WILSON BENESCH GMT ONE SYSTEM TURNTABLE UNVEILED

Sheffield based Wilson Benesch was founded in 1989 and in 1990 the company unveiled its first product, the Wilson Benesch Turntable. Now it is unveiling the Wilson Benesch GMT ONE SYSTEM Turntable, featuring newly developed technologies.

WILSON BENESCH TURNTABLE

The Wilson Benesch Turntable Included a number of novel technologies, including carbon fibre composite structures that had not only not been seen in a high end audio product before, but indeed were seldom seen in consumer products at all in 1990. The carbon fibre / nomex core sub-chassis was developed in collaboration with Derbyshire based engineer, Neil Humpston. Humpston had worked on numerous challenging projects including the Rolls Royce RB211 carbon fibre fan blades.

The original Wilson Benesch Turntable

A.C.T. TONEARM

The Wilson Benesch Turntable was followed in 1991 by the A.C.T. One Tonearm. The arm wand is moulded in one piece in order to control structural borne vibrational energy paths. The Wilson Benesch turntable was discontinued after the Papst motor was made obsolete.

In 1992, Wilson Benesch unveiled its first loudspeaker the ‘Advanced Composite Technology or ‘A.C.T.’ One. Through the 1990s Wilson Benesch continued to invest in analogue technology development and subsequently released its second of only two turntables designs. The Full Circle introduced the carbon fibre unidirectional ‘U.D.’ cantilever suspension system.

SHEFFIELD HALLAM UNIVERSITY AND CAAS

During the 2010s collaborative partners were identified at Sheffield University and the AMRC (Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre) and at the close of 2020 Wilson Benesch brought together a Consortium that successfully won £327,000 of Innovate U.K. funding. The Consortium includes Sheffield Hallam University – Dr F. Al-Naemi, Dr J. Travis and Professor G. Cockerham. These scientists have enabled sophisticated modelling to be accomplished using  3D software. The second collaborative partner is CAAS Audio, which is based in North Yorkshire and is driven by Dr C. Broomfield and N. Broomfield. Since winning this important funding the consortium has gone on to pioneer a completely new motor and dedicated poly-phase motor power supply system.

Wilson Benesch GMT ONE System Turntable

OMEGA DRIVE

The Omega Drive as a key part of the Wilson Benesch GMT ONE System Turntable. The Omega Drive is completely novel and is a patent applied for system that also has multiple design registrations. It has been developed from a clean sheet for one single purpose.

WILSON BENESCH GMT ONE SYSTEM TURNTABLE

All the GMT systems will be manufactured and assembled in house within the very same building within which the product was designed and developed. This applies to the electronic systems that will be supplied by the developer Dr Broomfield and Neil Broomfield of CAAS Audio. For measuring speed and speed fluctuations a new system based upon a high resolution pico-encoder was developed. The control software and algorithms were also developed in tandem with CAAS Audio.

The Wilson Benesch GMT ONE System Turntable with Moment arm

The GMT System has been designed to meet the needs of the archivist. Its primary goal is to preserve valuable recordings and minimise the impact of transcription. To achieve this, the GMT System provides high levels of control. Significantly, these transcription parameters for the motor and the tonearm can be dialled in remotely to high levels of accuracy.

The GMT ONE System Turntable completes the R1 rack for which it was conceived many years ago. The R1 HIFI Rack features once again a series of features and a holistic design approach.

PRICE AND AVAILABILITY

Wilson Benesch is aiming to officially launch the GMT ONE System Turntable in January 2022, price is yet to be confirmed

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