A noter que Raymond Cooke, fondateur de Kef, avait été embauché en 1955 chez Wharfedale comme "Technical Manager".The spring 1959 offerings included three cabinet systems, the W2, W3 and W4 (all based around a new 12" bass chassis, the WLS/12) and the AF12 reflex cabinet designed for the 12" units with foam surround but especially for a completely new twin-cone chassis, the Coaxial 12. The three cabinet systems were arguably the first products with a modern feel and the first thought-out range or 'family' of loudspeakers in which performance for a chosen retail price was optimised whilst striving to minimise the size, particularly the occupied floor space. They ware, as the names might imply, respectively, two-, three- and four-way systems. Raymond Cooke, covinced well beforce he joined Wharfedale that a 15" speaker in a large enclosure was not essential for really good bass reproduction (the received wisdom at that time) provided some loss of efficiency was accepted, had the incentive to prove his theory. He was, however, assisted by the fact that speaker efficency was becoming less of an issue ; as amplifiers improved, speakers did not have to do their best to preserve every precious watt of output so efficiency was becoming a tradable commodity.
The common bass unit in all three new Wharfedale systems was the WLS/12, a 12" chassis with a heavy cone, high compliance suspension (resign-impregnated, moulded fabric treated with synthetic rubber to make it airtight) to give improved linearity and an expanded polystyrene diaphragm, known as a 'bung', which fitted inside the cone to provide extra stiffening and a degree of acoustic filtering. Although not described as such, the suspension was effectively 'roll surround', a precursor of things to come. The result was a bass resonance in all three cabinets of 30 Hz, undistorted at 4 watt output.
EDIT : les W2 étaient toujours au catalogue en 1964, sans que des modifications aient été apportées, ou tout au moins annoncées.
