Aged fourteen he entered the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied the piano with Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmerman, and took a first prize in 1839.
He was also a pupil of Aimé Leborne for counterpoint, and Fromental Halévy for composition, and under these auspices composed several piano pieces, published by Richault.
[1] After this he gave up teaching to become the pupil and partner of the piano maker Camille Pleyel, who, being old and infirm, was looking out for a dependable assistant.
[1] He experimented with hammer placement to get the fullest tone and the best partials, and in the 1860s introduced overstringing to grand pianos.
[1][2] His biographer in A Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1900) wrote: "It is owing to such labours as these, and M. Wolff's indefatigable activity, that the firm of Pleyel-Wolff still keeps its place in the front rank of pianoforte makers, and gains so many distinctions.