Wilson Benesch GMT System® shown at the Munich HIGH END 2022 introduces a new, upgraded OMEGA Drive System.
Wilson Benesch GMT System®
• GMT System® shown at the Munich HIGH END 2022 introduces a new, upgraded OMEGA Drive System.
• The OMEGA Drive System was redeveloped from 2019 to 2022 through the pandemic using £480,000 of grant funding from the British Government that allowed Wilson Benesch to bring together the GMT Consortium, a group of Professors, Doctors and Engineers.
• The OMEGA Drive delivers unprecedented accuracy and virtually zero noise.
• The OMEGA Drive is a patent pending Wilson Benesch design that will be manufactured in house in Sheffield, England.
• GMTONE System© has been developed with a holistic approach the turntable and all sub systems have been optimised to create a unified system. In addition to the Omega Drive, Wilson Benesch has developed the Alpha Isolation System, Piezo VTA System, R1 HIFI Rack and three new tonearms.
• The Alpha Isolation System developed in collaboration with a leading optical measurement system isolation company. The Alpha Isolation System is a microprocessor controlled pneumatic system that isolates the GMT System® from the vibration. Fully autonomous, operating with microscopic precision, within millisecond time-frames, providing isolation to 1.7Hz vertically and 7.5 Hz horizontally.
• The Piezo VTA System is the world’s first remotely adjustable VTA. Fully controllable from the listening position, allowing unprecedented accuracy with adjustment to within 2.5 microns.
• Three new tonearms have been developed through collaboration with the AMRC Sheffield and the FEMTO Institute Besancon under the SSUCHY Project research programme.
• Wilson Benesch presented a medium-mass ‘Moment Tonearm’ in Munich, the ‘Graviton® Tonearm’ will also be available, along with a low-mass tonearm when production commences in 2023.
Wilson Benesch was founded upon an R&D project that gave birth to the WB-One Turntable in 1989. A subsequent design, the Full Circle followed in 1999. Both turntable designs featured novel materials science and technologies that when combined, delivered a new level of performance and design that did not exist before within their respective market sectors. In 2019, Wilson Benesch showed a prototype of the new GMT System® – which adhered to this credo and underlined it by presenting one of the most radical and innovative analogue replay systems ever seen before.
Now in 2022, Wilson Benesch took the challenges imposed by the Pandemic and turned them into opportunity. The company applied for additional £480,000 in grant funding support from Her Majesty’s Government and won support to bring together a consortium of Sheffield Hallam University Dr Jon Travis, Dr Faris Al-Naemi and Professor Cockerham, together with CASS Audio Dr Carl Broomfield and Neil Broomfield. The outcome in 2022 is the OMEGA Drive System a new high precision, high-end turntable drive technology (patent pending).
The GMT System® derives its name from Greenwich Mean Time which has for 135-years been the reference by which people around the world have measured time. The GMT reference is thus inspired by the novel drive system behind the GMT System® which lays claim to being the most accurate drive system ever developed for a turntable.
Any high precision system, especially those where measurement and transcription are concerned, rely upon structural stability. Wilson Benesch introduces the Alpha Isolation System to compliment the Omega Drive. Developed in partnership with an industry leading optical measurement system isolation company, the Alpha Isolation System achieves levels of isolation that function at the microscopic level where resonance is a major concern just as it is in vinyl transcription. Pneumatic rams that are electronically monitored provide precise levelling. Even if the system is disturbed during use, it will re-adjust within milliseconds to zero. The resonant frequency of the system is 1.7 Hertz vertically and 7.5 Hertz horizontally.
Three new tonearms will be available to use with the GMT System®. The new tonearm designs take the concept of vinyl transcription into the 21st-century. The reference tonearm Graviton® features a high modulus, geometrically optimised single piece carbon fibre tube. The Graviton© tonearm lays claim to being the most highly damped, stiffest low-medium mass tonearm ever made. Joining Graviton© will be a medium-mass tonearm and a low mass tonearm design. All three tonearm assemblies are complete with headshell and counterweight components that have been additively manufactured using State-of-the-Art manufacturing technologies. Both 3D printed carbon-fibre – polymer components and powered sintered grown titanium components have been realised, achieving optimised geometric forms from aerospace materials technology and in the process a new benchmark in terms of performance within the industry.
The GMT System® frames current technologies and renders them in the past. Imagine physically manually adjusting the VTA on a tonearm from the position of the turntable, whilst trying to hear the nuanced differences. Now envisage the future, being able to make the same adjustments remotely from your listening position to within 2.5 microns – a degree accuracy within VTA adjustment that has prior to now been unthinkable. The Piezo VTA remote control adjustment system just like the ALPHA Isolation System is once again taken from well-developed high precision measuring systems used with the field of science. The Piezo technology is used within the optical industry to track the movement of star systems. Wilson Benesch have, like all sub-systems in the design, arrived at the design for the Piezo VTA through collaborative contributions within the GMT System® consortium.
The GMT System® redefines turntable design. It creates a new dialogue between the vinyl enthusiast and their replay system. For archivists who have collected through a lifetime thousands of vinyl records which like a collection of wine are increasing in value, the GMT System® with its high precision transcription now forms a system for preservation of this collection, whilst changing the user’s experience of analogue replay forever and setting a new standard within the high-fidelity high-end audio market.
Pricing and Availability
Pricing: unconfirmed Availability: Q1 2023.