WILSON BENESCH

FIBONACCI HORIZON 3ZERO FLOORSTANDING LOUDSPEAKER

In 2025, the new Horizon loudspeaker becomes the seventh model in the Fibonacci Series. Its bio-based monocoque enclosure ensures that Horizon’s cabinet is acoustically inert, allowing only the listener and the music to take centre stage.

Every element of Horizon, from its modern minimalist design to its proprietary Tactic 3.0 Drive Units and Fibonacci Tweeter, has been designed and developed entirely in-house at Wilson Benesch’s Sheffield facility. Horizon redefines the benchmark for compact floorstanding loudspeaker design, setting a new industry standard for performance within its class.

At the core of Horizon’s groundbreaking performance are Wilson Benesch’s midrange and bass Tactic 3.0 drive units. Designed, developed, and hand-built in-house, each unit is precisely engineered to harmonise with the acoustic volume of Wilson Benesch’s enclosure design. Positioned at the acoustic centre of the two Tactic 3.0 Drive Units is the Wilson Benesch Fibonacci Tweeter.

The Fibonacci Tweeter highlights the fundamental role of materials in acoustics, incorporating a silk dome with a carbon fibre halo structure in a hybrid wide-bandwidth tweeter design. Wilson Benesch selected these materials to preserve the natural, fatigue-free character of a silk dome tweeter, while eliminating the harsh acoustic signature often found in hard-dome technologies. The addition of a proprietary carbon fibre sphere stiffens the silk dome, allowing for a flat high-frequency response up to 30kHz, enabling the playback of wide-bandwidth recorded formats with absolute precision.

This unrivalled control over every aspect of a loudspeaker’s design—from enclosure to drive units and tweeter—is unmatched in its market segment. It stands as a testament to Wilson Benesch’s pedigree of excellence and relentless innovation. These state-of-the-art components deliver extraordinary sound clarity, dynamic range, and an immersive soundstage, ensuring every note is rendered with breathtaking detail, accuracy, and authenticity.

In celebration of the new Horizon loudspeaker, Wilson Benesch is introducing two new Premium Paint finishes, allowing customers to create a truly bespoke pair of Fibonacci Series loudspeakers. The new Olivine finish is a metallic deep olive green with an organic quality that emerges across the side panels and rear spine when light falls on the loudspeaker. From certain angles, the paint appears almost piano black, adding a striking contrast. Similarly, the new Black Eclipse finish shares the same transformative qualities, but instead of green, it reveals a deep golden orange, almost copper-like hue, reminiscent of the colours seen during an eclipse. Both metallic finishes take inspiration from luxurious British automotive marques, further enhancing the craftsmanship and exclusivity of the Fibonacci Series.

Horizon continues the design language and craftsmanship that define the Fibonacci Series. Its elegant form is not only visually striking but also acoustically optimised, featuring a curved geometric enclosure, a principle first introduced in the original A.C.T. One loudspeaker. Bridging timeless sophistication with cutting-edge technology, Horizon is the perfect centrepiece for any listening environment.

TACTIC 3.0 DRIVE UNIT

The structure at the centre of the diaphragm plays a critical role in the behaviour of the drive unit. Commonly referred to as the “dust cap”, the name understates the importance of this component. In the Tactic 3.0, Wilson Benesch added the Fibonacci Element.
Produced in house using additive manufacturing technology, the Fibonacci Element can be printed according to pre-designed parameters. Such is the precision of the additive manufacturing software, that the Wilson Benesch design team can see in cross-section and design three-dimensionally the optimal layup of carbon fibre and nylon, defining both stiffness and weight across the structure. The result is a new geometrical form that is comprised of a double curvature with both open and closed aspects in the form of a lattice structure again borrowed from natural geometry. 5 different materials and adhesives provide significant improvements in both the accuracy of the frequency response and the reduction of distortion.
This is a critical aspect of the relationship between the drive unit and its ability to integrate with the roll off of the tweeter and bass drive units. In the past, several materials have been drawn upon to enable the fine-tuning of this marriage. Additive Manufacturing has opened up a new chapter in the pursuit of this subtle but extremely important aspect of loudspeaker design. For the first time, the principal aspects of this structure can all be adjusted in a way that was previously impossible.

FIBONACCI SILK-CARBON HYBRID TWEETER

The latest iteration of Wilson Benesch tweeter technology builds upon the Semisphere tweeter design pushing it into the next generation. As with all Wilson Benesch designs, the advances of the previous generation are built upon an iterative research and development pathway. With the Fibonacci tweeter, advances have been made within the structures adjacent to the motor and the hybridised dome. The Fibonacci tweeter faceplate is formed from a carbon fibre - nylon composite structure creating a geometrically optimised structure - the Fibonacci Element - that has been inspired by sacred geometry found in nature. In terms of acoustic performance, the faceplate delivers a new benchmark in terms of flat frequency response and ultrawide dispersion. In addition, the Fibonacci Element is decoupled from the motor and tweeter chassis which almost entirely eliminates structural borne resonance within this critical structure that surrounds the tweeter dome.

3ZERO BIOCOMPOSITE MONOCOQUE

The Fibonacci Series introduces a full line of loudspeakers from the Wilson Benesch brand that are built from the new 3Zero biocomposite Monocoque. The new monocoque marks significant advances not only in terms of the acoustic performance of the Wilson Benesch reference line, but it also represents a deliberate and conscious move toward natural, renewable and sustainable materials technology.

DIRECT MIDRANGE DRIVE UNIT COUPLING

Wilson Benesch started development of its own drive unit diaphragms, including those made from a carbon fibre/epoxy matrix in 1995. Research was conducted using alternative hard dome materials. Without exception, Isotactic Polypropylene was favoured for its natural sound and the ability of this material to absorb energy and avoiding complex breakup modes in the diaphragm. This critical material characteristic allows the Wilson Benesch design team to achieve mechanically and acoustically what would otherwise be implemented in complex crossover designs with a series of inductors and capacitors. This reductive approach to crossover design maintains phase, linearity and the degree of control over manufacturing and design of both the drive unit specifications and the enclosure air volume allows Wilson Benesch to eliminate all crossover components in the midrange drive units of most Fibonacci Series models running the drive unit directly amplifier coupled.

DRIVE TECHNOLOGY

Midrange 170mm(7") Wilson Benesch Tactic 3.0
Tweeter 25mm (1”) Wilson Benesch Fibonacci Hybrid Silk-Carbon Tweeter
Low Bass 170mm(7") Wilson Benesch Tactic 3.0

CROSSOVER TECHNOLOGY

Midrange Directly Amplifier Coupled
Tweeter Second-Order, 5kHz High Pass Filter
Low Bass First-Order
Isobaric Drive System 1 First-Order 500Hz Low Pass Filter

ENCLOSURE TECHNOLOGY

Materials A.C.T. 3Zero - Advanced Biocomposite Monocoque Technology, Poly-Alloy, Hybridised Construction
Midrange Reflex Port Tuned with Laminar Flow Guide
Tweeter Labyrinth Sealed Tweeter Backplate
Low Bass Infinite Baffle Sealed Enclosure
Isobaric Enclosure Infinite Baffle Sealed Enclosure

MEASUREMENTS

Type 2.5-way
Impedance 6 Ohms Nominal / 4 Ohms Minimal
Sensitivity 89 dB @ 1-Meter on axis, 2.83V Input
Frequency Response 34Hz - 30kHz

DIMENSIONS & TERMINATIONS

Height 1132mm (44.5")
Width 194mm (7.6") Baffle // 276mm (10.8") Widest Point of Foot
Depth 376mm (14.8")
Weight 48kg (106lbs)
Termination Bi-wirable terminal located on the loudspeaker foot at ground level
Spike Threads 4x M14 // 1.5 pitch (per channel)