Mission statement

Founded in 1989 and owned and directed by Craig Milnes and Christina Milnes, Wilson Benesch is a globally recognised brand, designing and manufacturing, high-tech luxury home consumer audio products. Located in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, the company today is a highly optimised and vertically aligned design and manufacturer, comprised of a team of highly trained craftsmen, designers and engineers.

In 1989 the company bank account opened with just £25,000. Within 12-months the company would commit much of this funding to its first research and development project, which was match funded with £25,000 from the British government by way of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTi).

The outcome of this R&D project would result in a multi-award winning product, that would establish the company among the landscape of high-end audio and in the process secure the company a number of the world’s most reputable import partners. The product was the Wilson Benesch Turntable and the ‘Advanced Composite Technology’ or A.C.T. One Tonearm.

Carbon fibre was an advanced engineering material with remarkable properties which created a number of advantages to the design process within Wilson Benesch. The material would become irrevocably linked to  the company's product development programme from this point forward. Carbon fibre currently defines the Wilson Benesch brand globally.

The success of the Wilson Benesch Turntable had established the company and allowed Wilson Benesch to begin reinvestment in new product development and research into advanced material technology and manufacturing. In 1994, Wilson Benesch completed its second R&D project, again partly funded by DTi investment into innovative R&D. At the 1994 Frankfurt High End show, Wilson Benesch launched its first loudspeaker, the A.C.T. One loudspeaker.

The A.C.T. One would be a phenomenal success for the company. It was developed through strong collaboration with numerous leading engineers from a variety of  fields, including advanced composite engineering and acoustic design.

Like the turntable preceding it, the design was radically different from anything seen to date.  The A.C.T. One design departed from the ubiquitous square box design dominant in the market at the time. It introduced the world’s first curved carbon fibre composite panel to loudspeaker design, along with a sloping top and a solid metal baffle that had also never been seen in any loudspeaker previously. Acoustically, the design placed a significant emphasis on phase coherence and therefore the reduction of complex crossover elements. To date, this remains a defining element of the company’s design ethos and has been maintained in all subsequent products, ultimately leading to the crossover free loudspeaker designs implemented in the brand's reference series today.

The critical endorsement of the A.C.T. Loudspeaker is evident from the awards and reference status that it established throughout the world. It became Reference in Germany and collected 6 additional awards in key markets in 1996 including two in Japan.

Export sales in subsequent years would continue to grow as Wilson Benesch started to establish the global reputation that it enjoys today.

As Wilson Benesch approached the end of the 1990s, the company had transformed. When Wilson Benesch relocated to our current home, Falcon House in 1993, the whole operation occupied a single wing of the four wing, two floor building. By the turn of the century, Wilson Benesch occupied both floors with a full suite of machinery. This suite of machinery was central to the success of Wilson Benesch’s second grant application in 1998.

The new grant application was entitled ‘the Bishop project’ and outlined an R&D programme to develop a new multirole dynamic drive unit technology that would compliment the enclosure technology developed in the A.C.T. One loudspeaker and allow for the development of a new flagship loudspeaker. The application was submitted to the DTi under the SMART Funding initiative and was successful. Wilson Benesch were awarded £250,000 from Her Majesty’s Government. At the time of writing in 2016, no other British audio manufacturer has successfully applied for and won grant funding from the British Government.

In 1999, Wilson Benesch held the global première of its new flagship loudspeaker, the Bishop, at what was then the world’s most prestigious high end audio exhibit in Stuttgart, Germany. The Bishop was a radical design, featuring nine of the new Tactic drive units developed under the Bishop project.

The new Tactic drive technology was incomparable to anything available at the time. It featured exotic magnet technology in the form of NdFeB rare earth magnets, not seen in the high end audio industry before. It had a stiff, lightweight isotactic polypropylene cone in front of a highly engineered low profile basket. The drive technology was cutting edge in every respect. Furthermore, eight of the nine drive units in the Bishop were deployed in an unusual clamshell or 'Isobaric' formation. This provided the Bishop with incredible dynamics and punch in the bass register.

That year, the Bishop was made Reference system by Germany’s Stereoplay magazine. A two-part review across two months (a technological focus in the first and listening tests in the second) set a precedent for the magazine. Each feature benefited from four pages of detailed explanations. It was a major achievement for Wilson Benesch as it approached its first full decade in business.

Wilson Benesch saw out the 20th century with huge momentum. In one short decade the company had established itself as a turntable and loudspeaker designer, winning major awards along the way, established itself across the globe with key importers and had an enviable manufacturing facility.

In 2001, two years after the Bishop project and the realisation of the Tactic drive unit, the company had launched two loudspeakers installed with the new drive technology; the Bishop loudspeaker and the second iteration of its breakout loudspeaker, the A.C.T. Two. But things were about to change with the announcement of a new line of loudspeakers called the ‘Odyssey Range’.

The first design to launch was the ‘Discovery’; a radical standmount design that featured a downwards firing Isobaric Tactic drive system located on the underside of the loudspeaker with a frontfacing midrange Tactic drive unit above. In 2002, the ‘A.C.T.’ was launched; representing the third iteration of the A.C.T. lineage. Accompanying this were two new designs: the Arc standmount and the Curve floorstanding loudspeakers.

The Odyssey Range was an immediate success, collecting significant awards across the globe. Notably, the Discovery was awarded ‘Component of the Year’ by Stereo Sound Japan in 2001, going on to achieve a 5-star review by What HiFi? and  subsequently replacing the A.C.T. One as the magazine's Reference System in 2004 and retaining the title in 2005. In addition, the A.C.T. won the Stereo Sound Japan ‘Grand Prix Award’ in 2002. Meanwhile the Arc and the Curve collected ‘Product of the Year’ in HiFi Review Hong Kong.

In 2006, Wilson Benesch launched, Chimera - a new flagship directly replacing the Bishop. Featuring an A.C.T. monocoque that had been used across the range, the Tactic drive unit and Isobaric drive system, a sculptured carbon fibre top and alloy cheeks, it was perhaps the speaker that epitomised the achievements of the DTi funded Bishop project.

In 2003 Wilson Benesch commenced its third R&D program partly funded by Her Majesty’s Government when it secured another SMART Award for its feasibility study into an innovative, patentable, infrasonic drive unit. In 2006, following almost three years of R&D, the Torus Infrasonic Generator and its dedicated Torus Amplifier were born.

The Torus has become a landmark design and one of the most important in the company’s history. Wilson Benesch was keen to draw the distinction between the conventional subwoofer and the innovation of the Torus, leading to the term 'infrasonic generator. Convention woofer design is based on a wooden box, a woofer and an active amplifier. While the Torus Infrasonic Generator is similar to this to the extent that it converts electrical energy from the amplifier into kinetic energy, the fundamental difference is that this is achieved using a push-pull motor design. This legislates the position of the incredibly light weight 18” carbon fibre cone at all times as opposed to relying on a high hysteresis suspension to restore the cone to rest position. The audible result is incredible accuracy in the reproduction of low frequency sound.

In 2006, the Torus swept away with accolades from across the globe. Stereoplay Magazines’, Holger Bierman described the Torus as ‘the most accurate woofer of all times’. Influential HiFi journalist Jonathon Valin of Absolute Sounds USA, added, “Strokes of genius are rare in any field, but I think Milnes’ Torus qualifies”. Later that year the Torus Infrasonic Generator was awarded ‘Product of the Year’ in Absolute Sounds, followed by HiFi+ ‘Product of the Year’, ‘Platz Highlights’ in Stereoplay Magazine Germany, ‘Best Buy’ in Hi-Fi Choice UK and a 5-star review in What HiFi? in 2007.

In 2014, following the arrival of Cardinal and with Endeavour poised and ready for launch, Wilson Benesch started development of a new ultra-high end HIFI Rack. Using CH Precision electronics, the Wilson Benesch design team set about creating the world’s finest rack design using carbon fibre technology.

Launched at the Munich HIGH END in May 2015, the R1 is a modular rack solution designed to provide optimum conditions for the operation of State-of-the-Art digital and analogue equipment.

It employs a clutch of materials technology and unique design features that define it as one of the finest solutions available in the market today. The impressive R1 features characteristic Polyoxymethlene uprights that have been precision machined in house. These are combined with high tensile ‘Carbon Isobars’ – a multi-axial carbon fibre tube which is clamped and compressed by a 14mm steel bar thorugh its centre.

The combination of multiple materials and innovative applications of engineering and materials science is easy to appreciate. However the R1 design is rich with small details that legislate for ultimate performance. Kinematic engineering principles have been applied at the meeting point of each rack level, the feet and also in the fluted cups that seat on the carbon fibre tubes. These features not only provide maximum stability, but also dictate that the R1’s energy pathways have been optimised on every count. The R1 design is an essay in engineering.