Great analysis, thank you! I don't have LS50 speakers, but I do have KEF XQ20 speakers, and they can be very fatiguing/hard/metallic to listen to for very long with some types of recordings. My Wharfedale Dentons, OTOH, aren't as 'revealing', but they have a warm, pleasing, non-fatiguing musicality that works well with a wide variety of recordings, and help to soften that harshness/brightness of some of them that don't fare well with the XQ20s....
I have the LS50's and had the Denton's. I found the unrefined high end of the Denton's tiring. They sounded better after break in but in the end I couldn't live with their shortcomings. They are pretty with their covers on.
Did you already got the best speakers that satisfy you? Or still the KEF LS50 remains to be best suit?
So, for the Denton's what's a good price used? I see them on Music Direct for $499 although I've seen reports they are occasionally $399 new on special. I may get them while keeping the Q100's for comparison and deciding which I like better over time. They're both small so keeping both is also an option.
I see, if got chance I need to get a pair to listen to, to feel the transparency and excellent sound stage people praise for.
There is no comparison, because the dome tweeters used is almost the same across diamond series, I've owned Diamond 200 series before the treble is not as refined as Denton, all the Diamond series include 9.1 behave the same way...kinda disturbing what they want to do? Why cannot put the most refined tweeters and modify based on that, they seem work out a lot so called technology and ways to make sound differently but it's not working...
It's rare to find them used, but $325-$350 is typical. Music Direct does from time to time drop them to $399, usually around the holidays. They also have open-box Dentons for the same price fairly regularly.
I don't have Dentons, but my LS50s did everything better (except bass) than my Diamond 225s. The 225s aren't that far behind, though, and I find them much easier to listen to for long periods without fatigue. LS50 went back, and the 225 are here for the foreseeable future.
I picked up my Denton’s last year from Music Direct. It was an open box pair for $399. They looked brand new
Bravo! I love to find a pair here in America and do a comparison. Unfortunately even if I did I wouldn't have the skills or the tools to put new crossovers and caps on. That was really cool. Thanks
When I first got these speakers I sent some photos to Wharfedale asking if they had any information about their age and specs. They replied saying that there had been a fire some time ago and all of Wharfedales archives had been destroyed so unfortunately they couldn't give me any information. What a shame )-: That's probably why it's hard to find much information about them on the net. There are lots of vintage Wharfedale speakers available for little money in the UK and with a little TLC they can brought up to spec quite easily. I only spent a little less than £100 including the parts (Falcon Acoustics UK) and speakers. I downloaded the BBC's white paper (Factors in the design of loudspeaker cabinets - BBC R&D ) on cabinet design and used the information to improve the internal cabinet damping. I really enjoyed fixing these up and it only took me a morning to do. What I was really shocked by was the great sound quality. I doubt I could find a better sounding new speaker for £100 as solidly built and with real wood veneer. I also feel like I've preserved a little piece of British audio history.
No they were made in Idle, Bradford in Yorkshire but as a Lancastrian I won't hold that against them (-:
I have always regretted not having bought any speakers made in the UK before many of them were taken over by Chinese companies ...
I wonder if KEF and Tannoy, etc. have yet to archive their legacy product designs, product lines etc in digital format to prevent such accidents from recurring. There is no excuse for such unrecoverable losses since universal digitization has been around for some times ...
Here's a clipping from What HiFi about the takeover of Tannoy by the Behringer group, Tannoy: after 90 years, what does the future hold? Looks like they have changed their minds according to this article Tannoy to keep Prestige speaker production in Scotland
