Полочная акустика — Wilson Benesch P1.0

The P1.0 is the entry point to the Precision Series of Wilson Benesch, the loudspeaker company based in Sheffield, England, which has designed enclosures and drive units in-house for three decades. It brings technology from the company's Geometry reference series into a stand-mount with an integrated stand, and it pairs a single Tactic 2.0 mid/bass driver with the Leonardo tweeter.

Key specs that matter

It uses a 25 mm Wilson Benesch Leonardo silk dome tweeter and a 170 mm Wilson Benesch Tactic 2.0 mid/bass. The tweeter has a second-order high-pass filter at 5 kHz, while the mid/bass is coupled directly to the amplifier with no crossover components. Frequency response is 38 Hz to 24 kHz, sensitivity is 89 dB and nominal impedance is 6 ohms. The enclosure is port tuned.

Engineering and use context

The Tactic drive unit uses an isotactic polypropylene cone. Wilson Benesch chose it for its balance of stiffness and internal damping after testing hard materials such as carbon fibre, which break up at high frequencies and would need complex crossovers to tame, a compromise the company avoids. This is possible because the Tactic rolls off mechanically at the right point. The enclosure is a hybrid of several materials, the same approach used in the Geometry Series. CNC-machined aluminium caps at the top and bottom are tied along the vertical axis by 13 mm threaded steel bars that terminate in threaded pockets in the caps and the front and rear aluminium baffles. When torqued, the bars compress the whole structure. Along the horizontal axis, tubular braces lock into routed grooves and U-section aluminium damping rods add stiffness and damping. The same tie-bar technique appears in the reference loudspeakers and in the Isobars of Wilson Benesch's R1 hi-fi rack. The stand is not a separate piece on which the speaker rests. It is tied into the aluminium base plate of the enclosure at one end and into the stand foot at the other, so the stand and cabinet act as one structure. The alloy baffle, top and foot carry machined logos front and rear. Every speaker is hand-built, and bespoke finishes such as silver birch, aged oak, aged walnut and burr walnut are offered at no extra cost.

Pairing

The moderate load suits integrated amplifiers from about 50 W per channel. With no crossover parts in front of the mid/bass, the amplifier's damping factor directly controls the driver, which favours solid-state designs with low output impedance.

Alternatives

Wilson Benesch's P2.0 is the floorstanding model of the Precision Series with two Tactic 2.0 drivers.