Wharfedale W25 (c. 1970–1972)

The Wharfedale W25 is a lightly documented compact loudspeaker from the early 1970s, marketed by Wharfedale as the "Achromatic" W25. Its period footprint is small but real: a launch ad campaign, a full magazine test, and a later speaker-directory listing.

Wharfedale's own advertising, carried in HiFi/Stereo Review (November 1970, p.13), pitched the W25 as a system able to take the output of powerful modern amplifiers and give it back as clean, undistorted sound. The ad credited a professional LCR crossover network with minimizing the usual electrical and acoustical distortions, and unitized cabinet construction with keeping the sturdy enclosure free of buzzes and resonances. List price was $58.75, and the ad presented the W25 as one of six Wharfedale speaker systems in the campaign.

Driver details come from HiFi/Stereo Review's March 1971 use test (p.42), which reported a front-mounted 8-inch woofer and a 2½-inch cone tweeter. In the magazine's live-vs-recorded listening test the W25 placed among the better speakers it had run through that procedure — a surprise, the reviewer noted, given the low price. Bass was modest, and the speaker was not penalized for it because the test does not reach below 200 Hz. Within about 45 degrees of the forward axis the W25 came very close to the live program; off axis, its high-frequency dispersion became apparent. An Audio (September 1972, p.91) speaker directory still listed the W25 that year.

Beyond that, the record is thin. No original specification sheet is known to the archive — dimensions, frequency response, impedance, and weight are all undocumented — and surviving copies are uncommon. What can be said with confidence: the W25 was a modestly priced compact two-way sold as the "Achromatic" W25, and the one period publication that tested it came away impressed.