Wharfedale Linton Heritage 85th Anniversary


These are fun speakers.  They are musical and smooth. An absolute pleasure to hear with tubes.

I cannot believe how well made they are at this price point.  I'd like to wheel in a pair of Harbeths or Spendors (classic type) to have a shootout.  The stands are well executed.  Everything feels substantial and high end.  Color me impressed.  


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Klipsch Forte III seem like a violent speakers, not sure is the typical "America" speakers sound? Feel a lot of USA made sound way too aggressive for "British" audience, I love their amps made in USA though, more violent more good :P
Right up to murder their is more violent crime in UK than USA .And that's saying a lot !Both London and Glasgow have 10X more than Berlin .

@schubert  Human is different story to tell than speakers, I suppose. Dead speakers serve the ears, alive human serve nobody.
Timely thread for me. I just landed a pair of Forte III's and was also considering the Linton's (which BTW are now sold out on MD). I like the idea thrown out by @big_katydid. Buy a few different "flavors" and swap them out instead of constantly chasing. Like what I am hearing about the Linton's and may be a nice contrast to the Forte III's. Enjoy the journey!

@tjmpark I heard the forte III at axpona, wish I could have heard the heresy iii also (there too) but couldn’t really get a sense of what they can do due to unfamiliarity with the track played.

As for ’flavors’ and not to derail from the thread I do also have basic EQ in my systems, one just a bass/treble and other has a mixer with low/mid/high and I find it extremely useful that on poor recordings (lets say compressed and hot) if I nudge the mid and high down just a bit it can make the whole thing much more bearable. If a track is very thin I can nudge the bass up a touch. I think having just one unadjustable sound from kit is anathema to the ’collector’ and no wonder we always want to swap things out, trouble in this hobby is boxes are big, heavy and usually expensive (or very expensive).

The forte III plus linton could offer an nice contrast though right now the lintons qualities are still to be more revealed, though my impression of them (from what I heard at axpona) is that they were engaging but relaxed. I’m ways away from having a selection of 3-4 speakers but I can imagine having a ’pipe and slippers’/dynamic high sensitivity/midrange centric that type of thing depending on recording quality/mood/volume needed/music style/film style.

I suppose once you know your favored and most listened to presentation you could upgrade one of the speakers as you se fit, see it never ends.....