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2012 Bristol Show – Science Behind the Designs Presentation.

This years Focus : GEOMETRY and its fundamental relevance to good design.

Conservatory : Each day of the Show at 1 o’clock.

The science based presentation will begin at the molecular level. It will provide an insight into the strengths and weaknesses of numerous engineering materials. Gain a real insight into why materials technology matters. Get a hold of and even stand on some of the most amazing materials of today and tomorrow!

WARNING : The presentation will include explosions via the combined effect of 4 Torus Infrasonic generators.

Wilson Benesch is globally recognised as the pioneer of advanced carbon fibre audio components. Stereosound Japan noted ten years ago that it was Wilson Benesch that first recognised the importance of the now ubiquitous sloping top geometry on the top of loudspeaker enclosures. The patented Torus Infrasonic Generator was described as a “Genius design” by The Absolute Sounds writer Jonathon Valin. A few of our favourite things that we will be celebrating this year as per usual, in the Conservatory.

Wilson Benesch is about joined up design and manufacture that is driven by a passionate no compromise approach to component and product development. Manufacturing, design, management, research in short everything, exists under one roof in Sheffield South Yorkshire. This unique facility is a centre for innovation that has established collaborative links with with scientists and engineers across the UK. It is this capability that has won the company not one but three substantial grants that records £870,000 of research and development expenditure over the last eight years. It has also led to several studies by television programs and researchers looking to see how we do, what we do. The Discovery Channel recently covered the company on its ‘How Is It Made’ Program.

So come and join us in the Sound & Vision Conservatory or Wilson Benesch Glass House.

Twitter Feed @Wilson_Benesch will keep you updated during the event

Here’s a short film from last year. This video can be viewed in HD on our YouTube homepage.

McLaren, like Wilson Benesch, is pioneering in every respect where the use of carbon fibre structures is concerned. The new McLaren MP4-12c as the McLaren F1 before it, employs carbon fibre extensively throughout the vehicle to minimise weight without compromising strength. The MP4-12C weighs 1,301 kg (2,868 lb) dry.

The MP4-12C chassis is based around an F1 style one-piece carbon fibre tub, called the Carbon MonoCell, weighing only 80 kg (176 lb). The MonoCell is made in a single RTM pressing by using a set of patented processes, using Bi-Axial and Tri-Axial carbon fibre multiaxial fabrics. The process is the same that Wilson Benesch uses to produce the key component in our cutting edge designs; the Advanced Composite Technology A.C.T. Monocoque found in the Odyssey Range, Wide Bandwidth Series and the latest Geometry Series. Unlike McLaren who outsource the MonoCell production, Wilson Benesch has invested in and developed our RTM system over the past 10-years.

The Future is Carbon!

As this wonderful image of Macy Gray from the 2011 Nice Jazz Festival highlights, David Redfern remains at the cutting edge of Live Music photography. He continues to work at all the major Jazz festivals globally; completing his 35th New Orleans Jazz festival in 2011. David remains the President of BAPLA (British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies) a role he has fulfilled for the past 18 years.

David Redfern’s career began in the twilight jazz clubs of 1960’s London. He risked his one and only camera amongst the jiving teenage crowds. The British Trad boom was under way. His first published photos featured Kenny Ball, Chris Barber, George Melly, and the old Marquee Club.

David began photographing TV Shows like ‘Ready Steady Go’ and ‘Thank Your Lucky Stars’ which were shot during the day. Here he made many of his now classic shots of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Dusty Springfield.

Meanwhile his nights were spent at the 100 Club, Ronnie Scott’s or the Marquee, where he captured on film all the jazz greats from Miles Davis to Ella Fitzgerald.

These pictures were to contribute to what is now the most comprehensive jazz collection in Europe. To break into the commercial world by chasing the big American names, David became a regular visitor to the Jazz festivals in Newport, Antibes and Montreux, and the big rock festivals, photographing such greats as Hendrix and Dylan.

By the 1970′s David had firmly established his name as one of the top music photographers in the business. In 1980 Pete Townsend’s Eel Pie Company published David Redfern’s Jazz Album. Lavishly illustrated with many of David’s finest jazz photographs, it was highly acclaimed by critics and public alike. In the same year, at Frank Sinatras request, David stepped into Terry O’Neill’s shoes as official tour photographer.

‘David, you’re one helluva photographer, keep shooting!’
Frank Sinatra

At the beginning of 1989 David moved his music picture library REDFERNS to new premises in West London, a location now much favoured by the British music industry. The library expanded rapidly. Covering over 26,000 different artists and styles from every musical genre, and representing some 500 photographers and collections, it became the most comprehensive music picture library in the world, with over 205,000 items online.

‘David, to me, is probably the greatest jazz photographer in the world’
Buddy Rich

The December ’94 issue of the American publication Jazz Times featured David’s work in their ‘Special Collectors Edition’, with select contributions from six of the world’s most highly acclaimed jazz photographers. David was the only non-American to be featured. This also coincided with sale of his 1995 Jazz Calendar published by the renowned calendar publishers The Ink Group.

September 1995 saw the launch of a series of 10 Jazz postage stamps by the US post office. Three of David’s images were used: Louis Armstrong, Thelonious Monk & Coleman Hawkins. The inclusion of the Louis Armstrong image was a result of some 38,000 signatures collected from 65 countries over 8 years, and had a special launch in New Orleans, the birthplace of Louis Armstrong. As a point of interest the picture of Louis Armstrong was taken by David in New York in 1967, on his first visit to the US.

His book The Unclosed Eye was published by Sanctuary Publishing in May 1999 with critical acclaim. The London Sunday Times Magazine published a 4 page feature.

The book publication coincided with exhibitions in London, New York and New Orleans, followed by one in Cork, Ireland in October 2000. The prestigious design magazine ‘Creative Review’ published a profile on David in their February 2001 issue. It was entitled ‘Leader with Vision’. David had another exhibition in September 2001 in conjunction with the Soho Jazz & Heritage Festival in London and at the Vienne Jazz festival in June/July 2002.

In November 2005 The Unclosed Eye expanded 2nd edition in hardback was published by David himself. This included a 200 limited slipcase edition complete with two 10 x 8 original colour prints.

David received ‘The Milt Hinton Award for Excellence in Jazz Photography’ in New York in January 2007. The award recognizes lifetime achievement in jazz photography as art and history.

In December 2008 David sold Redferns Music Picture Library to Getty Images. He has the use in perpetuity of his favourite 1000 images to market as fine art prints, and for his partner Suzy to use in her fashion textile business Suzy Reed Ltd.

Wilson Benesch would like to thank David for providing his images for our fans around the world and we hope that you enjoy the selection of images with us over the next 12-months.

Craig Milnes
Design Director
Wilson Benesch Ltd.

The demonstration will consist of a 2-channel setup, with the new Geometry Series Vector supported by the Torus Infrasonic Generator. Amplification will be provided by Chord Electronics in the form of the SPM5000 and CPA5000 preamp amplifier.

A second smaller system will consist of the Wilson Benesch Square Two’s using the same electronics.

We would like to wish all those attending and our partners in Spain at Evalitec the very best for a successful show.

Location: Hotel Auditorium, Madrid, Spain
Date: Friday 3rd – Sunday 5th February 2012
Time: 10.00 – 19.30, Friday & Saturday
10.00 – 15.30 Sunday
Tickets: Free Entrance – With free buses from the airport every 30-minutes
Information: elitexpo Madrid 2012

The Future is Carbon

The ‘How It’s Made’ series is a long running production. The program presents the steps involved in the entire process of manufacturing. Wilson Benesch are delighted to be able to share with our audience the processes involved in manufacturing the Full Circle including the tonearm.

The film will present the entire process from the raw stock to finished components, their assembly and the Full Circle playing one of Michael Hobson’s (Classic Records) beautiful recordings.

In summation of his review Monsieur Mafrand writes,

We must face the facts: the Chimera inevitably reminds us of the Full Circle turntable by the manufacturer that we tested recently. The Chimera distills the expressiveness, the immediacy and the transparency we appreciated with the turntable. These characteristics give the Chimera a true personality in the best sense of the term and many music lovers will find that suits them with this technically and aesthetically different but irresistibly musical product.

Download the full unedited PDF from our Reviews page.

Geometry Shapes the future of Wilson Benesch:

Last years newsletter began with the term ‘Global turmoil’, as we look back on the past 12-months and more importantly forward to the next twelve, it’s fair to say that we are all in unknown territory. Having carefully navigated the economic wreckage of the 2010/11 fallout, Wilson Benesch moves into 2012 off the back of the launch of the new Geometry Series and with it the strongest year of sales since 2008. The company Directors would like to thank all those who have invested in our designs. We have worked very hard to anticipate this demand and have transformed our production capability whilst retaining the facets that have made Wilson Benesch unique in the world. This has required considerable investment in our machine suite, as well as increased staff and training. All this against significant investment in research and development that will deliver a new flagship loudspeaker in 2012, a new Centre to complete the Geometry Series, along with a raft of other new technologies approaching fruition that will further underline our position as a leading exponent and manufacturer of science led, technology driven audio products.

A Story of Two Halves: Product Launches & Increased Efficiency

Casting back to February the Geometry Series was launched at the Bristol Sound and Vision Show. The Vertex and the Vector brought a new standmount and a new floorstanding option in the Wilson Benesch range. The designs saw the introduction of a completely reworked, flux optimised, rear motor section in the drive unit, to form the Tactic II Drive Unit. Whilst the new products also saw for the first time in our history, Wilson Benesch’s own tweeter, the Semisphere.

Following the introduction of the Geometry Series, we experienced a full production schedule for the following 5-months. Our response was immediate, employing two new full time staff, increased staff training across the work force and as a result significantly improved productivity. Most importantly, Wilson Benesch invested heavily in the machine suite with the addition of a new Hurco VM30. This has doubled our production capacity for the Geometry Series and will also allow the us to machine the huge new baffle for the Cardinal, which you can preview above.

Part of the success of the new series has been down to increased promotional activity in the UK. You may have seen in HiFi Plus the first series of adverts on the new Geometry Series. We tend to avoid convention and our advertising is no exception, those viewing HiFi Plus on an iPad will have noticed our 4-part series consisted of animated components to accompany the print edition. Thanks to the work of Luke Milnes our Media & Marketing Manager and Chris Ward our Design Engineer, who are both relatively recent additions to the team, these films extol the virtues of our technology through simple but effective three dimensional exploded views. In case you have missed this material previews are now available on our WilsonBeneschTV channel.

Manufacturing in 2012:

Over the summer of 2011, we welcomed our French distribution, JFF Diffusion, our Chinese distribution, Richcoln and Chris Amos of Kemela Audio, Atlanta USA. During these visits we were able to present a small snapshot of our manufacturing suite, which now produces 95% of every component used in any Wilson Benesch product under one roof. But these visits also allowed you to see a glimpse into the impressive facilities of some of our collaborators in Sheffield, the Advanced Manufacturing Park and the Sheffield University. It is the story of this manufacturing prowess, allied with our technological collaborations that makes our brand.

The year 2012 starts as busy as the last, with reviews on the new products in progress, along with the first airing of the ‘How It’s Made’ study of the Wilson Benesch Full Circle, due to air on the Discovery Channel, Science Channel, January 5th 2012, 21:00 EST. In February we will be in the Wilson Benesch glasshouse at the Bristol Sound and Vision Show. Before gearing up to the launch of the most important product to date, the new flagship loudspeaker in our range, the Cardinal. It is going to be the biggest year yet in our history with some very exciting events on the horizon.

Very best and Seasons Greetings from Christina, Craig and all the team at Wilson Benesch, 2011.

Wilson Benesch will be closed 21st December 2011 – 3rd January 2012.

Headed by the much esteemed John Costanzo, guests can expect a presentation of various musical styles on a variety of products, that will include from the Wilson Benesch range, the ACT Loudspeaker, the Arc Loudspeaker and also the Full Circle vinyl source.

If you would like to attend please register your interest for this event by e-mail on the address provided below. We wish all attendees and everyone at ‘My Kind of Music’ a pleasant and enjoyable evening, full of festive cheer.

Location: My Kind of Music, Toronto, Canada
Date: Thursday 8th – Friday 9th December, 2011
Hours: 5:00pm to 10:00pm
Register via email: info@mykindofmusic.com

The Future is Carbon

Adderley was originally from Florida, where he and his brother played with Ray Charles during the 1940s. But it was in New York where his prolific career began. Adderley attended a club to watch Oscar Pettiford’s group, by chance the saxophonist was late and Adderley had brought his saxophone with him for fear that it might be stolen. He was asked to sit in as the saxophone player and in true Cannonball style, he soared through the changes and became a sensation in the following weeks.

Prior to joining the Miles Davis band, Adderley formed his own group with his brother Nat after signing onto the Savoy jazz label in 1957. He was noticed by Miles Davis, and it was because of his blues-rooted alto saxophone that Davis asked him to play with his group.

Adderley joined the Miles Davis sextet in October 1957, three months prior to John Coltrane’s return to the group. Adderley played on the seminal Davis records Milestones and Kind of Blue. This period also overlapped with pianist Bill Evans’s time with the sextet, an association that led to recording Portrait of Cannonball and Know What I Mean?.

Adderley died of a stroke in 1975. He was buried in the Southside Cemetery, Tallahassee, Florida. Later that year he was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame.

Here’s a little something we found.

We would like to extend our gratitude to our Finnish distributors Sound Gallery for the exhibition at Finland’s HiFi Expo earlier this month. On demonstration was the new Geometry Series Vertex loudspeaker in combination with the Torus Infrasonic Generator for the first time in Finland.

A few images from the event can be viewed in the slideshow below.

Wilson Benesch Taiwanese distributors Currants Audio hosted an impressive demonstration of the new Geometry Series at the Splendor Taichung High-End Show. Visitors were treated to live demonstrations of both the Vertex and the Vector loudspeakers. We would like to thank Kun Yi and everyone at Currants Audio for their hard work. Here are some images of the latest exhibit, which can be viewed in a slideshow by clicking the image below.

The Future is Carbon

Bernard “Buddy” Rich – September 30th, 1917 – April 2nd, 1987. An American jazz drummer and bandleader. Rich was regarded as one of the world’s finest drummers and was known for his virtuosic technique, power, groove, and speed.

Rich was born in Brooklyn, New York, where his career as a drummer started almost from the moment he could hold a drum stick. At the peak of his childhood career, Rich was reportedly the second highest paid child entertainer in the world. Immensely gifted, Rich could play with remarkable speed and dexterity despite the fact that he never received a formal lesson and refused to practice outside of his performances.

Rich’s jazz career began in 1937 when he began playing with Joe Marsala at New York’s Hickory House. By 1939, he had joined Tommy Dorsey’s band, after a performance in an orchestra fronted by Frank Sinatra. Later went on to play with such jazz greats as Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Ventura, Louis Armstrong and Gene Krupa. Rich was regularly featured in Jazz at the Philharmonic during the late 1940s.

As the big band era of the 30s and 40s waned, Rich tended to play in his own bands in smaller venues to the clubs the big bands had frequented. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, continued to tour his own bands and opened two nightclubs, Buddy’s Place and Buddy’s Place II. Both clubs were regularly filled to capacity by fans of the great master drummer. Rich also served as the session drummer for many recordings, where his playing was often much more understated than in his own big-band performances. Especially notable were Rich’s sessions for the late-career comeback recordings of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, on which he worked with pianist Oscar Peterson and his famous trio featuring bassist Ray Brown and guitarist Herb Ellis.

Rich’s technique has been one of the most standardized and coveted in drumming. His dexterity, musicality of playing style, speed and smooth execution are considered “holy grails” of drum technique and have been considered next to impossible to duplicate. Henry Adler, a drum teacher that worked with Rich throughout his career, was quoted to have said about there meeting through a fellow student, “The kid told me Buddy played better than [Gene] Krupa. Buddy was only in his teens at the time and his friend was my first pupil. Buddy played and I watched his hands. Well, he knocked me right out. He did everything I wanted to do, and he did it with such ease. When I met his folks, I asked them who his teacher was. ‘He never studied,’ they told me. That made me feel very good. I realized that it was something physical, not only mental, that you had to have.”

Buddy Rich remained active performing until the end of his life. He died April 2nd, 1987, due to heart failure following surgery for a malignant brain tumour. He was aged, 69.

Here’s a little something we found and enjoyed.

For the first time after the merger of Audio Excellence and art’s audio, the Dutch distributor for Wilson Benesch, art’s Excellence, presented at the X-Fi High-End audio show in Utrecht, the Netherlands. All the show reports indicate it was a successful show. We would like to thank our distributors Kees Jan, Arthur and Jan of art’s Excellence for providing another successful demonstration. Here are some images of the latest exhibit, which can be viewed in a slideshow by clicking the image below.

The Future is Carbon

Finnish distributors Sound Gallery will be presenting the Wilson Benesch range at the prestigious HiFiExpo in Helsinki. The exhibition will provide an opportunity to hear the new Geometry Series Vertex loudspeaker in combination with the Torus Infrasonic Generator for the first time in Finland. There will also be alternating demonstrations with the Wide Bandwidth Series Trinity loudspeaker. All systems will be supported by Pathos electronics.

You can download the show guide here: Helsinki HiFi Expo 2011

Location: Helsinki Fair Center, Helsinki, Finland
Date: Friday 4th – Sunday 6th November 2011
Tickets: 14 Euro (includes entry to DigiExpo, SkiExpo, BoardExpo & HockeyExpo)

The Future is Carbon