WILSON BENESCH Discovery
Stand mount monitors
Wilson Benesch presents one of the Discovery's drivers naked, firing towards the floor - that is why the Discovery speaker looks like an engine rather than a loudspeaker. If you consider how the Discovery is designed and how tit sounds, it is much closer to a floordstander. I've found the asking price fully appropriate for this piece of solid engineering. Yes, they are expensive, but still bargain ccomparing to, let's say, Magico Q1 minimonitors.
Function and form
Side walls of the Discovery are made from carbon fiber. Wilson Benesch assumes that the carbon panels are lightweight, very stiff and have self-damping properties. This material was actually transferred from the company's tonearms. The carbon is combined with dural and if you do not like the industrial aesthetics the company offers covering the side panels with wood veneer. The application of the veneer on the carbon is provided by specialized suppliers that provide the very same service for Rolls-Royce and Bentley.
The boxes are affixed to a massive aluminum piece that forms a backbone of speakers and connects them with the floor piece, a slab of steel on spikes. There are only three sharp spikes and because the Discovery is a heavy speaker the spikes are quite merciless to any floor.
The aluminum backbone also bears antiresonant binding posts that support bi-wiring. Not only Wilson Benesch provides massive clamps if you do not plan to use the bi-wiring, but it also provides a wrench to tighten the posts so that the connection with a speaker cable is virtually cold-welded.
The 1" dome tweeter sourced from Danish ScanSpeak, however, the bass drivers are what makes the Discovery so unique. Why drivers if only one is visible? Wilson Benesch works with what they call "Isobaric Tactic” configuration: two bass drivers are connected in tandem, with opposite phase. Thus the Discovery doubles its bass output with higher linearity thanks to the symmetrical magnetc field. The air gap between both the drivers remains constant which should also positively affect resonant behaviour of this design. But the Wilson Benesch's engineering goes even further with another bass driver that is mounted in the bottom of the cabinet, in a separate compartment. This driver's refex port is what we see as an 'exhaust pipe'. The other pipe belongs to the other driver(s). Each section is tuned and this is why each pipe is of different length. Vertical stream of bass energy helps stabilizing the speaker mechanically too.
Bass management
According to Wilson Benesch the Discovery handles peaks of 200 W and are capable of 110dB at 1m - this is the sound level of a heavy metal concert.
In Airto Moreira's Nevermind (Stereophile Test CD3) the piano was firm and stable with the size, that I normally use to hear from big floorstanding speakers. The double bass was resonant and punchy and, oh my, so deep with the Disccovery. Its transient attacks were like detonations and its textures among the best, resembling what Bowers & Wilkins rohacell membranes can do. yes, we are still discussing a monitor speaker.
Clarity & delicacy
Symphonic music requires expanding soundstage, tonal fidelity, the capability to handle dynamic microshifts in nanoseconds and first rate transparency. Such the music also needs speakers that will not dissect the performance into individual elements, rather they favour integrity, instrumental communication and emotional involvement. The Discovery eats similarly priced competitors alive in all these aspects. In dynamic peaks the pressure would knock you out and the sweeps of strings are so present that you feel like being there.
Tonal accuracy
I had not euphonic impression from the Discovery's tonality. What I heard was balanced sound with all sonic necessities included, yet not immediately apparent. The sound was opposite of being fragile - it was robust and didi not disintegrate when the volume was turned to the right. Even at really loud levels that bordered with concert sound the Wilson Benesch maintained its spectral balance without getting shrieky or boomy. No matter if I listened to fiery saxophones or classical scherzo, the sound remained to be resolved, controlled and resonance-free.
Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances on Reference Recordings are a very dynamic music program that eats watts from an amplifier. One turns the volume knob more and more and the music keeps being soooo quiet - as if the amplifier was not amplifying. But then the orchestra detonates and the ceiling in room wants to leave. On many occassions (with other speakers) drivers hit their stops as they could not manage such a dynamic material. I did not experience any limitation with the Discovery.
Spatial resolution
The Wilson Benesch Discovery are quite easy to place. I found them less sensitive to the room than other speakers. Yes, they benefit from the usual as-far-from-the-walls-as-possible formula, still the proximity of the walls will not spoil the performance if you have no other option of placement. Initial set up in my roomwas not very much different from the optimum set up that I achieved in the course of listening sessions.
Recommended resellers
Dreamaudio, Bratislava, +421 907 838 806
Manufacturer's website: http://www.wilson-benesch.com
Associated components
- Sources: emmLabs CDSA
- Amplifiers: Audia Flight Strumento No.1 and No.4, Electrocompaniet ECI 6DS
- Interconnects and speaker cables: Acrolink 8N A2080 MkIII, Acrolink 7N S1400 MkIII
Gallery
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