Wilson Benesch • Eminence Loudspeakers

by Roy Gregory | May 25, 2020

© www.theaudiobeat.com

When Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Kerr wrote his famous epigram, Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (The more things change, the more they stay the same), he had never clapped eyes on this Wilson Benesch loudspeaker -- not least because he died in 1890. But, had he lived an improbably long life, long enough to encounter the statuesque Sheffield siren, he may well have decided to double down, adding the caveat that, Plus ça reste pareil, plus ça change réellement (The more things stay the same, the more they’ve actually changed). As a bonne mot, this phrase might lack the easy grace of the original, but there’s definitely something in the duality of the thinking.

On the face of it, there’s nothing new or particularly different about the Wilson Benesch Eminence. In fact, it looks so like the established Cardinal and Resolution models that, from a distance, the uninitiated could easily confuse the three. "From a distance" because, once you get closer the sheer height and scale of the Eminence becomes unmistakable. Even so, you might well conclude that this is just the same, familiar elements writ large to attract a bigger price tag -- and to some extent, at least, you’d be right. The Eminence looks like the Cardinal because the Wilson Benesch cabinets are both composite and modular. Throw in apparently identical drivers and, sure enough, the end products might not be twins, but they’re close enough to confuse the casual observer. Mind you, they’re going to be a lot more confused when they realize the cost differential between the Eminence ($235,000/pair), the Cardinal ($119,000/pair) and especially the Resolution ($69,500/pair). But, as M. Kerr might have come to appreciate, just because things look the same doesn't mean that they are the same.

While we’re plundering cod wisdom, how about If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it? The various Wilson Benesch speakers look so similar because they are essentially built from the same kit of parts. But rather than some kind of extended branding exercise or the product of a limited aesthetic imagination, this kit of parts is a direct result of the exploitation by the company of its chosen technologies and materials. To understand just how intimately the technology and the final product are connected, it’s essential to look at that technology first, starting with the drivers. It doesn’t take long to work out that the company produces drive units in two sizes: 25mm/1” tweeters and 170mm/7” midrange/bass units. These in-house drivers manage to cover every model from the entry point, the stand-mounted Precision P1.0, to the latest flagship reviewed here -- a five-way, full-range, floorstanding behemoth. All with the same 7” driver? Well, that would be a yes and a no. The driver basket and motor assembly are certainly common, but the cones and voice coils -- they’re a different matter. Wilson Benesch employs isotactic polypropylene to produce its speaker cones. This uses a polypropylene thread that can be woven into different cone structures before those threads are surface-welded under heat and pressure. The benefit of this is that the mass, stiffness and mechanical characteristics (especially the self-damping) of the cone can be precisely controlled. Combine that with appropriate electrical characteristics in the voice coil and you can tailor the unit’s pass band and roll off sufficiently accurately that if you are careful you can dispense with a conventional subtractive crossover.

The Tactic drivers have steadily evolved, with the Tactic 2 used in the Cardinal, Resolution and the rest of the range sporting elegantly minimalist baskets and motor assemblies, cutting down on rear reflections but also allowing the drivers to be mounted magnets outward on the speaker baffles -- important because alongside midrange, lower-midrange and midbass versions of the driver, Wilson Benesch also deploys the Tactic 2 in a clamshell isobaric arrangement, to allow the small-diameter drivers to reach well down the range. That’s four drivers for the price of one -- at least in a manner of speaking.

Besides the obvious benefit of being able to share baskets and motors across the different driver types, the real benefits accrue when it comes to cabinet design. Seen from above, a Cardinal or Eminence cabinet consists of five components: a curved, extruded aluminum baffle; profiled, extruded aluminum side "cheeks"; a W-shaped composite element (a carbon/foam sandwich); and a triangular extruded aluminum rear spine. The combination of aluminum parts and a composite element provides incredible stiffness, precision fixings and profiles combined with inherently effective but also highly tunable damping. The end result is as effective as it is elegant: an incredibly stiff and well-damped, thin-walled cabinet. The ability to profile and add ribs to the extruded elements allows for sophisticated internal shaping of the walls and adds additional stiffness, while the intimate clamped and glued junction between the "cheeks" and the composite element increases both the consistency and the effectiveness of the damping. It’s the kind of multi-material engineering that’s common in aerospace but makes the use of simple, braced-slab construction look like something from the Titanic.

The challenge is that, when it comes to manufacturing, tools are seriously expensive, whether those are CNC machines, extrusion dies or moulds for composite parts. However, if you use the same-sized drive units across a range of speakers, irrespective of a model’s bandwidth, then the baffle can be a common part. But the real beauty of Wilson Benesch’s engineering is that it’s not just the baffle but also the composite element and rear spine that can all become common parts. To alter the internal volume of a cabinet all you need to do is set the height of the baffle to accommodate the necessary drivers and then change the depth of the sides to achieve the required internal dimensions. Suddenly, this composite construction opens up a world of different possibilities -- a scalable solution that can be applied equally effectively almost irrespective of the cabinet’s size or bandwidth, all with the benefit of shared parts and the resulting economies of scale. Throw in those proprietary driver designs, shared across different models and you start to understand just how Wilson Benesch can produce a speaker like the Resolution, with its extravagant cabinet materials and in-house drivers, at a price point where a lot of the competition are still heavily reliant on MDF and OEM drive units.

In the same way that the Resolution leverages those advantages to keep costs down, the Eminence uses them as a basis for significant advances in performance. Clearly based on the company’s existing thinking and approach, the Eminence applies new materials and manufacturing approaches derived directly from Wilson Benesch’s partnership in the cutting-edge Advanced Manufacturing Centre in Sheffield, England. The least obvious but possibly most fundamental example of that is a new structural foam core material employed in the carbon/foam sandwich that forms the rear half of the enclosure. This is 30% stiffer than that of its predecessor and also exhibits superior damping properties. Wilson Benesch is tight-lipped on the specifics, but given that the Advanced Manufacturing Centre was instrumental in the development of the high-tech composite fuselage of the Boeing Dreamliner, it’s not too hard to figure out the likely source. Lighter, stiffer materials with predictable resonant and damping characteristics are essential if you want airplanes to stay in the sky for longer on less fuel -- and they’re pretty useful in speaker cabinets too.

At least somewhat more visible are changes to the drive units, applying additive manufacturing approaches to improving the performance of the existing Tactic 2 and Semisphere designs. Starting with the Fibonacci tweeter, the motor and 25mm silk/carbon composite dome remain the same, but the faceplate/waveguide is now a complex carbon/polymer part with a mathematically calculated grid structure based on the Fibonacci sequence and designed to reduce the tweeter’s resonant signature. Both it and the open-architecture rear chamber are now decoupled from the motor and diaphragm assembly, further increasing the linearity of the driver response. The new Tactic 3ZERO drivers used for midrange and lower midrange in the Eminence also employ a 3D-printed part, a dust cap that helps to further smooth the upper roll-off of the driver and also control out-of-band artifacts, a problem that has become more apparent recently, especially through products like the Focal Utopia Evo series, where improved out-of-band driver behavior has delivered huge musical dividends. What’s significant about the Tactic 3ZERO solution is that, once again, it is mechanical, obviating the need for complex crossover slopes. As such, it fits perfectly with the Wilson Benesch philosophy of minimally engineered, phase-coherent crossovers, a clear evolutionary advance without any change in design direction.

With the new parts and materials in place, what else goes into the Eminence? The cabinet, standing all but two meters (78”) high, comprises two separate elements, although they are bolted firmly together. The lower low-frequency section is constructed by clamping the five interlocking parts of the enclosure between the central divider and the massive base element. Machined from a single 100kg (220 pounds) block of aluminum, the finished, highly sculpted piece still weighs in at an impressive 36kg (79 pounds), providing a carefully profiled, downward-firing port for the isobaric driver’s enclosure as well as forming an effective ground plane for the four massive but easily adjusted feet and the three tie rods that compress the whole cabinet together under immense pressure. The internal volume is divided into three separate enclosures. The lowest reflex loads the two Tactic 2 isobaric driver pairings. The one above offers a sealed volume to load the two Tactic 2 upper-bass units (bolted magnet forwards into the baffle to visually match the isobaric pairs below them). Finally, above that the Tactic 3ZERO midrange driver enjoys its own sealed enclosure.

On top of that bass section, the upper cabinet houses two lower-midrange Tactic 3Zero drivers, their sealed enclosure benefiting from the carefully profiled dome that sits atop the Eminence, cutting down internal reflections and standing waves in this critical pass band. Below them, again housed in a separate sealed chamber, you’ll find the Fibonacci tweeter. The internal baffles also act as lateral braces, further stiffening an already immensely rigid structure. Clamping things together, especially dissimilar materials, also reduces self-resonance, creating an inherently non-resonant structure. It’s a maxim that Wilson Benesch takes to heart. Those tie rods that connect the different cabinet elements exert a metric ton of pressure on the clamped cabinet elements, in turn delivering a direct mechanical ground path to the immense base element. One thing that I’m extremely pleased to see is the adoption of a four-foot, fully adjustable support strategy, rather than the three-point solution with a fixed front spike employed on both the Resolution and the Cardinal. You might argue that it doesn’t look as pretty, but that is easily outweighed by the increased ability to adjust the rake angle, attitude and height off the floor, critical considerations for any speaker this tall and deep.

Just how deep does the Eminence reach? Wilson Benesch quotes a -2dB figure of 24Hz, along with a sensitivity of 89dB, Those figures might seem on the low side, but I’d prefer to describe them as conservative or perhaps simply accurate. There are lies, damned lies, bicycle weights and speaker specs. Marketing departments the world over and from industries as diverse as you can name, consistently get creative with product specs. When a manufacturer weighs a carbon bicycle frame, it generally does so without cable stops, paint, decals or anything else that can be left off, but on the whole I still trust the bike builders more than most speaker companies, simply because it’s easier to measure the weight of a bicycle.

Looked at in engineering terms, the isotactic polypropylene cones are not the lightest out there. Their strengths lie in other directions (controlled resonance, neutrality and consistency), compared to, say, paper or ceramic cones. That costs them efficiency and some immediacy. But at the same time Wilson Benesch gains what they lose on the weight swings by playing on the low-loss crossover roundabout. Passive crossovers are called subtractive for a reason -- and they rob more than just output level. They rob energy too, by impairing amplifier control over the drive units and impairing amplifier performance by presenting a complex load. Throw in the fact that the Eminence is biwireable -- a feature that also makes it biampable -- and the design does a good job of offsetting the inherent weaknesses in its chosen driver technology. Indeed, given that all drivers and materials have their specific strengths and weaknesses, then if the art of speaker design is juggling compromise, Wilson Benesch designer Craig Milnes has become a past master at getting the most out of his materials, parts and approach.

The Eminence is both tall and heavy, although at 145kg/320 pounds per cabinet, it is not as heavy as you might expect. The tensioned construction of the enclosures means that unlike many large speakers, they arrive complete rather than in ready-to-assemble form. Fortunately, Wilson Benesch fits each speaker with a set of twin caster dollies that, once upright, allows them to be wheeled into the listening space (they’ll just about fit under most door frames). Even better, the wheels are the same height as the adjustable feet, so you can actually use them for first placement duties. Once you have got the speakers initially positioned, winding the posts on the feet right down onto the large footers raises the speaker enough to remove the dollies and then you are ready to drop the feet to the median height setting and commence setup in earnest. This is one of the simplest and most useful wheel systems I’ve yet come across, and when you have to set up as many speakers as I do, most of them weighing considerably more than I do, you get to appreciate the effort that goes into installation aids. As an end user, you should appreciate it too: the easier the speaker is to optimize, the better the sound you are going to achieve, whether it’s you or a dealer doing the setup.

Time to discuss those large, downward-firing reflex ports. In common with other speakers, both from Wilson Benesch and other companies such as Avalon, that use downward-firing ports, the surface below the port can have a profound impact on the sound quality. In the past, I’ve found that when positioning such speakers on a hard or reflective floor surface, a soft pad placed below the port can work wonders: the Eminence is yet another case in point. Troubled initially by a lighter, less powerful bass than I expected, I experiment with first a folded tea-towel beneath the port and then a hand-towel that delivered an even more absorbent pad. The result was good with the thin pad but considerably better with the thick, folded hand towel, delivering notably deeper, more powerful bass with greater weight and impact, a more dimensional, coherent and focused soundstage. How much better? With the pads in place, the Eminence outperformed the unpadded speakers with the Torus subs. Of course, adding the subs to the tweaked setup was even better still, and no I haven’t investigated the impact of different fabric conditioners. Moral of the story: it’s always worth experimenting with the surface below a port, whether it is hard or carpeted. A little ingenuity means that it will cost you nothing to ring the changes and the benefits could be huge. That’s when you can start worrying about a permanent solution.

Before we get to how the Eminence performs, there’s one last practical issue to consider. Whilst this is an emphatically full-range speaker, there still remains the option to add a pair of Torus subs to further extend and reinforce the bass. Given the price of the Eminence, the comparatively minimal price of the easily accommodated Torus option is something potential owners should consider seriously. I used the speakers with and without subs and like all great subwoofers, the Torus (Tori?) more than pay their way, adding scale, dynamic range, clarity, dimensionality and expressive emphasis to an already impressive performance. The Eminence impresses; it impresses even more with a pair of Torus in tow.

The driving system for the review was either a complete suite of CH Precision analog electronics (P1, L1 and two M1.1s) or a Jeff Rowland Daemon integrated used with a 625 S2 power amp to run four channels. Although I experimented running the Eminence biwired from the M1.1s in mono mode, the speaker exhibited a clear preference for biamping. Biamping is a Wilson Benesch tradition, but I still needed to check.

The longer you spend reviewing equipment and the more products you review from a single company, the more apparent it becomes that product development is anything but a linear process. Some companies adopt an almost scatter-gun approach, seizing on the latest material or technology to reinvigorate their product line. Others take a more studied, evolutionary approach, of which the most obvious examples are Wilson Audio and Wilson Benesch. So, just as the Sasha 2 represented the tenth iteration (by my count) of the original WATT/Puppy recipe, it was also the single biggest step up in performance across that entire developmental arc -- until the arrival of the Sasha DAW, but that’s another story.

It would be easy to assume that the Wilson Benesch Geometry Series started life with the Cardinal, which was soon followed by the Endeavour and Resolution models, all sharing the same DNA. But while those designs represent a clear advance in performance over the company’s previous speakers, their technological and conceptual roots reach all the way back to 1991 and the company’s original ACT One loudspeaker. A perfect case of steady evolution they are also a perfect example of how the full potential of any developmental step (or steps) might only become apparent in the light of other, parallel developments, advances that don’t necessarily happen at the same rate or in the same timeframe.

Now, with the cabinet and driver advances made in the Eminence, the benefits of the composite, modular enclosure design and overall topology established in those earlier models are starting to emerge. When I said that the Eminence isn’t just bigger it’s also better, perhaps I should have qualified that by adding the term “fundamentally.” Compared to its junior siblings, the Eminence is in an entirely different musical and communicative league. This massive step up in performance isn’t just down to those fancy 3D-printed bits and a new foam core. It's down to the way that those pieces finally let you hear what the rest of the speaker is capable of.

When we describe a product as representing a genuine breakthrough, more often than not that indicates it’s a breakthrough for that manufacturer. However, in rare cases, a product can represent a breakthrough in the way we listen, what it tells us about the recording and the performance it captured. The new Wilson Benesch flagship is firmly in that latter category, a product that has shown me a new (and important) aspect of musical reproduction. From the preceding physical and technological description, it should be apparent that the Eminence is firmly in the low-coloration school of design. More often than not, that’s terminology used in association with descriptions of tonal and harmonic accuracy, a flat frequency response. But the implications run far, far deeper than that and revolve around the nature of coloration itself.

The first point to make is that there are two distinct types of coloration, additive and subtractive. A little like odd and even-order distortion, subtractive coloration is relatively benign, whereas even small amounts of additive coloration can (and often do) wreak havoc. That’s because of the different ways in which they impact on the sense of the musical signal. The notes and different instruments in a recording constitute a three-dimensional pattern, laid out in space, time and amplitude. That pattern is what separates music from noise; it’s what a system is trying to reproduce and what our brain is trying to recognize. Subtractive distortion, as long as it is not too gross or specific, will diminish the scale or scope of that pattern, but leave it essentially intact. Once you start adding things to the pattern, especially because additive distortion is so often frequency-specific, you start to bend the pattern out of shape, so that it no longer makes sense. A bit of stored energy in a cabinet, arriving later than intended and at the wrong frequency? An energy spike in the structure of a poorly designed driver? Excessive bass output at particular frequencies? You can hear how they serve to alter not just the relative weight or amplitude of notes but their timing too -- and that’s where things get destructive.

Once you appreciate the fundamental importance of the time domain to reproducing the musical performance, questions of frequency response tend to be cast in the light of that knowledge, so that intermodulation distortion and stored energy, out-of-band output and phase shift all become critical factors. Suddenly, where and when energy appears in the soundfield looms large in your considerations. Just as image wander or a lack of stability in the soundstage undermine the ability of the system to musically convince, to transport you to the original event, the constant addition of energy in the wrong place and at the wrong time almost subliminally destroys the illusion of real people in a real space.

All of which is a convoluted introduction to just what makes the Eminence special. Let’s start with the scherzo from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony (Barbirolli and the New Philharmonia, originally released on EMI, but here in the Esoteric SACD transfer [Esoteric ESSE 90057]). The opening, with its brilliantly lit orchestration and light, nimble, almost waltz-like rhythm, takes full advantage of the Eminence’s deft touch and tonal accuracy. Despite the short, vivid interjections that flit across the orchestra, you are never left guessing as to the identity of each instrument. They are beautifully defined in terms of color, texture, scale and location. Despite the C-sharp key and energetic, vibrant scoring, there’s no hint of edge or glare, just sparkling playing and crisp instrumental contrasts.

What the Eminence presents is a perfectly choreographed, three-dimensional dance of instrumental color, amplitude and position, navigating the subtle hesitations and starts in tempo, as well as the shifting moods of the piece, as it enters the darker, more reflective central passage, before the re-emergence of the lively, hope-filled phrases and sudden orchestral tuttis of the finale. String textures are particularly impressive, especially the deep murmuring rumble of the double basses, which float convincingly below the music but above the surface of the stage, rather than being anchored stodgily to the floor. This is a speaker with an almost preternatural grasp of what I can only describe as musical proportion. The relative scale of instruments, the dimensions of the soundstage, the scaling of dynamic shifts, all fit the natural pattern almost perfectly. Both the character of each instrument and the weight of its contribution to the performance and orchestral balance (the artistic ability that made Barbirolli so exceptional) are so free of exaggeration or disturbance that the original event simply falls into place. It’s not until you hear speakers that get this right that you realize just how wrong most of the systems out there are.

When it comes to sudden shifts in level and density, you need look no further than the opening to Dvorak’s "New World" symphony. Here the interest lies as much in the Eminences’ ability to differentiate readings and recordings as in the musical spectacle itself. The Kubelik/Berliner Philharmoniker recording (UHQCD [Universal UCCG-40074/Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft 482 9670]) boasts a richer denser sound than Kertesz and the Vienna Philharmonic on LP [Decca SXL 2289]. Differences in the orchestral layout (the brass placement and more centrally located timps on the Deutsche Grammophon) are explicitly revealed, as are differences in both the nature of the acoustic and the characteristically transparent, deep but narrowing Decca soundstage. But in both cases the speakers reveal a masterly control over shifts in instrumental level and an impressive lack of compression. The Eminence might not be the most immediate-sounding speaker, with its welcome lack of edge and a soundstage that sits resolutely behind the plane of the speakers, but it moves cleanly through its gears, clearly defining dynamic graduations and spacing dynamic steps with almost linear exactitude.

To a great extent, the musical abilities outlined above track the speaker’s design path in an almost function-follows-form fashion. If we recast additive coloration in the less flattering but simpler guise of distortion, we can look at the speakers' performance in terms of transfer function -- how much influence they impose on the signal. In most cases, loudspeakers (in common with most transducers) exhibit relatively gross levels of distortion, certainly relative to amplifiers, for example. One way of describing Wilson Benesch’s achievement is to describe the Eminence cabinet (more properly, the whole Eminence system) as quiet. Not only does the cabinet exude minimum output, but it also makes a minimal contribution to the drivers’ acoustic output -- that being the music, the bit we want to hear. This quietness has two distinct effects on musical presentation. First, it limits the speakers’ tendency to draw attention to themselves. Like other great systems, the Wilson Benesch speakers effectively disappear as a source of sound, the music happening in isolation and totally separate from them. It’s a neat trick for anything that’s six-foot-six, jet black and seriously solid. But it also plays a key part in their low-coloration credentials, and just as reduced coloration/distortion frees up the soundstage and firms up the pattern of the performance, so it uncovers new levels of musical expression. The ability to ignore the speakers and the system driving them allows you instead to concentrate on the performance and appreciate the human subtleties that have gone into it.

So often cast as a showpiece, a set of musical fireworks, Sol Gabetta’s performance of “Winter” from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, transcribed for Cello (Il Progetto Vivaldi [Sony Music 88697131691]) takes on a new expressive range when played through the Eminence loudspeakers. Rather than simple noise and fury, you can hear her exploring the fullest range of her instrument, particularly in the final allegro. The relationship between her and the accompanying Sonatori De La Gioiosa Marca takes on a new tension, the agile precision and attack in their playing underpinned by the easy spatial and tonal separation of violins and viola. The result is a genuine sense of performance, a sense of release in the finale -- a pleasant change from the all too common relief that this recording conjures from so many systems.

What is true of cello is doubly true of vocals, especially the familiar diction and accent of Eleanor McEvoy. "If You Had A Heart" (Forgotten Dreams [Chasing The Dragon VALDC006]) takes on a new intensity, the life-sized image and the incredibly natural delivery of the direct-cut pressing giving it an almost ghostly presence. In audio terms, even more impressive is just how much sense you can make of the incidental noises and movement that intersperse the tracks on the one-take recording, from her unplugging of her guitar and placing it in its stand, to picking up her fiddle for the next tune. If the real arbiter of loudspeaker (and system) quality is not how much detail a setup delivers, but how much sense it makes of that detail, then the Eminence definitely deserves its high-end and flagship credentials.

When it comes to "Good Morning Heartache" (Clap Hands Here Comes Charlie! [Verve V6-4053]), Ella Fitzgerald might not be in the same desolate place as Billie Holiday, but the Eminence reveals a bluesy streak to both her opening lines and increasingly, towards the close of the song, a subtle accent that is diminished or hidden by less communicative speakers. If the terms expressive and communicative ring your bell, then the Eminence could just be a revelation.

Perhaps the final musical word should go to Franco Fagioli -- with a little help from Julia Lezhneva and Diego Fasolis with I Barrocchisti and the Coro della Radiotelevisione Svizzera (The Vivaldi Gloria in D major [Decca 483 3874]). Fagioli’s distinctive counter-tenor brings a particular fragile beauty to this choral war horse, especially in its contrast with the lyrical grace and soaring purity of Lezhneva’s voice, a contrast the Eminence makes effortlessly apparent. There’s no mistaking or confusing either the two voices or the gender of the singers. The energetic bowing of the I Barocchisti in the Laudamus Te is impressively vigorous, yet never swamps the singers or mutes their exchange. But arguable more impressive still is the deeply emotional quality Fagioli brings to the Nisi Dominus (RV608), underpinned by the perfectly pulsing heartbeat of the subtle orchestral accompaniment. These are beautifully judged and balanced performances, showcasing brilliant performers at their very best -- a statement that arguably applies as much to the loudspeakers delivering them as to the musicians and singers themselves. The natural perspective and sense of proportion, the relative scale of voice and instruments, are astonishingly natural, while the Latin text only adds to the expressive range of the voice as instrument. This is all about tonality and the subtleties of technique and diction, with no aid from clever lyrics or affecting words. Fagioli crafts his phrasing with consummate care -- and the Eminence speakers deliver it in all its glory.

So much of what I have described is acoustic in nature, but the very qualities that bring acoustic instruments and unamplified voices to life apply equally to studio or rock recordings. The flaws that mar lesser systems and the strengths that define this one are more obvious within the fragile structures of acoustic music, but they are just as destructive, albeit more insidiously so, with other types of music. Whether it’s the brutalist beat of "Pump It Up" or the gentle melancholy of "Alison," the casual insouciance of "Accidents Will Happen" or the barely suppressed anger and bitterness of "Tramp The Dirt Down," the Wilson Benesch speakers make the intelligence and purpose in Costello’s lyrics explicit, reinforced by the care and craft in the band’s arrangements. Bowie, The Pixies, Peter Gabriel or Echo & The Bunnymen -- in each and every case the Eminence puts the music front and center, making more of its mood or message, impact and intent. This is no polite, classical-only speaker system, perfect for the drawing room on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Just play Steve Earle’s Copperhead Road [MCA MCF 3426] if you want confirmation. For sweaty, spit-and-beer attitude there’s little to touch it, and the Eminence puts you right there, up close and (uncomfortably) personal -- just as it should. You might already think that Earle is abrasive; you have no idea.

The Eminence sets an entirely new level of performance for Wilson Benesch -- just in time to display the benefits of the company's remarkable GMT One turntable, two products that indicate just how ambitious the company is and its capabilities when it comes to advanced technology, materials and manufacturing techniques. As a flagship, the Eminence performs its duties admirably, showcasing those capabilities perfectly. But for all that carbon-fiber composite construction, precision machining and additive manufacturing, its real achievement lies in the musical realm, paring away another layer of the recorded onion, moving us a step closer to reproduced reality -- or at least a convincing facsimile of it. The mechanics of reproduction are what stand between us and that goal, processes whose influence often only becomes apparent once they’ve been reduced or relegated. The great speakers, the breakthrough designs, have always managed to eliminate (and in doing so, identify) one or more of these mechanical intrusions. The Wilson Benesch Eminence, with its uncannily natural sense of order and proportion, its absence of edge or exaggeration, joins that number. It also marks the company’s arrival (alongside Stenheim) at high-end audio’s top table. The great speakers, the breakthrough designs, have always brought music home. Give the Eminence a home and it can do that for you.

Price: $235,000 per pair.
Warranty: Five years parts and labor.

Wilson Benesch Ltd.
Falcon House
Limestone Cottage Lane
Sheffield, S6 1NJ
+44(0) 1142 852656
www.wilson-benesch.com

Associated Equipment

Speakers: Wilson Audio Alexx with two Thor’s Hammer subwoofers, Wilson Benesch Resolution and Torus Bass Generator

Cables: Complete looms of Nordost Odin 2, Crystal Cable Absolute Dreamline Plus or AudioQuest Wild from AC socket to speaker terminals. Nordost Heimdall and AudioQuest Diamond Ethernet cables. Power distribution was via Nordost Quantum Qb8s or Crystal Cable Power Strip Diamonds, with a mix of Nordost Quantum Qx2 and Qx4 power purifiers and Qv2 AC harmonizers. CAD Ground Control and Nordost Qkore grounding systems.

Supports: Racks are an HRS RXR frame with various HRS platforms as appropriate and a Grand Prix Monaco Modular rack with Formula shelves. These are used with Nordost SortKone, HRS Nimbus and Vortex or Grand Prix Audio Apex equipment couplers, and HRS damping plates. I also use Grand Prix Audio Monaco and Silverstone 4 amp stands. Cables are elevated on Furutech NCF Boosters.

Accessories: Essential accessories include the SmarTractor protractor, a USB microscope (so I can see what I’m doing, not for attempting to measure stylus rake angle) and Aesthetix cartridge demagnetizer, a precision spirit level and laser, a really long tape measure and plenty of low-tack masking tape. I also make extensive use of the Furutech anti-static and demagnetizing devices and the Kuzma ultrasonic record-cleaning machine. The Dr. Feikert PlatterSpeed app has to be the best-ever case of digital aiding analog.

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