MEASURED PERFORMANCE

The Wharfedale Denton 80th Anniversary Edition measured flat on-axis, grill on or off. Slightly off-axis (i.e. pointing straight down a room and not at the listener), with grill on, it gave the result published. Taking the grill off made little difference, even above 10kHz where wavelengths are short, and off-axis balance differed little from on-axis so dispersion is good.  Phase matching was also very good, response varying little with height. Although looking retro, the Denton was in fact better than most modern loudspeakers in these important areas. The drive units are very high quality. 

Absence of a midband crossover dip will result in plentiful detail and a sense of definition, whilst the slow roll off in upper treble will ensure the sort of smooth sound older loudspeakers were known for. This is a loudspeaker that will not screech, yet it is tonally very accurate, more so than most. 

The bass unit reaches down to 70Hz and there is some peaking around 100Hz. The two small ports are broadly tuned (red trace) and effectively damp the bass unit so the Denton 80th has good bass control and will not boom or sound sloppy. Although port output reaches down low, small ports do not produce much acoustic power; their SPL was just +2dB up on forward output at 80Hz.

Our 200mS decay spectrum (not shown here) was clean, even at low frequencies; the cabinet is not ‘hot’ and will not overhang or boom. The drive units are relatively uncoloured too.

At 86dB sensitivity was high as small loudspeakers go, largely because a 4 Ohm bass unit has been used and, below 500Hz, this is a 4 Ohm loudspeaker our impedance curve shows (5.7 Ohms overall). This curve also confirms excellent bass unit damping by absence of residual peaks either side of the anti-resonant port system. The load is largely resistive, another plus point, as energy is not returned to the amplifier.

The Denton will have strong upper bass and a full bodied presentation, with smooth treble and plenty of mid-range detail. Bass looks controlled and should be of good quality. This is a very modern, well executed design. Only the cabinet is trad. NK

FREQUENCY RESPONSE (what it means)

Green - drive unit; Red - port

IMPEDANCE  (what it means)

DECAY SPECTRUM 200mS (what it means)

DECAY MAP 200mS (what it means)