I am putting my Wharfedale Pacific Pi-40 Limited Edition speakers on the block.
History
This pair was bought about 12-13 years ago from a reseller in Bombay, for Rs.45,000. (This was in those days when Wharfedale did not have officially appointed dealers in India.) I am the first owner. This was extremely expensive by the standards of our budget in those days. No one in my extended family at that point had spent even one-fourth of this amount on "a stereo system".
Wharfedale has continued to be one of the largest selling brands of speakers in the world. When the Pacific range was released, they released four models, from Pi-10 (a small standmount TM) to the Pi-40 (the largest floorstander in this family, with two mid-bass drivers and one tweeter). All the models in this family had the distinctive top-mounted tweeter with a swivel mount.
Wharfedale has since moved from Atlantic and Pacific to names of precious stones. The Diamond series were quite popular in later years. However, the Pacific series were probably constructed with heavier material than the model ranges which followed.
This pair has been in daily use at my place since I bought them. I have hooked them up so that we do all our music listening and all our TV viewing and movie watching through them. But it has not been abused. It has never been used to play dance music at parties. It has never been handled by children, and I have no pets.
Design
Each enclosure has a top-mounted tweeter and two mid-bass drivers of about 6.5". The upper midbass driver is in a smallish sealed chamber, and the lower one has a bass reflex chamber with a front-firing port. Electrically, the crossover is two-way. The two midbass drivers are connected in parallel electrically. However, because of their very different enclosures, the upper mid-bass driver rolls off at a higher frequency, and the lower one rolls off at much lower frequencies. I am not sure whether there are any other electrical components in the crossovers separating the two mid-bass drivers.
Wharfedale calls this a 2.5-way design.
At the rear is a bi-wire-able terminal block. You can use spade lugs or 4mm banana plugs. I have never used them bi-wired or bi-amped.
Wharfedale is one of the few speaker manufacturers who design and manufacture their own drivers. The midbass drivers have an interesting inverted rubber surround (i.e. they are concave instead of bulging out). The cones are lovely yellow Kevlar. The tweeter is fabric dome. Each enclosure has four steel spikes. I use them without spikes on my home's tiled floor, but I have the spikes safely kept aside for when I may need them.
The sound
It is what I consider classic Wharfedale sound. It is smooth, inoffensive, and sufficiently detailed for general use without any of the hyper-detailed edge of some "high-end sounding" speakers. Published frequency response curves I had looked at when I had bought the speakers were quite remarkably even -- they were flat within +/- 2dB for their entire effective range.
The midrange sounds a slight bit forward. Vocals sound quite clear and prominent. Bass is rounded and deep
The sound works very well for music and movies both. For its price, I can't fault its sound.
Photos
Some photos are attached below.
They look dirtier in the photos than in real life, due to the cellphone camera and the mix of fluorescent lighting and dull monsoon natural light (this is Bombay in July). The veneer surface and polish are undamaged and spotless -- I am not aware of any blemish. The grille cloth has acquired some dust, as is expected in an Indian environment.