David Holgate wrote in message ...

Once you have listened to all three options, it would be interesting to
hear how you rate the Wharfedale Dentons in relation to the other two.
I saw a pair recently and wondered, given their age, what they
sound like compared with newer bookshelf speakers.

Ah, Wharfedale Denton 2's - now that takes me back!. I had a pair of
Denton 2's, handed down from my grandmother, on the end of my first
proper hi-fi system - a NAD 3020e amplifier and a Philips CD160. That
were way back in about 1986, and the Denton 2's were at least 10 years
old then.

With regards comparing them to modern bookshelf speakers, I'm afraid
it isn't a fair comparison. When one of the tweeters blew on my
Dentons (due, I suspect, to old age rather than abuse) I replaced them
with a pair of JPW Sonatas. The JPWs blew the Dentons away - and it
wasn't a small, subtle difference, it was a huge difference. (And this
was through a £100 budget amp.)

The fabric tweeters on the Dentons basically produce no high treble at
all - you don't really miss it unless you've heard a better pair of
speakers. They are also pretty deficient in terms of low bass. I
hesitate to call them rubbish, but I would imagine that pretty much
any modern £100 bookshelf speaker will be an order of magnitude
better.

(Now the JPW Sonatas that I replaced them with - I'd be impressed if
anyone has bettered those by any great margin nowadays. They were
fantastic little speakers for the money. Mine are still going, running
as extension speakers in another room, and I am hard-pressed to tell
the difference between them and my main speakers, a pair of
floorstanding Monitor Audio MA202s.)

So, for what it's worth, I'd let the Denton's retire gracefully - they
must be 30 years old!

Simon