Netflix’s Daredevil: Kingpin AKA Wilson Fisk
It’s Hell’s Kitchen (or what looks to be the Financial District), morning in your mega apartment. You’re basking in the subtle tones of grey light, making eggs, with authority and a hint of malice. You listen to Bach, loudly, while whisking. You’re Wilson Fisk, outsize, well, kingpin of the vast Hell’s Kitchen crime syndicate.
You are the master of your domain, but you do have some childhood issues that tend to crop up at night causing you lost sleep and a distance you from humanity. The cold open for Daredevil’s season one episode 8 “Shadows in the Glass” gives us our first look at the stereo of a power-hungry criminal.
And what a stunner! Some series of B&W 802 speakers, they look like an older version because of the wood wrap. And, it looks like they are in a cherry finish, but the color correcting is heavy here. These are some seriously elegant speakers. More than enough to fill that loft with sound. But there’s something nice about their shape too, they’re not brash and forward like a pair of Wilson’s or even a Meridian’s would be. But subtle enough to blend into the background.
These speakers are iron fists in velvet gloves, as is the man himself at this point in the show. These are the speakers reportedly at Abbey Road and many other recording studios around the world. Stereophile lists them as Class A speakers, and reviewers the world over gush about them. They cost over $12K new, and they are massive, each weighing in at over 150lbs. They can handle any music thrown at them, and Bach is just an appetizer.
Pairing them with Wilson Fisk who appears to be a regular businessman with refined tastes during the day, and a rage filled criminal at night, is a masterstroke. I imagine in the depths of this apartment is an equally brutish audio rack with components by Theta Digital, another dose of iron with svelte curves, with two of their Citadel 1.5 amplifiers standing sentry.
I love almost everything about this system and how it was cast. I can totally imagine Fisk owning these speakers, and the racks of equipment behind them.
But there’s a few things that break the illusion for me. What’s that other speaker there? Why is there center channel speaker on the floor (looks to be an Bowers and Wilkins HTM 1)? Is Wilson Fisk a 3 channel audio enthusiast? And why at that height? Do rich criminals prefer multichannel music for their feet?
The orphan speaker seems out of place and ruins the illusion of control. I don’t see Wilson as a two channel purist, but I don’t see him tolerating misplaced or purposeless things in his life either. Every other possession in the apartment is chosen with care from the ties to the paintings to the cufflinks. I don’t think Mr. Fisk or his astute assistant James Wesley would have let a giant foot speaker slide by.
Another more minor point is the terrible cable dressing that leaves us with squid tentacles sticking out of the center channel and going to two mysterious black boxes (subwoofers? crossovers? too dark to tell). Also the placement of the speakers against glass, which is sure to cause some unwanted reflections is not ideal. When everything else is so carefully curated, right down to the teapot Fisk pours out of, these little sloppy mistakes stand out.
Overall, the set design team did a great job selecting the speakers for Fisk. But, maybe it’s time for Fisk to get an assistant that’s more detail oriented when it comes to audio. Perhaps a call to the Stereo Stylist :)
