Quote:
Originally Posted by Craig Sawyers
I know Richard Lee well. He also designed Option 1, a dipole speaker with active crossover and multiple custom Quad current dumper amps in the bass.
Details of this exceedingly rare beast attached
Craig
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There are two reasons that Option 1 was not a commercial success. First, it was expensive - about 2.5 times the price of a Quad ESL63 at the time - so around £6k to £8k in the mid-late 80s, so around £18k - £25k in today's prices. It was more than an order of magnitude more expensive than any other Wharfedale speaker.
So there was a stigma attached to having a Wharfedale speaker costing that much. There was certainly competition at that price point from Magnaplanar, Martin Logan, Apogee etc that were also dipole speakers with no brand baggage.
Therefore Wharfedale missed a trick. Creating a special brand name for Option 1, and possibly a range of speakers and amplifiers at a high price point.
And Option 1 was a truly awful name for a loudspeaker!
By the time I came on the scene it had been discontinued. They retained one pair, and it sounded superb, with spookily accurate imaging. I think they sold less than ten pairs all told. At a time when the Diamond (probably III) was selling 50,000 pairs a year.
Craig