Wharfedale Coleridge Speaker System Review

Wharfedale, a respected British loudspeaker manufacturer founded in 1932 by Gilbert Briggs, has developed a new speaker system that combines classically uncolored English (BBC-type) sound with the greater dynamic capability typical of the best American designs. The Wharfedale Coleridge is a compact two-way system whose 8-inch woofer operates in a ported enclosure. High frequencies (above an unspecified crossover frequency) are radiated by a l-inch titanium-dome tweeter whose directivity is said to match that of the bass driver in the crossover region. The tweeter’s voice coil, wound on an aluminum former, is cooled by ferrofluid.

The woofer cone is formed of a special polypropylene material called “mineral-filled homo-polymer” (MFHP). Wharfedale says that MFHP produces less coloration and has better dynamic qualities than other cone materials. Also used is a “sandwich mount,” which clamps the woofer chassis firmly to both sides of the front panel, stiffening the cabinet to minimize its effect on the sound.

The Coleridge cabinet is available finished in either natural or black ash on all visible surfaces except the top, including the front and back panels. The removable gray cloth grille is sculptured to reduce the apparent bulk of the speaker. The top is covered in a water-proof, mar-resistant gray laminate. The cabinet also has an integral 1-1/2-inch-high base, which conceals the port opening and the connection terminals (multiway binding posts that accept dual banana plugs).

The Wharfedale Coleridge measures 19 inches high, including the base, and 10-1/8 inches square (plus a half-inch front grille extension). Each speaker weighs 30 pounds. Price: $700 each.

Lab Tests

We placed the Wharfedale Coleridge speakers on short stands that raised their tweeters to slightly below a seated listener’s ear level. They were 2 feet from the back wall, 7 feet apart, and 5 to 6 feet from the side walls. The composite frequency-response curve, formed by splicing a close-miked woofer response to the averaged room response of the left and right speakers, was very smooth and notably free of the usual irregularities caused by room-boundary reflections. Output varied only 2.5 dB overall between 50 and 1.000 Hz, sloped down gently (about 6 to 7 dB) from 1,000 to 3,000 Hz, and remained nearly constant up to 10.000 Hz. The curve rose about 8 dB in the uppermost octave, from 10.000 to 20,000 Hz. The overall response variation was ±4.5 dB from 33 to 20,000 Hz.

Quasi-anechoic FFT response measurements clearly revealed the cause of the high-frequency rise. The tweeter had a large, undamped resonance at about 23,000 Hz, with an amplitude of at least 16 dB. In the fit measurement, the lower skirt of this peak affected the response at frequencies as low as 8.000 Hz. The Coleridge’s phase linearity was excellent, however, with an overall group-delay variation of less than 0.1 millisecond from 4,000 to 20,000 Hz and a maximum of 0.5 millisecond at 400 Hz.

Horizontal dispersion was good up to about 18,000 Hz except in the region between 2,000 and 3,000 Hz (apparently the crossover to the tweeter). In that range, the output measured at 1 meter from the speaker varied about 6 to 8 dB over an angle of 45 degrees off the forward axis. At other frequencies, such as from 4,000 to 10,000 Hz, the response curves taken on-axis and 45 degrees off-axis were very similar except for a level difference of about 3 dB.

Sensitivity was a very high 92 dB sound-pressure level (SPL) at 1 meter with an input of 2.83 volts of pink noise. The speaker’s impedance descended to 7 ohms between 200 and 400 Hz and reached a maximum of 24 ohms at 100 Hz. Although the impedance did fall to 4.5 ohms between 12,000 and 15.000 Hz, a rating of 8 ohms would be justifiable.

The bass distortion, measured at the woofer cone with an input of 2.25 volts (equivalent to a 90-dB SPL in our sensitivity measurement), was about 7 percent at 25 Hz, falling to between 1 and 2 percent from 40 to 65 Hz and varying from 0.2 to 0.7 percent between 100 and 1,000 Hz. Since the effective crossover to the port was at approximately 100 Hz, we also measured the distortion there and found that it dropped off smoothly from 15 percent at 20 Hz to 1 percent at 44 Hz and 0.4 percent at 100 Hz.

The woofer cone bottomed with a single-cycle input of 160 watts into its 24-ohm impedance at 100 Hz. Few amplifiers, however, can deliver that much power into such a high impedance. At 1,000 and 10,000 Hz, the amplifier clipped at respective outputs of 470 and 1,285 watts before the speaker distorted seriously.

Comments

The sound of the Wharfedale Coleridge was very smooth and balanced, making it an easy speaker to listen to. It had no obvious emphasis or lack of output at any frequency, and the 23,000-hz tweeter resonance peak had no audible effects that we could discern. Comparisons with a comparably priced pair of Celestion SL-12si speakers showed a fairly close match in tonal balance between the two, although their spatial qualities were very different (the width of the sound stage produced by the Coleridge system was essentially equal to the spacing between the two speakers).

Despite its small size, the Coleridge could be played at high volumes without sounding strained. Its high sensitivity enables high levels to be achieved with almost any amplifier; a few watts should be sufficient to satisfy the most hard-of-hearing listener, yet we felt no hesitation in driving it with a 350-watt amplifier.

The discrepancy between the speaker’s on-axis and off-axis response in the region between 2,000 and 3,000 Hz was one of the few respects in which our measurements appeared to be at odds with the claimed performance of the Wharfedale Coleridge, although we may have misinterpreted some statements concerning the woofer and tweeter’s matched directivities in the crossover region that are made in Wharfedale’s very interesting and informative booklet describing the system’s features. We have seen similar crossover irregularities with other speakers, but they carried no specific claims for freedom from this common effect.

Nevertheless, the Coleridge impressed us as a distinctly above-average small speaker, combining attractive styling and very good sound, including unusually deep and distortion-free bass for its size. Though priced considerably above Wharfedale’s standard line of speakers, it nevertheless represents a reasonable value today.

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