The Linton's came yesterday afternoon. They are amazing and worth every penny. My wife and I spent the whole night listening to music. If you like the Denton's you will love these. Glad I got them. They will be with me a long time, I can tell. The Onkyo A9150 does pretty dang well actually up to moderate volume .The tone is really nice from the combo. However I can tell they lack a little control which more power would probably help. They sounded similar to the Dentons when new so I can tell these will get better with some hours on them. He is my floor plan to give you an idea about the power handling. Black rectangles the speakers. about ~2 feet from wall and ~7 feet apart. Whole floor plan is 1000sqft. I'd say the living room/kitchen is about ~500sq ft
Hi All, New member here. I think I’ve read this thread 2 or 3 times over. I just ordered a pair in mahogany and they should arrive Friday. I love the looks, and hope to love the sound. I never was a fan of an overly analytical speaker, and from what I read, these are the opposite of that. Somewhere in this thread, someone mentioned that their Luxman amps excelled with these speakers. Bingo! I have a Luxman integrated. It’s class A amplification, and 30 wpc, so my only concern is whether or not the power is enough. I ordered from Crutchfield, so I have 60 days to figure that out. I’ll be posting my thoughts. Jim
I am using them with a Carver Crimson 275 (75w per channel). My preamp dial starts at 7 o’clock and I am never past 9 o’clock, in fact 9 is too loud for me. So I would expect 30 clean watts to be plenty. Two things though... 1. It took a while for the speakers or my brain to break in. At first I found them far too polite and disappointing. 2. They really need room to breath, at least in my room. They are currently 30 inches (or so) from the wall. That is 30 to the back of the speaker. Bringing them so far into the room really improved everything about their sound.
Hey there, I am just starting to get into the audiophile game here and am slowly upgrading my system, piece by piece. I finally bit the bullet and purchased the Wharfedale Lintons. The other components of my system are mediocre at best and I want to make sure that I won't have any compatibility issues with my cheap Onkyo receiver (mainly to make sure I am not going to blow out the speakers). I'm currently using an Onkyo TX-NR777 with a power rating of: THX Certified select Reference sound with 220 W per Channel (6 ohms, 1 kHz, 10% THD, 1 Channel Driven); 110 W/Ch. (8 ohms, 20 Hz-20 kHz, 0.08% THD, 2 channels Driven, FTC) Basically, I am looking to see if anyone can confirm that I won't risk damaging the Lintons by hooking them up to this receiver. Thanks in advance for any assistance!
No you won't. When a speaker is underdriven it will warn you...you will hear the drivers "warning" you. With 110 watts this can only happen if you max the volume in your amp. Always, no matter the amp or speakers, increase the volume slowly and you'll understand if it's OK. If you hear distortion when you turn up the volume it means the amp is not capable to drive this pair of speakers. If you often listen music LOUD invest in a powerful amp, you can never have too much power. If not, your receiver is fine as far as driving skills, sound is subjective.
Juts an update on the Lintons. I had my right speaker hooked up out of phase for one whole week! You are all welcome to laugh at me. The sound with one speaker out of phase was still really nice! Needless to say they are now even better. Bass is where it is supposed to be. The imaging is crazy now. The sound is everything I have hoped for. The A9150 is perfect amount of power for my apartment. I left my neighbors a note saying to text me if its ever to loud. I also did a test I put on about as loud as I ever listen and stood outside my door and the music is barely audible. Also good news my four cats have not jumped on top of them yet. They do get there fur on the black speaker grills. No big deal why I got an open box pair. They also must like the vibrations they put out because they all hang out by the stands when they are playing music. Thanks for everyone that contributed to this thread lots of good info!
I also just followed the L/R tags on the speakers when they arrived. Since I’m just test driving them, I didn’t want to pry off the grills. I checked with a flashlight this morning, and sure enough, the tweeters were on the outside. According to a post in this thread, Crutchfield says they belong on the inside. This is also true of a couple of video tests/showcasing of the Lintons. I’ve reversed them, and now I’ll listen again. My initial thought is that there won’t be much or any difference, but don’t we all obsess over small increments of change. Sidewall interaction would also be altered, and now toe-in needs to be played with too. I’ve lived with open baffle speakers for three years, so I need some time to adjust to that too. And, FWIW, I also didn’t want to use the rubber feet- I’m trying to keep any return fuss to a minimum- so I cut up one of those jar open grippers, and it works quite well. No marks on the speaker bottoms, and it grips quite well. I’ve read about using Blu-tack, but I’m going to wait until I’ve made my final decision.
I was juts coming to this thread to say that mine were packed incorrectly too! I noticed yesterday. L was right and R was left. What is annoying is the printed manual the speakers came with make no mention tweeters on the inside. however, the online PDF manual mentions it. See below: They seem to play more balanced and with more focus this way. I think some people would actually prefer the tweeters on the outside so its probably worth messing with both and seeing what you like
My Lintons arrived on Saturday; I was underwhelmed to say the least. A few days in the house, getting them oriented properly as to right/left tweeter placement, has made them much more approachable. They sounded hard at first- they quite literally came in from the cold. I have to wrap my head around the fact that all this satisfying bass is coming from one eight inch driver. I’m going to let these settle in some more, but so far I’m liking what I hear. My only concern right now is that they DO take more power to get going than my very efficient open baffle speakers. I’m watching the meters like a hawk!
Hi Jim, I think I may be the guy you were referring to regarding Luxman amplification. After reading your last post, you said you were watching your metres like a hawk. I know you said you were using 30 watts class A which in most cases especially when using Luxman should be plenty of power. But I must say I notice these speakers are not as efficient as the #’s say. I have no actual proof of this, it’s just a feeling I have when I compare them to other speakers with the same efficiency rating. They do not sound great at higher volumes, but just for average listening I think they’re great. I am using a new Luxman L509X 120watts class AB I have some other luxman amps around 60 watts that I’ve tried, they all sound pretty good. Enjoy the music
Thanks for the response Kostas. My Lintons arrived a couple of days ago and I am about 15 hours into breaking them in thus far. I was a little disappointed at first, but they are certainly starting to warm up with some break in. I was looking to upgrade my speaker cables, but the plugs on the back of the Lintons seems to be a different size than the standard banana plug. Could anyone tell me what the size is, or what exactly I should be looking for to find a cable to will fit properly? Any recommendations for speaker cable would also be welcome, thanks in advance!
Wow, I am getting more interested in these as time goes on ... but I SHOULD wait, maybe next Xmas?! I haven't even given my 'new' setup (in our ID house, finally moving there soon) much time yet, but the A 21 should be plenty great driving them (if I get them). Certainly woofers break in, my Titus monitors had 'no' bass before 10s of hours, then came 'on song' quite nicely and amazingly. The next thing was when I got AP Oval 9 speaker cable, the bass seemingly extended another octave (but without getting boomy, in fact it got even tighter and more musical, as did the entire presentation). This was after 100s of hours on the Tituses, so they were totally broken in when I got the Oval 9. It's the only high end cable I've ever used (better than the AQ Slate biwire I had before), so maybe take 'with a grain of salt' but they are almost universally praised. Mine have large spades on the speaker end, I hope/assume they'll work well with the Linton connectors. Wharfedale Linton Heritage loudspeaker Measurements shows the Lintons are 88dB/W/m instead of the 90 specified, not substantial but a little less. It does seem to require a good 4 ohm rated amp, which the Luxman should be (I've read it can put out 4x its rated power into 4 ohms). The elevated bass response does also seem to favor pulling them out into the room (which I would do anyway, love imaging/soundstaging over too much bass). Seems like away from walls, they should be 'just right'. IIUC the Lintons are not super-detailed nor possibly amazing imagers ... but play music. I think they'd make a nice alternate sound to my Silver 8 speakers, and complement my 300B/Titus setup too. Woo, 3 speakers to alternate thru, sounds very nice.
A few pages back I complained about the upper mids/lower treble being too forward when running the Linton's on my Cambridge CXA81. The bass response also seemed to be a bit all over the place since I had the speakers pretty much right up the back wall. It was my poor man's EQ, trying to get more bass to balance out the forward mids/treble. I have now rectified this problem by careful speaker repositioning. I've moved them 3 ft away from the wall. I was afraid this would make the speakers sound bass shy, but au contraire (I've always wanted to use that expression and now seemed like the perfect opportunity): The bass is now fuller (!), better defined and more balanced and this new placement also reduces early reflections. Win win! Oh, and I ditched the Cambridge amp and got a Yamaha A-S2200 instead. The Cambridge is a terrific piece of equipment, mind you, and I'm actually sad to see it go but I do love the tone controls (and backlit meters!) on the A-S2200. I'll definitely miss the CXA81 – and in some areas it's actually a better amp – but I can't afford to have them both! Anyway, the improved speaker positioning (in combination with the Yamaha, maybe, perhaps?) turned out to be a marked improvement. These are very good speakers. Perfect, no, but hopefully these will last my lifetime.
I've moved the Linton's around into 4 different positions - I'm afraid my preference would probably make some people's eyebrows raise up - i'm in a high ceiling double living room and it's got length - the speakers are being used not just for vinyl, digital music but also to drive sound out from the TV set up - so they are being asked to do a fair bit since I want them to have impact not just in the front part of the room but also to reach back to the back of the room where we eat - and *gasp* I'm also using the balance on my amp to put more power through the left channel than the roght which is further up the room. I like how it sounds but I'm worried the audio police may come for me in the night
As observed by several already, my Lintons came mislabeled R/L as well. I set them up that way and liked the sound. Once I got them oriented correctly, I liked it even more. I am using a Yamaha A-S701 integrated amplifier. The amp has a "pure direct" setting that removes the tone control circuitry from the signal path. I use that almost exclusively when listening to classical music. Very clean and well balanced sound with the Lintons. For rock and other genres, I sometimes want to kick up the bass a bit, so I can switch out of the pure direct mode and use the tone controls. The Lintons can rock out just fine, too. I need to experiment with placement some more, but I need to sell my Polk SDA SRS 2 speakers first. The Polks take up some real estate for sure.
I don’t know if someone is playing a trick on me or if I’m actually going mad, but there’s some weird **** going on right now. My Linton’s suddenly sounds VERY rolled off with absolutely no harsh upper midrange/lower treble. Did someone break in and fiddle with my speakers last night? Or is it my Yamaha amp that suddenly changed character over night? I’m not sure I buy into this ”burn in” stuff some people claim is a genuine thing. Burn in on speakers kinda makes sense with it being an actual physical thing, but electronics...? The odd thing is I now need to crank the treble control all the way up to get decent treble and a sense of air. Very weird. Maybe I lost a large part of my upper frequency hearing just like that? Very odd. Stay tuned for more strange updates as I gradually lose my mind. PS. My speakers were also sent with wrong left and right labelling!
OH NO, very sorry to read this. I don't think it's burn in, but it MIGHT be a loose/broken tweeter wire (or bad tweeter(s))? When I set up my Monitor Audio Silver 8s (which were bought as 'scratch and dents' and yes, they were ...) after they were moved across several states and sat around for 5 years (long story) the soundstage was skewed WAY left. I noticed immediately that there was no sound coming from the RH speaker's tweeter. After looking things up, I removed the tweeter and saw one of the wires (actually the crimped-on connector on the wire) had cracked/broken in half. Strange but not super-surprising, as the connector itself was bent to accommodate the 'splayed' male terminal on the tweeter. Not MA's greatest design implementation, sorry. I put on a new crimp connector, pulled the wire a little more and gently bent IT around to get the right angle ... hopefully it'll remain good and everything is fine now. Play some music or wideband noise ... are the tweeters and other speakers functioning? Do you have other speakers to try? another amp? Several variables, but I'm sure 'break in' isn't the culprit, something else happened. BTW, since I'd like to possibly get some of the Lintons sometime, which way is 'correct'? Tweeters 'in' or 'out' ...?
Strange stuff. Maybe it is a tweeter. The manual online says tweeters in, but I thought they sounded good with them on the outside too.
Hello. I just picked my Linton speakers. Being that I love the sound of my Denton 80TH speakers, I expect these Linton to shine!
Seems like a lot of happy Wharfedale listeners on the forum. Question I'd like to ask people who have purchased them ,what other speakers did you audition again them if any and where do you think they rate against more expensive speakers as the price seems very reasonable with the satisfaction level on here. Reason I ask is that in a test against various other speakers including the JBL 82 Ls which are double the price they seemed to favour the Wharfedales,I've heard the JBLs at a friend's and was impressed, not had chance to listen to the Wharfedales due to the lockdown has anyone compared these two.
If I would have do describe sound after I recapped my Sansui it would be the same. When I first started listening it was meh, worse than before, then after few hours it started sounding dirty, congested, no soundstage, almost mono. Then after a day or so and next few days sounded just the exact opposite - too lively in treble. I think it settled in about week time and now sounds better than I imagined it would, just epic. All this was so obvious that nobody can ever tell me electronics don't break-in.
This is exactly what I'm feeling. I too am using the cxa81. Vinyly via my Technic sl1500c is better than anything digital. I pulled my Dali e12 sub from the home cinema and it has improved things a lot. Everything sounds so HARSH. I have a SVS SB2000 arriving tomorrow. I'm praying its all gonna ease up and run in and match all the reviews I've been reading.
@swintonlion I auditioned the Lintons against KEF R3s & R5s & Q750s and B&W 602s. I‘ve had the Lintons now for 15 months and listened to them A LOT and I can honestly say that I‘ve never felt the urge to upgrade them or get other speakers. Because my room is sonicly difficult I added a REL T5i subwoofer last spring and I‘ve been very happy with my system ever since.
My SVS sub arrived yesterday [ the 2000 pro so I can play with it from my listening position via the app] and the speakers sound so much better. I’m playing constantly to get everything eased in as quickly as possible.
