{"id":22657,"date":"2020-03-03T12:39:40","date_gmt":"2020-03-03T10:39:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hifi-advice.com\/blog\/?p=22657"},"modified":"2020-11-12T11:31:35","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T09:31:35","slug":"wilson-benesch-precision-p1-0-and-p2-0-part1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hifi-advice.com\/blog\/review\/loudspeaker-reviews\/loudspeakers-passive-reviews\/wilson-benesch-precision-p1-0-and-p2-0-part1\/","title":{"rendered":"Wilson Benesch Precision P1.0 and P2.0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Review samples supplied by Wilson Benesch<\/a>
\n<\/a>Retail prices in the Netherlands, including 21% VAT:
\nP1.0: 7.200 euro
\nP2.0: 11.400 euro<\/h4>\n

Thanks to their unique styling and especially their unusual isobaric “inside-out” woofers, Wilson Benesch speakers never fail to catch my attention at an audio show. I first heard of the brand about 15 years ago but it took me until now to actually get a pair into my listening room. Back then, I was using B&W Nautilus 804 speakers with Bryston, Wadia and Jeff Rowland equipment and, in spite of the 7B ST Monos, never got the bass to be tight enough. Via-via, I got in touch with a dealer who suggested that the logical next step up would be Wilson Benesch. Alas, life took me in different directions and I never got around to testing those speakers at home.<\/p>\n

Fast-forward to the Munich show last year, 2019 where Raphael Pasche from CH Precision offered to guide me past all the rooms that used CH Precision amplification to showcase their products. Among these was the Wilson Benesch room that used the almost-maximum stack of CH Precision source components along with M1.1 mono’s to feed the Wilson Benesch Flagship Eminence speakers. As the range toppers of the Geometry series, they feature 2 isobaric woofers and 2 inverted drivers and even without playing music, their unique hybrid alien-like\/organic form is an absolute conversation piece!<\/p>\n

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It’s always hard to make decent photos against the very light backgrounds at the Munich High-End show<\/em><\/p>\n

Augmenting the speakers in this room were a pair of Torus infrasonic generators which are essentially subwoofers but in a push-pull configuration and made to extremely high specs to achieve a very linear output right down to 10kHz with the lowest possible distortion.<\/p>\n

The complex Geometry series with their abundant use of Carbon Fiber and in-house designed and manufactured drivers understandably carry upscale price tags but they have the performance to match. The sound in this room was highly dynamic and powerful and, unlike many other speakers at the show, rich in tonality and quite the antithesis of sterile. While the CH-typical extreme resolution and transparency that I hear with certain other speakers were less obvious to me with these speakers, the system was highly expressive, utterly communicative and clearly knew how to boogie. There was never a sense of listening to an electro-mechanical reproduction, rather, there was a similar engagement factor as I hear with “live” music.<\/p>\n

At the moment, Wilson Benesch has no distributor in the Netherlands, and so, this review was arranged directly with the manufacturer. The brand’s international representative, Luke Milnes, approached me for this and provided all the support that I could wish for and made sure that I had all the information needed to get the best from the speakers.<\/p>\n

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Precision Series<\/h3>\n

The Precision Series applies trickle-down technology from the reference line and has been designed to offer a healthy portion of the performance at a more accessible price level. To achieve this, the enclosure contains no carbon fiber but is made from a mix of metal alloy and wood with internal tensioned crossbars for stiffening and a novel form of damping materials. The structure is made such that it creates an ideal balance between stiffness and dampening. The Tactic II woofers are common across both lines (only the Eminence uses the Tactic III) and the Leonardo tweeters use the same geometrically optimized and decoupled polymer-carbon fiber waveguide faceplate as the Eminence speakers. The P1.0 and P2.0 both have a very high 89dB sensitivity with a 6\u03a9 nominal \/ 4\u03a9 Minimal impedance which means that they should play well with pretty much any amplifier, including tube amps.<\/p>\n

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It’s important to remove the tweeter protector rod as its presence can be heard as a suckout in the vocal range that makes it sound filtered. I fell for this both times…<\/em><\/p>\n

System context<\/h3>\n

I will be reviewing the speakers using two audio setups and will start with the P1.0’s in the smaller secondary setup in which I normally use Xavian Perla Esclusiva<\/a> speakers with an Ayon CD-10 MkII CD player and DAC, an Antipodes EX<\/a> music server and an Ayon Spirit III<\/a> KT-150 push-pull integrated tube amplifier.<\/p>\n

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P1.0<\/h3>\n

Delivered to me in a beautiful Aged Walnut finish, the Wilson Benesch P1.0’s employ a direct amp-coupled mid\/bass driver with a tweeter with a second-order cross over. Their cabinets and stands are perfectly-sized: not too small and not too bulky and they will not dominate a room. The Xavians that I normally use in this room are quite small but in spite of their size, they produce adequate bass and that is because the room itself helps out in that regard with a sympathetic<\/em> room mode, for a change. Nevertheless, going from the Xavians to the P1.0’s is like stepping into an entirely different realm in terms of bass performance. Of course, going from a 13cm woofer to a 17cm woofer will do that but instead of only offering fuller or deeper bass, the quality<\/em> of the bass is also incomparable. There is more resolution, higher precision, more purity, better articulation and clearer pitch definition. In a word, the bass is simply superb. And, importantly, the P1.0’s naturally extend the bass response without triggering nasty room modes meaning that they are well-fitted for smaller spaces.<\/p>\n

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The P1.0’s also produce a much wider soundstage and are considerably more transparent that the Xavians. The resolution is great and these speakers certainly do not mask any details, the frequency curve is very linear (no peakiness nor any valleys) and, overall, the sound is seemingly utterly neutral. With a quoted response of 38Hz – 24kHz +\/- 2dB on-axis this is no surprise. Yet, they do not, at all, sound overly clean, not analytical and certainly not clinical. This is because the speakers have a subtle and pleasant warmth that is most noticeable in the upper bass and lower midrange.<\/p>\n

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People that are used to listening to magnetostatics or electrostatics might refer to this as coloration but a better way to put it is voicing<\/em>. In reality, compared to the aforementioned speakers, pretty much any<\/em> cabinet speaker has more character. As I mentioned, the P1.0’s are very transparent but they are not totally devoid of character. But this also serves to make them revealing as well as easy to listen to. Coming back to what I said at the beginning about the B&W Nautilus 804’s, I can now certainly see why the dealer recommended Wilson Benesch to me back then!<\/p>\n

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At a certain point, the system was positively cruising and I noticed that the sound in this relatively simple system was so good that I had been listening to track after track without feeling the urge to move to the big system. The P1.0’s worked superbly well with the Ayon and they were clearly a perfect match for this room. Especially the bass quality, the resolution and the soundstaging were highly addictive.<\/p>\n

The speakers may possess a nice warmth but they’re absolutely not sleepy or overly smooth. In fact, they have a forward kind of sound with some extra presence in the upper midrange that makes vocals break free and creates a very communicative delivery. A later cross-comparison with the Magico S1 MkII’s and the Martin Logan ESL15A’s in the main room using the Roon Zone Switching function did confirm that those speakers’ treble is darker as well as softer and gentler. By comparison to these speakers, the P1.0’s do indeed have a slightly forward upper midrange and lower treble. But as my extended listening proved, it’s well-balanced and never to the point of sounding overly hard or aggressive.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

P2.0<\/h3>\n

The larger P2.0 floor standers in Precision White finish deserve the best conditions and so I proceeded to the main setup. Here, I use a CH Precision C1<\/a> DAC directly to a CH Precision A1.5<\/a> power amplifier. The sources used for this test are the Antipodes CX<\/a> music server and the Aqua La Diva CD transport. As speaker cables, I used Jorma Design Trinity<\/a> as well as FoilFlex<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The P2.0 is labeled as a 2,5-way speaker. As with the P1.0 stand mounters, the tweeter uses a second-order crossover. Here, the midrange unit is directly coupled to the amplifier while the bass driver uses a first-order crossover.<\/p>\n

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Although the main system is cleaner and more neutral than the other system, the sound of the P2.0’s was clearly fuller and more sonorous. The bigger cabinets and different driver arrangements result in a more voluptuous sound that I initially experience as less transparent than that of the P1.0. There is not only deeper bass but also a lot more<\/em> of it. But that’s not exactly stunning news – bigger cabinets with more drivers often have that effect. What the P2.0 also brings to the table is a frequency response of 34Hz – 24kHz +\/- 2dB on-axis which is pretty impressive for a speaker of its size.<\/p>\n

Thinking of it now, it seems clear that the direct amp-coupling of the midrange driver, which eliminates all passive filter components in the process, has real benefits for the sound. This probably has a lot to do with the P1.0 and P2.0’s lively and exciting sound.<\/p>\n

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The Foilflex speaker cables worked very well with the P2.0’s<\/em><\/p>\n

Like the P1.0’s, the P2.0’s are transparent yet colorful although I kept feeling that the P1.0’s were ultimately more neutral. In order to test this, I set up the stand mounters in the main listening room to make direct comparisons.<\/p>\n

Vocals are well-focused with really good depth and positioned in a wide soundstage. The slightly forward character in the upper midrange makes that the speakers are so effectively communicative irrespective of their full-bodied sound. They are particularly strong with percussion and wood instruments and as a result, for instance, violins and piano sound convincing and involving. They’re very lyrical, too.<\/p>\n

For me, the 21K-Magicos and 30K-Logans are the current kings of resolution and transparency and neither the P1.0 nor the P2.0 come across as quite as refined as these. Then again,<\/p>\n

But I must admit to being biased in this regard what with my decades-long living with various planar and ribbon speakers. Indeed, precious few dynamic speakers have a similar sound and those that do cost an extra arm or leg. Also, as I experienced a couple times too many, refinement is a dangerous property. Too much of it can also kill the spirit of the music. This is something that absolutely does not happen with the Wilson Benesch speakers. Both the P1.0 and P2.0 actually\u00a0sound considerably more lively and energetic than both the Logans and Magicos. Indeed, the Wilson Benesch Precision series loudspeakers have a massive<\/em> fun-factor.<\/p>\n

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Big Bass<\/h3>\n

The P2.0’s bass may be voluptuous, it is also forceful and with an even-handed output and no peakiness. This is important to note because some bass-reflex designs have the tendency to excite one or more of the remaining room modes that I know I still have, in spite of center-room speaker placement and the copious use of bass traps. The worst offenders in this respect were the Wilson Watt\/Puppy 8’s that I liked a lot for their liveliness but had to get rid of due to relentless bass issues in my room. The Kromas that I got after that were considerably more well-behaved and both the Magicos and the Logans are pretty much perfect in terms of bass linearity. Of course, both have no bass-reflex ports and the Logans actually use partially dipolar, partially bipolar woofers devised precisely to battle unwanted room interaction. That the Wilson Benesch P2.0’s are so well-behaved even in my less than ideal room is a real plus since precious few rooms will actually<\/em> be acoustically ideal.<\/p>\n

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Thinking back of the Watt\/Puppy 8, the P2.0’s have a presentation that has some parallels with the Wilsons. Both are lively, upbeat and communicative and with both designs, high-pitched forceful female vocals can be slightly more spicey than utterly neutral. But it’s never to the point that it bothers me and in both cases, this serves to further attribute to the “live” character of the presentation.<\/p>\n

After I finished the bulk of my assessments I let the P2.0’s play while doing other things and walking around the apartment. At this point, I noticed that the speakers remain pleasant to listen to and sound good also when I’m in the other room. It’s an involving yet easy to listen to sound.<\/p>\n

Direct Comparisons<\/h3>\n

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The main listening room measures 5 by 7 meters with the speakers positioned almost midway the 7-meter depth. Right in front of the speakers, the listening space extends one meter to the right and many meters to the left meaning that the speakers breathe freely.<\/p>\n

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In the much larger main listening room the P1.0’s sound understandably less full in the bass and they also don’t seem to extend quite as deeply. This is completely in line with their design and it clearly illustrates the case for using small speakers in small listening areas and larger ones in larger areas.<\/p>\n

But even when accounting for the loss of bass due to the lack of beneficial room modes, this direct comparison further substantiated my feeling that the P1.0 and P2.0 are voiced slightly differently. The stand mounters do indeed come across as slightly more neutral while the floor standers sound a little fuller than strictly neutral.<\/p>\n

Of course, not having to produce the deepest bass at full strength also has less potential to engage any room modes. Still, having heard more than a few speakers in this room, and with the system in various positions, I think I have a very good handle on what can be attributed to the speaker or to the room.<\/p>\n

In any event, the P1.0’s go plenty loud and don’t feel underpowered even in this large space and they actually sound very realistic with acoustical or small-scale music. Where the added value of the P2.0’s becomes entirely clear is when playing strongly bass-driven music. Electronica with strong low bass content such as Yoshinori Sunahara understandably has less energy in the lowest notes. The P2.0’s, however, absolutely LOVE low-frequency content and they pump out everything I throw at them with gusto.<\/p>\n

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Finishes<\/h3>\n

The Precision Series speakers metal front, rear, top and bottom parts are available in Precision Black and Precision White with the option to select from a large range of finishes for the side panels of the speakers.<\/p>\n

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These are the most interesting options but if these are too “out there” there’s also plain white or black<\/em><\/p>\n

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Very interesting are the “Nero” and “Grigio” finishes that very closely resemble leather but with their super-hard surfaces are nearly indestructible<\/em><\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n

The Wilson Benesch Precision Series captures a large part of the essence of the Wilson Benesch sound at a more accessible price point. Both the P1.0 and P2.0 deliver a sound that is solid, dynamic and powerful as well as vivid, open and communicative. But in the true spirit of Wilson Benesch, they combine their energetic delivery with pleasant smoothness and a hint of warmth to make for an easy to listen to yet always engaging performance.<\/p>\n

Associated Equipment<\/a><\/p>\n

External Links<\/h3>\n

Manufacturer: Wilson-Benesch.com<\/a><\/p>\n

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