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Wilson-Benesch GMT One Turntable

CTank said:
Their Full Circle turntable was the first hifi product that I really lusted after. I saw one in the window of a shop in Covent Garden (Music Matters?) and was smitten. Gorgeous design.
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A nice design at a competitive price for the time, sounded pretty good at a hifi show I attended with Audionet amps and WB's Arc standmounts.
 
CTank said:
Their Full Circle turntable was the first hifi product that I really lusted after. I saw one in the window of a shop in Covent Garden (Music Matters?) and was smitten. Gorgeous design.
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That was pretty nice, carbon arm & pretty sure it was all tooled in house. I do wonder how many they actually sold, you rarely see them.
 
Woodface said:
I very much doubt it. Be interesting to see their books. I just never understand who buys this stuff.
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I was told by Craig Milnes (the boss) that their export market was many times greater than their domestic market, same story with Sugden and NA.
WB also do alot of R&D with a University which I believe there's funding and grants for.
 
Do they trickle down their tech to more affordable lines or is this oil barons only stuff?

Would like to hear some of their speakers one day.
 
Columbo said:
Do they trickle down their tech to more affordable lines or is this oil barons only stuff?

Would like to hear some of their speakers one day.
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They're mostly a 'high end' company, no budget stuff. Though at the time of release (1999) the Full Circle was £1999, that was for the circle TT, Act 0.5 tonearm and Ply MC.
I can't remember the exact price of the Arc standmounts but I think in around £2 -2.5 K with matching stands which are essential due to the downward firing point.
So whilst not budget kit by any stretch I would have considered both these items 'affordable' and I'm a working class tradesman not a bank manager.
I'm not sure what models they make now or what the pricing is like.
 
Interesting that it costs £300k - it was hinted early on that it was likely to be six figures.

At £300k, however, I believe that makes it £200k cheaper than a TechDas Air Force Zero. Given that the Zero comes without an arm and still uses a rubber band, the WB suddenly seems pretty good value…
 
Wb are basically a dti funded research company also makes hifi. They've always done a lot of it, materials research and stuff, lots of uni projects, they equipment rack was done at my industrial design course at Hallam
 
13th Duke of Wymbourne said:
I can't see how they'll ever recover the R&D.
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Probably only need to sell half a dozen or so (so to speak) to recoup their investment. Although extremely expensive I'm sure there is plenty of people world wide with that kind of dosh to spare. I mean if you are in the property market all you would need to do is sell one of your houses.
 
Darren L said:
They're mostly a 'high end' company, no budget stuff. Though at the time of release (1999) the Full Circle was £1999, that was for the circle TT, Act 0.5 tonearm and Ply MC.
I can't remember the exact price of the Arc standmounts but I think in around £2 -2.5 K with matching stands which are essential due to the downward firing point.
So whilst not budget kit by any stretch I would have considered both these items 'affordable' and I'm a working class tradesman not a bank manager.
I'm not sure what models they make now or what the pricing is like.
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I'm using what were their entry-level stand mounter speakers, the Square One, and I don't think they were silly expensive when new.
 
The trickle down comes later - ok probably not for this item but I was happy to get a pair of ACT Ones for about a fifth of their original retail 20 years later. Lovely speakers with their carbon fibre and all, just too big for my current room though.
 
Darren L said:
I was told by Craig Milnes (the boss) that their export market was many times greater than their domestic market, same story with Sugden and NA.
WB also do alot of R&D with a University which I believe there's funding and grants for.
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I know what they do with the Uni as a friend is involved with it. Ultimately someone must be buying it.
 
I had their original Act TT back in the day for a few years. Nice enough with the benz derived carbon ply cartridge which I still use.

Always felt the arm let it down and was fiddly to use. This arm looks similar in design but with a "transformer" makeover. Unipivot? I would've thought a top flight, superbly engineered parallel tracker more appropriate at this price bracket?
 
Craig B said:
Looks like the bottom layer of a Russian oligarch's wedding cake.
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Funny you should say that. I’m thinking if I inherit massively I’m going to throw a PFM party with a massive cake in that style and we can all marvel at how good it is.
 
per-Sony-fied said:
Probably only need to sell half a dozen or so (so to speak) to recoup their investment. Although extremely expensive I'm sure there is plenty of people world wide with that kind of dosh to spare. I mean if you are in the property market all you would need to do is sell one of your houses.
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If the selling price at the dealer is £300k and both the dealer and WB take a 50% gross margin (to keep the maths easy) that puts £75k 'profit' for each one sold. If they don't need any of that to keep the lights on then 22 turntables would bring in £1M. But, maybe they didn't spend that much and the companies they work with eat a lot of it out of their R&D budgets and if WB made too much profit they wouldn't get government grants!

I think they could sell 20 of those turntables.
 
13th Duke of Wymbourne said:
If the selling price at the dealer is £300k and both the dealer and WB take a 50% gross margin (to keep the maths easy) that puts £75k 'profit' for each one sold. If they don't need any of that to keep the lights on then 22 turntables would bring in £1M. But, maybe they didn't spend that much and the companies they work with eat a lot of it out of their R&D budgets and if WB made too much profit they wouldn't get government grants!

I think they could sell 20 of those turntables.
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Maybe I am a bit out with my maths but I was not talking about profit I was talking about return from TT's sold so this would yield for less TT's being sold to break even. As a company that sells much high end expensive kit I reckon they could absorb the "loss" of actual income. It is a gamble but one I expect they have seriously looked into.
 
Well, given that Naim struggled to sell their offering & even the sainted NAIA is currently languishing in the classifieds here, I struggle to see how they would shift that many.
 
Spoke to customer this week & he could only get £6000 for a year old Solstice with less than 100 hours as P/ex for a new SL1000R
 
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