my main speakers are a pair of harbeth monitor 30, which are my reference. i purchased an open box pair of wharfedale linton heritage and spent two weeks with them. here are my conclusions: pros: extremely musical, fun to listen to if you can ignore their faults. very smooth tweeter...not a bright speaker. fantastically natural tonal balance...full and rich. not a necessarily a small speaker, but still remarkably big sound for their size. i don't think the speaker is worth the price, but considering what else is out there, it's a decent value. relatively easy to drive. somewhat forgiving of poor source material. massive, room-filling bass...no need for a subwoofer...not even close. cons: midrange driver is absolute garbage, grainy and gets shouty and strident. lots of deep bass, but seems a little lacking, recessed, in the mid-bass "punch" region. incoherent...sounds like multiple drivers in a box. poor, unnatural tonality...artificial and "cheap"-sounding utter lack of refinement and depth. overpriced...i think this type of performance shouldn't cost more than $500-600 retail. glassy, steely overtones...(cheap kevlar drivers...no surprise) very obvious, one-note bass boom from the port (yes, i tried them far from the rear wall) so many glaring sonic artifacts, the speaker becomes fatiguing after a while. fit and finish janky...one logo badge glued crooked, cheap and ugly grill cloth, sloppy veneer edge-work. i would say that this speaker is absolutely true to the wharfedale heritage: a boomy, unsophisticated, big warm-ish sound with screechy upper mids...oddly listenable and musical at times, but in the final analysis...a complete mess. the wharfedale linton hertiage is strangely both a very good speaker and simultaneously a wretched abomination. it is good in the sense that in an industry wherein the loudspeaker choices amount to two flavors: medium bright and screaming bright, it's nice to have a product become available that sounds somewhat pleasant and relaxed compared to others. it's just too bad that someone can't step forward and design a truly great, somewhat affordable speaker of this variety using quality components.
Ever since hearing them and much of what you heard I cannot recommend them and do not understand the popularity and hype. I think you have nailed it.
Are you sure you got the linton's? Fatiguing, incoherent, grainy, shouty midrange, cheap grill cloth, sloppy veneer edge work... I think you got pranked!!! It is not a monster of transparency for sure, but for a $500-600 speaker, it is not too shabby.
you know your stuff. yeah, i suppose i can somewhat understand the hype. for those who don't have a point of reference or much experience, the lintons probably sound fantastic....("wow, a full-bodied sound that isn't shrill and completely excruciating to listen to?! what is this strange device?"). what i don't understand is all the professional reviews heaping praise upon them. they are so obviously a cheap, toy product...not a real speaker.
i have pics. one of the rear corners was rounded and jagged with a glob of glue oozing out. this wasn't a repair...it definitely looked like a factory job. the crooked logo is just ridiculous. amazed they let that slide. my speakers were brand new, open box, from an authorized dealer in southern california. they aren't $500-600...i was saying they should be. they retail for $1500. i think the grill cloth is ugly. it looks like a plus size fishnet stocking from ross dress for less. the denton anniversary grilles are much prettier. yes, the midrange driver...the heart of the speaker...is bad. not just about transparency, it's a poor-quality driver. spend 30 seconds comparing it to harbeth's radial cone and the deficiencies are more than obvious. "fatiguing" not due to the brightness or metallic quality found in most speakers, but the lack of refinement, confused sound, shouty mids, port chuffing, and other artifacts wore me down after a while and i felt a little beaten up. i find it sad. the linton has so much going for it. i wish they'd put a little more care into the design. the problem is that the speaker has no class. that bothers me.
i'd like to add that a good friend of mine, an audiophile with sensibilities i trust, is probably going to buy the lintons from me. while he agrees with me for the most part on my assessment of the speaker, he is not as picky as i am. he prefers to focus on their strengths rather than their weaknesses. for him, they are better than what he had in his room, particularly in the bass department. every speaker is about compromises. thus said, if you own the lintons and you enjoy them, that's what it's all about. i have unusually high standards, which is actually more of a curse than a blessing.
So the Harbeth 30s are $3200 (original 2002? version), $6000 (newer version) or more ... not surprising you prefer them over the Lintons.
Why don't you tell us how you really feel, it is Christmas, and some of us love the linton's for what they are!
I heard the Lintons at AXPONA the year they came out. I had them to myself for a while and even had the option of putting on whichever record I wanted to hear. They were totally underwhelming to me, and I stated that on this forum back then. Shortly after that all the positive reviews started coming in; I figured I had a bad, audio-show audition. Haven't heard them since so I'll agree with the OP. I will ask the @TheSeeker , to take a few minuted to fill out his profile. Definitely recommended if you're going to make such damning review of a popular speaker.
there is that, yes. of course. but that doesn't change the problems with the lintons. there are speakers out there, such as some older spendor models for example, that i would much rather listen to than the lintons and for much less money. like i said, if the lintons retailed for $599 on sale for $429 with free shipping, i feel like that would be more in line with the quality of the product. i also think the harbeths are overpriced. great speakers, but i see no reason for them to be $6000 other than mystique, brand recognition, and marketing. it wouldn't have been that much of a stretch to put some decent parts in the wharfedales.
good for you. merry christmas! my friend who has my lintons feels the same way. i was just on the phone trying to talk him out of buying them from me, but they work for his needs right now.
I wish i could afford Harbeths. So my Lintons will have to do. To the OP (and anyone else) opinion on KEF LS 50, which is compared to Lintons, and in same price range.
It would make more sense to compare the Dentons to the LS50s, which I remember doing several years ago in a dedicated thread.
it's all about what sounds good to you. if the lintons are that, that's awesome. i would way rather have lintons than KEF ls50. i thought ls50s sounded way better than i thought they would, but i still found them sterile, a bit bright, slightly metallic, and way too "modern"-sounding for my taste. fiy, you can find a pair of used harbeths for not much more money than the lintons. in spite of my review of the lintons, i consider them to be one of the better choices out there. they are not screaming bright. the highs are smooth and can be very enjoyable to listen to. oddly, i found them to be at their best with classical. string quartets sound very good on them, probably because the tweeter is so well-mannered and it's not the type of program material that would upset the mid driver. put on something like the soft boys "underwater moonlight", however and you can hear the mids start shrieking away...a blurry smear of strident, in-your-face guitars. some of this is the recording, but the speakers are definitely not helping. the harbeths, by contrast, are way smoother. but then again, the lintons have a slightly larger scale so in a sense, the guitars sound bigger and more right on the lintons. vocals, no contest. you can hear the lintons showing their weaknesses. lintons: cool speaker more listenable than 80% of the speakers ever made way overpriced definitely a cheap speaker and sound like it you could do way worse in some rooms/systems, they may be the cat's pajamas i appreciate what the designer is doing very much...but the garbage kevlar drivers are really cheesy, imo the mid driver is a fail
this wasn't meant as a linton vs harbeth comparison....intended to be a linton review. i just mentioned what my reference speaker was. i also compared the lintons to my audioengine a2 desktop monitors as well as an old pair of AR active partners w/ sub.
On one hand, the Lintons have a “fantastically natural tonal balance...full and rich.” Yet, they also have “poor, unnatural tonality...artificial and "cheap"-sounding.” Just a little contradictory. What I really find odd though, is that they are a “little lacking, recessed, in the mid-bass "punch" region,” compared to Harbeth 30s, which are probably some of the least dynamic speakers I’ve heard in terms of midbass punch.
thanks for reply. I’ve heard Kefs sound analytical as opposed to musical. I know, subjective terms. I’m intrigued by Spendors. I’m a sucker for british speakers. But they get great reviews. Once again, out of my price range.
not at all contradictory. tonal balance and tonality are not the same thing. the first refers to the overall voicing of the speaker. the later refers to the quality and accuracy/realism factor in terms of natural rendering of voices and instruments. the speaker is voiced full and rich, but vocals do not sound like a human voice, etc. the harbeth is much fuller in the lower midrange. you can see this in the measurements. you can hear it as well. the wharfedale is much more flat in the lower mids, yet significantly more boosted in the bass region. nothing to do with dynamics. just a design choice. so for example with a kick drum, you'll hear more of the hit-you-in-the-chest punch on the harbeths, but way more room-shaking boom with the wharfedales.
That was my conclusion, and switched from the LS50s to the Dentons. I switched from the Dentons to Spendors (SP3/1R2), and now I'm done buying speakers.
you'd be surprised. a good pair of used spendors can be had for half that of the lintons. i share your love of british speakers.
