood veneers are applied to all surfaces, hand-polished and lacquered to a satin finish. Every pair of Dovedale speakers is matched with care, with a  furniture-quality finish.

Critical analysis of the performance of each cabinet surface has resulted in the application of precision shaped and positioned internal bracing. Both the midrange unit and treble unit are offset on the front baffle to scatter reflections from the cabinet edges.

GRILLES

Speakers of the original Dovedale’s vintage were intended to be listened to with the grilles on. This is not always the case with contemporary speakers, but the new Dovedale stays faithful to its classic heritage and has been designed to perform optimally with its protective grilles attached. Removing the grilles will result in a sound that is brighter but less smooth, says Wharfedale.

WHARFEDALE DOVEDALE STANDS

Wharfedale has designed a pair of floor stands to match the new Dovedale, with an open frame made of carbon steel and furniture-grade glass inserts at the top and bottom. All bar one of the uprights are filled with damping material, the other allows for cable management, with four large stainless-steel spikes at the base. The stand ensures each speaker is positioned at the correct height, as well as reducing bass/floor interactions and providing stable and rigid support.

Wharfedale Dovedale stands

MADE IN THE UK

Like many British audio brands, the manufacturing of Wharfedale speakers moved to East Asia towards the end of the last century to maintain retail prices at the level the market demanded, while design functions such as R&D and industrial design remained in the UK.

Last year, Wharfedale’s parent company IAG unveiled a new ‘Made in the UK’ initiative to enable the manufacturing of specific products to be brought back to the UK without skyrocketing costs. IAG has expanded its facilities at its base in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, incorporating key manufacturing, assembly and finishing processes for specially selected products in addition to the R&D function already located there. A 9,000ft2 production facility has been added to the existing building, including a new anechoic chamber, making a total of 25,000ft2 of office, lab and manufacturing space. The first loudspeaker to benefit from this new facility is the new version of the classic 770 from Mission, Wharfedale’s sister brand, and the next is the new Dovedale. This is the first Wharfedale speaker to be officially Made in Britain for many years.

PETER COMEAU

Peter Comeau, Wharfedale’s Director of Acoustic Design, describes how the new Dovedale project was the culmination of a personal journey that began in the early 1970s:

“I was in my teens when I first built a pair of Dovedales from a kit supplied by Wharfedale that allowed home builders to provide their own cabinets to house the drive units, crossover and internal damping. Naturally, I built the larger 66 litre version, and they rem ained my favourite loudspeakers for many years, drawing envious comments from friends and acquaintances who heard them. So, you could say that the new Dovedale is a labour of love, looking back to the past and bringing a much-loved speaker to life again, fully re-engineered to meet and exceed contemporary standards. At the time the original Dovedale was launched it was not considered a large loudspeaker; most HiFi enthusiasts realised that a substantial cabinet size was needed to generate a deep and efficient bass performance, and the laws of physics haven’t changed. To achieve good bass extension and high sensitivity, it is most sensible to use a large bass unit in a large cabinet volume that is precisely matched to it. The baffle size – the width and height of the cabinet – contributes to speaker sensitivity and affects the accuracy of the transition through bass and midrange. To re-imagine the three-way Dovedale for the modern era, we considered the way the original looked and sounded – all the things that listeners loved about it at the time – and redesigned every element to elevate performance whilst remaining faithful to the spirit of the original. We built new drive units, designed an ideally proportioned cabinet to match the drivers, married them with a new crossover and perfected the cabinet’s acoustic performance inside and out. The result is a loudspeaker that exudes vintage style with a high-quality wood veneered finish and a sound that delivers deep, controlled bass, realistic, room-filling scale and captivating musical expression.”

WHARFEDALE DOVEDALE SPECIFICATIONS (2023 MODEL)

Speaker type Three-way standmount

Enclosure type Bass reflex (twin rear-firing ports)

Treble driver 25mm fabric dome

Midrange driver 135mm woven Kevlar cone

Bass driver 250mm woven Kevlar cone

Sensitivity (2.8V @ 1m) 89dB

Nominal impedance 6 Ohms

Recommended amp power 25-250W

Frequency response (+/-3dB) 36Hz-20kHz

Bass extension (-6dB) 25Hz

Crossover frequencies 560Hz and 2.9kHz

Cabinet volume 8.6L (midrange); 64.7L (main)

Speaker dimensions (HxWxD) 660x370x417mm

Weight (each speaker) 26.2kg

Stand dimensions (HxWxD) 370x370x417mm

Weight (each stand) 9.6kg

WHARFEDALE DOVEDALE PRICE AND AVAILABILITY

Manufacturing of the new Heritage-edition Wharfedale Dovedale is now underway, in limited quantities The first pairs will be available to purchase this month finished in walnut veneer, at an RRP of £5,500 per pair including the matching floor stands. The speakers and stands are also available separately, at £5,000 per pair and £800 per pair respectively.

HiFi Pig Says: The wave of retro-designed HiFi with modern tech is being very well received by the public, audiophiles obviously have a taste for the vintage styling of these models.