Good morning Michael, i've just come across your channel and am really enjoying watching your videos. I am 72 years old. In 1974 i heard a pair of Lowther speakers driven by a Quad 33/303 and i thought they were brilliant. In 1979 i emigrated to Canada, and with becoming better off financially, i bought a Quad 33/303 power amp and preamp plus the fm3 tuner. I built the lowther 108 aucusta cabinets and bought a pair of Lowther drive units. I was happy!! I've since returned home to the U.K. i've built a pair of Lowther bicor200 cabinets and bought a pair of Lowther dx2 drivers. I saw in one of your videos that you worked at Quad and that ( unfortunately ) didn't rate the quad amps very highly. I still love my quads, in fact i now own several quad 33/303 36preamp 405 and 405 mk2 amps. My wife thinks i've gone mad!! I hope that your health improves, we all live in hope, and there are new treatments being discovered every day. All the best to you and your family. Oz.
Hello Oz. Thank you for taking the time to write to me. The Quad amplifiers are very well made and quite reliable. I've owned a number of Quad products over the years. Starting with the Quad 11 valve gear. I have also owned the 33, 303, AM and FM tuners and used many 405s in cinema applications. The only thing I would say, these days many amplifiers extract more detail and have faster transients. If ever you get a chance, try the L12/2 or the Duel 7293 chip amplifier. But, if you are happy with the Quads, that's the main thing. I have almost no experience with Lowther drive units, so cannot offer any comments. Kind Regards, Michael. PS what made you go back to the UK, if I may ask?
Hi Michael, thank you for your reply. Canada is a beautiful country, i lived in a small logging town about 50 miles north of Vancouver, British Columbia. I came back to Devon, England on holiday having bought a return air ticket. While back home i met a lovely girl ( well, woman ), and so i stayed and never used the return half of my ticket. I did become a Canadian citizen and i am trying to persuade Sue ( we got married! ) that we should spend our retirement years back in BC. Who knows, i might get lucky. As an aside, i applied and was granted one of the last £10 assisted passages to Australia when i was 23 years old, but even then a female made me not go!! One thing for sure, it's a wonderful life, i have no regrets and feel really lucky that i have Sue in my life. Best regards, Oz.
Ahhh, the power of a female to change your life lol. We have been in NZ for 20 years now. I cannot see us ever returning to the UK. NZ is far from perfect, but the poor old UK seems to be in a real mess in most respects.
I owned these for about 30 years. I really liked them. Speakers do get better as technology and materials improve. I replaced these with Monitor Audio Silver 500. The main improvements were on mid-range detail. I'm very pleased with them.
Nice video, thank you. Look's like the magnet center is not centered, perhaps they suffered a mechanical shock. Glad to see I'm not the only one using inter station FM noise to inspect speakers tonal differences.
The magnets were glued on many of Wharfedale's early loudspeakers. Many have lasted 30/40 years but they do fail in the end. Some can be re glued by tapping the magnet then re gluing them. Still not many products these days last 10 years and then cannot be repaired.
I have never seen the E90s in while. I bet that looks good. Mine were Walnut if I recall. The cabinets were always very good. The odd coloured ones were made from standard wood finish that had a blemish or cabinet fault. Too expensive to re veneer so they sanded them down and spayed them, white in your case. Often charging more in the process. Quite a common trick of a number of speaker makers. They also made a PRO version, more or less the same but in black with a quite heavy metal grill on the front. Sold mostly for the disco and the quality side of the PA market. Because they were a good 8 ohms a couple could safely be used in parallel on a 4-ohm amplifier.
Hi Bryan, yes, I remember Lasky's very well The E series are a little more efficient than most speakers. My favorite place for HiFi and kits was Tottenham Court Road in London. Happy days. Almost no HiFi in New Zealand. People these days are happy with a telephone or a sound bar. How sad is that?
Oh Michael, I am sooo happy to hear news from you. I so much hope you feel good. And I hope you will return with more. tips and ideas. How about a follow-up about the input-preamp with linear input impedance for the dual TDA 7293? i wish you the very best. Kind regards from Peter Rahbek
Hello Peter, it's good to hear from you again. Sadly, my health has not and will not improve. In fact, it will only get worse. This was not a new video; I simply re-edited it as I explained on the video. I will do my best to make a new video when I can. Thank you for your kind words, much appreciated Peter.
Oh, yup, I had a sensation this is really serious. I hope you do not have any serious pain and that doctors will take good care of you. Michael, both I and many other followers on your channel will misss your reports and advice here. It's such a good place to meet, with so much "cosyness" and you certainly have provided a beautiful atmosphere here for us. So sad to know you are in this situation. I just wish you comfort and assure you we will miss you and remain in contact with your wisdom and good vibes. Much love and may you enjoy every day. Hope and wish you will come back. Cheers, my friend.
Hi Michael. I am sure Darren can mend it. If he has the sparepsrts available. I have done it on Jamo bass loudspeakers. Great job Michael. Keep on rocking💪🇩🇰
It's good to know that Darren is still working. If you have his current mailing address, I'm sure as a link here.others here would be very pleased to see it.
Ive always liked wharfedales. I currently have a pair of dovedale 3. I had to put new dayton dome tweeters in. Luckily their response was very similar to the original purple ones.
Many years ago, I used to sell early Wharfedale loudspeakers. The tweeters were always the weak link. Later they gave up making their own and switched to an imported one, like on the E90s.
@@MichaelBeeny I used to have some Wharfedales back in the 70's, the tweeters were burnt out by ultrasonic feedback in the Armstrong amplifier caused by using the tape monitor switch when a cassette recorder was connected. Luckily I lived just a mile or two from the factory in Idle and replacements were available. I fitted fuses in the tweeters in the second set when I realized what the problem was. Happy days, David. edit, I still have the speakers actually but I'm not sure if I'd notice f the tweeters failed these days.
Yes, oscillating amplifiers will kill most tweeters of any make for sure. Sadly, fuses often won't act fast enough to protect the tweeters. I have blown both of my tweeters on my Monitor Audio Silver 500 with my amplifier. Expensive error to make.@@lamalandy
Hello Mike! I come back to your channel specifically for that video but what's my surprise? In Spain still available the original vídeo from 8 years ago. I would like to say thank you and please make another video of the Wharfedale E90.
I no longer have the E90s. I sold them some 3-4 years ago. I now have Monitor Audio Silver 500. I do have a couple of videos on them if you are interested. I had to take the original video down because of a copy right claim.
At last, a video which has comments turned on! Please Mr Beeny, before you criticise another amplifier for poor square wave rendition, just pass that square wave signal through a passive filter with a low pass of say 20 kHz. 3db point. It is an unusual human who can hear that high, middle aged people say 40ish may have problems above 12kHz. An amplifier with a pass band of 20 to 20kHz will not pass a 20kHz square wave as square. It will be more like a sine wave and attenuated. That's how the world works. A lower frequency square wave, say 100Hz may be useful as a quick check on frequency 'balance'. Used to be the in thing setting up tape decks using an analog scope. But today we have clever scopes and computers with frequency sweeps and FFT's to do that job on amplifiers.
You are quite correct of course but in my experience an amplifier with a much wider pass band, hence better shaped square waves sound better, more detail. The rise and fall speed also bring out detail. An oversimplification, but an amplifier with a poor and slow square wave, usually sounds dull and undramatic. I can often tell how and amplifier or preamp will measure by first listening to it. Which is in fact what I do.
Hi Michael - sorry to bother you on a very old video (5 years) but I have a quick question on that tiny little NE5532 SMD preamp you discussed back then. I'm interested in the configuration of the -ve op amp inputs - I've never seen an inverting op amp circuit with a resistor from the -ve pin to ground (100k in this case). Had you seen that before? Interestingly, I've checked the 'diodes' in my NE5532 on that preamp and they're there! Thanks, Andrew
Hi again Michael, i just finished looking at your video explaining why you will be finishing your channel. First off i would like to say how sorry i am to hear of how bad you feel. I will tell you of a story, which i hope will give YOU hope. My mother in law has had 4 stents and a valve in her heart replaced. She has had part of her lung removed. She has atrial fibrulation. She does take 7 tablets a day. But she is 92 years old, still lives in her own bungalow. One of her tablets regulates her heart. I hope you get the proper treatment you deserve. Do you think you might benefit from finding out if treatment back here in the UK. is a feasable option for you. Wishing you all the best. Oz.
Hello again Oz, I made that video because people kept asking me why no videos of late? Clearly, I understand many people have far worse medical issues than myself, but I thought an explanation was required. It does take a great deal of time to make even a 15-minuet video. Sometimes more than a day after editing. My vids do take ALOT of editing!! I have started a number of vids in the past followed by a couple of weeks of health issues. That video never gets finished. I do hope to get a few videos out ASAP. One on preamps, I have a number I have been listening to right now, just got to dig up the enthusiasm to do it. Travel is really out of the question, take it from me, when you feel unwell you don't want to be in an aircraft for sure.
Hi basically would i be able to grind the old speakers off from the rear and glue on new upgrades, making them look the same from the front but with better drivers
@@ranjitbhambhra5165 You would have to spend a lot of money to get upgraded drivers. If these were currently in production they would cost about £900-1000
@@ranjitbhambhra5165 Why would you grind them off - don't you own a screwdriver? 🤔 You could probably make quite a few hundred pounds selling the drivers on ebay, or don't you need the money? 🤔
Good morning Michael, i've just come across your channel and am really enjoying watching your videos. I am 72 years old. In 1974 i heard a pair of Lowther speakers driven by a Quad 33/303 and i thought they were brilliant. In 1979 i emigrated to Canada, and with becoming better off financially, i bought a Quad 33/303 power amp and preamp plus the fm3 tuner. I built the lowther 108 aucusta cabinets and bought a pair of Lowther drive units. I was happy!! I've since returned home to the U.K. i've built a pair of Lowther bicor200 cabinets and bought a pair of Lowther dx2 drivers. I saw in one of your videos that you worked at Quad and that ( unfortunately ) didn't rate the quad amps very highly. I still love my quads, in fact i now own several quad 33/303 36preamp 405 and 405 mk2 amps. My wife thinks i've gone mad!! I hope that your health improves, we all live in hope, and there are new treatments being discovered every day. All the best to you and your family. Oz.
Hello Oz. Thank you for taking the time to write to me. The Quad amplifiers are very well made and quite reliable. I've owned a number of Quad products over the years. Starting with the Quad 11 valve gear. I have also owned the 33, 303, AM and FM tuners and used many 405s in cinema applications. The only thing I would say, these days many amplifiers extract more detail and have faster transients. If ever you get a chance, try the L12/2 or the Duel 7293 chip amplifier. But, if you are happy with the Quads, that's the main thing. I have almost no experience with Lowther drive units, so cannot offer any comments. Kind Regards,
Michael.
PS what made you go back to the UK, if I may ask?
Hi Michael, thank you for your reply. Canada is a beautiful country, i lived in a small logging town about 50 miles north of Vancouver, British Columbia. I came back to Devon, England on holiday having bought a return air ticket. While back home i met a lovely girl ( well, woman ), and so i stayed and never used the return half of my ticket. I did become a Canadian citizen and i am trying to persuade Sue ( we got married! ) that we should spend our retirement years back in BC. Who knows, i might get lucky. As an aside, i applied and was granted one of the last £10 assisted passages to Australia when i was 23 years old, but even then a female made me not go!! One thing for sure, it's a wonderful life, i have no regrets and feel really lucky that i have Sue in my life. Best regards, Oz.
Ahhh, the power of a female to change your life lol. We have been in NZ for 20 years now. I cannot see us ever returning to the UK. NZ is far from perfect, but the poor old UK seems to be in a real mess in most respects.
Good to see you back. Hope your health issues are over
Sadly, I have major heart issues that haven't and will not get better. I do what I can when I can. However, I appreciate your good wishes, thank you.
Very neat repair. Those speakers look fantastic and they look like they would sound fantastic too!
I owned these for about 30 years. I really liked them. Speakers do get better as technology and materials improve. I replaced these with Monitor Audio Silver 500. The main improvements were on mid-range detail. I'm very pleased with them.
They say midrange is the hardest part to get right, and I agree! @@MichaelBeeny
Nice video, thank you. Look's like the magnet center is not centered, perhaps they suffered a mechanical shock. Glad to see I'm not the only one using inter station FM noise to inspect speakers tonal differences.
The magnets were glued on many of Wharfedale's early loudspeakers. Many have lasted 30/40 years but they do fail in the end. Some can be re glued by tapping the magnet then re gluing them. Still not many products these days last 10 years and then cannot be repaired.
Wonderful to see. I picked up a pair of E90 in '86 while stationed in England. $749. Still use them today.
I have never seen the E90s in while. I bet that looks good. Mine were Walnut if I recall. The cabinets were always very good. The odd coloured ones were made from standard wood finish that had a blemish or cabinet fault. Too expensive to re veneer so they sanded them down and spayed them, white in your case. Often charging more in the process. Quite a common trick of a number of speaker makers.
They also made a PRO version, more or less the same but in black with a quite heavy metal grill on the front. Sold mostly for the disco and the quality side of the PA market. Because they were a good 8 ohms a couple could safely be used in parallel on a 4-ohm amplifier.
I got them while in England. They are walnut.
So sorry! I miss read your e mail. It was almost 12pm. That's my excuse.@@clc2112
I remember seeing the complete E series on display in the early 80s at Laskeys Birmingham. They went loud !!
Hi Bryan, yes, I remember Lasky's very well The E series are a little more efficient than most speakers. My favorite place for HiFi and kits was Tottenham Court Road in London. Happy days. Almost no HiFi in New Zealand. People these days are happy with a telephone or a sound bar. How sad is that?
Hello sir, I am very happy to see your new video. Your video has taught me a lot, thank you very much!
Thank you for your kind words, most appreciated.
Oh Michael, I am sooo happy to hear news from you. I so much hope you feel good. And I hope you will return with more. tips and ideas. How about a follow-up about the input-preamp with linear input impedance for the dual TDA 7293? i wish you the very best. Kind regards from Peter Rahbek
Hello Peter, it's good to hear from you again. Sadly, my health has not and will not improve. In fact, it will only get worse. This was not a new video; I simply re-edited it as I explained on the video. I will do my best to make a new video when I can. Thank you for your kind words, much appreciated Peter.
Oh, yup, I had a sensation this is really serious. I hope you do not have any serious pain and that doctors will take good care of you. Michael, both I and many other followers on your channel will misss your reports and advice here. It's such a good place to meet, with so much "cosyness" and you certainly have provided a beautiful atmosphere here for us. So sad to know you are in this situation. I just wish you comfort and assure you we will miss you and remain in contact with your wisdom and good vibes. Much love and may you enjoy every day. Hope and wish you will come back. Cheers, my friend.
Thank you, Peter, I really appreciate your kind words. I will do my best as and when I can.@@danskebassister22
Hi Michael. I am sure Darren can mend it. If he has the sparepsrts available. I have done it on Jamo bass loudspeakers. Great job Michael. Keep on rocking💪🇩🇰
It's good to know that Darren is still working. If you have his current mailing address, I'm sure as a link here.others here would be very pleased to see it.
Ive always liked wharfedales. I currently have a pair of dovedale 3. I had to put new dayton dome tweeters in. Luckily their response was very similar to the original purple ones.
Many years ago, I used to sell early Wharfedale loudspeakers. The tweeters were always the weak link. Later they gave up making their own and switched to an imported one, like on the E90s.
@@MichaelBeeny I used to have some Wharfedales back in the 70's, the tweeters were burnt out by ultrasonic feedback in the Armstrong amplifier caused by using the tape monitor switch when a cassette recorder was connected. Luckily I lived just a mile or two from the factory in Idle and replacements were available. I fitted fuses in the tweeters in the second set when I realized what the problem was. Happy days, David. edit, I still have the speakers actually but I'm not sure if I'd notice f the tweeters failed these days.
Yes, oscillating amplifiers will kill most tweeters of any make for sure. Sadly, fuses often won't act fast enough to protect the tweeters. I have blown both of my tweeters on my Monitor Audio Silver 500 with my amplifier. Expensive error to make.@@lamalandy
Hi Michael, wishing you all the very best from a fellow kiwi. Regards, Andrew
Hi Andrew, I'm not really a Kiwi but a very kind thought anyway.
Well, I knew it wasn't an NZ accent but I assumed you'd been here long enough to be an honorary 'kiwi'.
@@abcnz1 I'm from the UK but been in NZ 20 years so honorary Kiwi sounds good to me. Thank you.
Hello Mike! I come back to your channel specifically for that video but what's my surprise? In Spain still available the original vídeo from 8 years ago. I would like to say thank you and please make another video of the Wharfedale E90.
I no longer have the E90s. I sold them some 3-4 years ago. I now have Monitor Audio Silver 500. I do have a couple of videos on them if you are interested.
I had to take the original video down because of a copy right claim.
At last, a video which has comments turned on! Please Mr Beeny, before you criticise another amplifier for poor square wave rendition, just pass that square wave signal through a passive filter with a low pass of say 20 kHz. 3db point. It is an unusual human who can hear that high, middle aged people say 40ish may have problems above 12kHz. An amplifier with a pass band of 20 to 20kHz will not pass a 20kHz square wave as square. It will be more like a sine wave and attenuated. That's how the world works. A lower frequency square wave, say 100Hz may be useful as a quick check on frequency 'balance'. Used to be the in thing setting up tape decks using an analog scope. But today we have clever scopes and computers with frequency sweeps and FFT's to do that job on amplifiers.
You are quite correct of course but in my experience an amplifier with a much wider pass band, hence better shaped square waves sound better, more detail. The rise and fall speed also bring out detail. An oversimplification, but an amplifier with a poor and slow square wave, usually sounds dull and undramatic. I can often tell how and amplifier or preamp will measure by first listening to it. Which is in fact what I do.
Hi Michael.... ciao from Italy !
Hello from a rather warm 28c New Zealand, welcome.
Hi Michael - sorry to bother you on a very old video (5 years) but I have a quick question on that tiny little NE5532 SMD preamp you discussed back then. I'm interested in the configuration of the -ve op amp inputs - I've never seen an inverting op amp circuit with a resistor from the -ve pin to ground (100k in this case). Had you seen that before? Interestingly, I've checked the 'diodes' in my NE5532 on that preamp and they're there! Thanks, Andrew
Hi again Michael, i just finished looking at your video explaining why you will be finishing your channel. First off i would like to say how sorry i am to hear of how bad you feel. I will tell you of a story, which i hope will give YOU hope. My mother in law has had 4 stents and a valve in her heart replaced. She has had part of her lung removed. She has atrial fibrulation. She does take 7 tablets a day. But she is 92 years old, still lives in her own bungalow. One of her tablets regulates her heart. I hope you get the proper treatment you deserve. Do you think you might benefit from finding out if treatment back here in the UK. is a feasable option for you. Wishing you all the best. Oz.
Hello again Oz,
I made that video because people kept asking me why no videos of late? Clearly, I understand many people have far worse medical issues than myself, but I thought an explanation was required. It does take a great deal of time to make even a 15-minuet video. Sometimes more than a day after editing. My vids do take ALOT of editing!! I have started a number of vids in the past followed by a couple of weeks of health issues. That video never gets finished. I do hope to get a few videos out ASAP. One on preamps, I have a number I have been listening to right now, just got to dig up the enthusiasm to do it. Travel is really out of the question, take it from me, when you feel unwell you don't want to be in an aircraft for sure.
Do you think it's better than TDA8954?
Hi there pops, how are you doing?
Hi there is it possible to take the speaker apart from the housing and re glue a new speaker from behind.
I'm not really sure what you are asking. None of the drivers are meant to be glued. All are screw fitting.
Hi basically would i be able to grind the old speakers off from the rear and glue on new upgrades, making them look the same from the front but with better drivers
@@ranjitbhambhra5165 You would have to spend a lot of money to get upgraded drivers. If these were currently in production they would cost about £900-1000
@@ranjitbhambhra5165 Why would you grind them off - don't you own a screwdriver? 🤔 You could probably make quite a few hundred pounds selling the drivers on ebay, or don't you need the money? 🤔
ciao cosa hai utilizzato come ricambio midrange?
Questo è un vecchio video. Il fornitore non è più in attività.