POSITIVE FEEDBACK ONLINE – ISSUE 33
By Adam Goldfine.
Wilson Benesch
By now I assume most of our readers are familiar with the usage of exotic materials, especially carbon fiber, pioneered by British manufacturer, Wilson Benesch. Known for its incredible weight to strength ratio and superior damping characteristics, carbon fiber has found its way into many sophisticated applications from Formula 1 race cars to jet fighters and bombers. As explained by WB designer Craig Milnes the fibers can even be aligned to direct resonances where you want them (and away from where you don’t). And in Wilson Benesch speakers they do just that essentially shunting whatever resonances do develop within the speakers to a physical ground resulting in extremely low cabinet coloration and improved dynamics. I’m not a physicist, but as an owner of the A.C.T. loudspeakers I can say the cabinets are remarkably inert and the sound is about as uncolored and dynamic as it gets. And their bass performance far exceeds what one might expect given their relatively small size.
New in the WB line up is the Trinity, a three way, stand mounted (the crossover is in the stands) monitor utilizing the carbon fiber based Advanced Composite Technology found in other WB designs. It is a ported design featuring a 7″ mid-bass unit, a 25mm soft dome tweeter and a .75″ super tweeter. Frequency response is specified as 46 Hz to 80 kHz +/- 2dB, the ultra-sonic performance being a big part of the raison d’etre of the Trinity. I could go on about the technology involved in this speaker but the technical description is six pages long and can be found at www.wilson-benesch.com. But be forewarned, these guys are at the cutting edge of materials research and utilization and some of this stuff will make your head spin.
The Trinity was designed to pair with WB’s new Torus Infrasonic Generator to create a full range system. And that is how we heard it at the show. Driven by deHavilland Electric Amplifier Company, www.dehavillandhifi.com, tube electronics the Trinity provided the rich, dynamic and exceptionally musical sound Wilson Benesch has become known for. They have that startling real quality I mentioned in the YG Acoustics section above and that I’ve come to expect from my A.C.T. speakers. Bass from the Torus was deep, fast and well defined. (I was assured a Torus would be heading my way for review before long.) At $10,450/pair for the Trinity you are getting cutting edge loudspeaker technology and state of the art sound.
