Inspired by the enduring legacy of Wharfedale’s Heritage loudspeaker family, the Heritage Centre is a dedicated centre channel designed to complement the Linton and Denton Heritage series. Crafted in a real Black Oak wood veneer, it brings the same vintage-inspired character and meticulous build quality of the Heritage range into a purpose-built centre channel format, ensuring seamless visual and sonic integration across a multichannel home cinema or music system.
Design and Build
The Heritage Centre is housed in a carefully proportioned bass-reflex cabinet finished in genuine Black Oak veneer, matched to sit naturally alongside the Linton and Denton Heritage standmount and floorstanding speakers. The front baffle features a 3-way driver configuration: twin 6.5-inch woven Kevlar bass drivers flank a 2-inch soft-dome midrange and a 1-inch soft-dome tweeter. The Kevlar cone construction provides excellent damping and a neutral tonal balance, while the soft-dome midrange and tweeter ensure smooth, open reproduction of voices and upper frequencies. A traditional fabric grille completes the period-correct aesthetic.
The crossover is set at 900 Hz and 2.7 kHz, preserving the midrange integrity where dialogue intelligibility is most critical. A rear-firing bass reflex port extends low-frequency output, allowing the Heritage Centre to reproduce the weight and scale of a film soundtrack without artificial colouration. Sensitivity is rated at 90 dB (2.83 V at 1 m), making it easy to drive with a wide range of AV amplifiers, and the 6-ohm nominal impedance is fully compatible with 8-ohm rated electronics.
Performance
The Heritage Centre delivers the full-bodied warmth, expressive midrange and natural, unforced presentation that have made the Heritage family such enduring favourites. Whether anchoring dialogue in a film soundtrack or maintaining tonal coherence across a multichannel music system, the centre channel ensures the voice of the system remains consistent and true. The frequency response extends from 54 Hz to 20 kHz (+/-3 dB), with bass reaching -6 dB at 47 Hz, providing real low-frequency substance without a dedicated subwoofer.
Home Cinema Integration
The Heritage Centre is designed first and foremost for listeners who already own or intend to build a Heritage-based system. Styled in matching veneers and carefully proportioned at 250 mm high by 550 mm wide, it will sit comfortably on a dedicated centre shelf below or above a screen without dominating the room. It pairs with the Heritage Linton or Denton as left and right channels, and with Heritage-range surrounds, to create a visually coherent, sonically matched system. Peak SPL capability of 106 dB and power handling up to 150 W ensure the centre channel keeps pace with demanding material at realistic listening levels.
