Wharfedale

Wharfedale was founded in 1932 by Gilbert Briggs, a music enthusiast and amateur engineer who built his first loudspeaker in the cellar of his home in Ilkley, Yorkshire. The brand takes its name from the valley of the River Wharfe in which Ilkley sits. By 1933 Briggs had established the Wharfedale Wireless Works near Bradford, and that same year his loudspeakers won both first and second place at the Bradford Radio Society's annual competition. By the onset of the Second World War, annual production had reached approximately 9,000 units.

Post-war, Wharfedale responded to growing demand with one of the first two-way loudspeaker designs, featuring a dedicated tweeter and mid/bass driver with a crossover system. Briggs published his influential book Loudspeakers: The Why and How of Good Reproduction in 1948, and in the 1950s Wharfedale partnered with QUAD to stage a celebrated series of live-versus-recorded concerts. The company was sold to Rank Corporation in 1958, enabling further investment in research and development. Production reached 800,000 units annually in the 1970s, and 1981 saw the debut of the Diamond series.

Wharfedale is today part of IAG Group Ltd, which acquired the brand in 1996. Manufacturing takes place at IAG's manufacturing facility, where vertical integration allows in-house production of the majority of components. The brand continues to produce a wide range of loudspeakers, drawing on its long heritage in acoustic engineering alongside contemporary manufacturing capabilities.