Filling a gap that fans of its retro-inspired speaker range have long identified, Wharfedale has introduced the Heritage Centre.
This new speaker is a dedicated centre channel speaker that’s been built to integrate with Wharfedale’s Linton, Super Linton, Denton, and Dovedale models that have made the Heritage Series one of its most successful lines in recent memory.
The absence of a centre speaker has been a barrier for Heritage owners wanting to build a multichannel home cinema system as the range has until now been limited to stereo pairs.
That’s left buyers to either mix in a mismatched centre channel or go without one entirely when configuring a 3.1 or 5.1 channel setup. Now that’s no longer an issue.
Wharfedale’s solution draws directly from the Super Denton’s driver architecture, adopting the same three-way configuration used across the broader Heritage range to keep the technical foundation consistent across the full speaker family.
That configuration pairs twin 165mm woven Kevlar bass drivers with a 50mm fabric dome midrange and a 25mm fabric dome treble unit, with all three driver types adapted directly from those developed for the Super Denton.
The midrange driver covers the 900Hz to 2.7kHz frequency band, the range most responsible for vocal clarity and dialogue intelligibility in film and television. The treble unit uses a damped rear chamber to push its resonant frequency well below the crossover point to keep high-frequency reproduction clean across a wide listening area.
Cabinet construction uses layered particle board and MDF bonded with a resonance-damping adhesive. It’s a build approach designed to distribute panel resonances across multiple frequencies rather than concentrating them at a single audible point. The internal bracing adds further control over cabinet colouration.
Peter Comeau, Wharfedale’s Director of Acoustic Design said: ““The Heritage Series was originally conceived purely for the enjoyment of stereo music, but the speakers’ richly expressive sonic qualities lend themselves perfectly to other forms of AV entertainment. When the demand for a dedicated centre speaker for people building multichannel systems with Linton and Denton speakers became clear, we embarked on the project with the rigorous attention to engineering detail applied to every Heritage model.”
Real-wood veneers in walnut, mahogany, or black oak finish the cabinet to a hand-polished satin lacquer, maintaining visual consistency with the full Heritage range across all three finish options.
The Wharfedale Heritage Centre arrives in late May, priced at £649, available in walnut, mahogany, or black oak to match whichever Heritage speaker system it sits in.
