LOTUS SUGGESTED SYSTEMS #2

Thrax is our most recent newcomer. Unconventional in both design and aesthetics, every piece we have invested in seems to over deliver for its price point and also quickly win the hearts of many customers. Our second suggested system for 2024 then is a mid level digital setup from this boutique Bulgarian high end manufacturer; like the first suggested system for 2024, the Tidal x2 box Contros system, prepare for a level of performance that is surprising for its inherent simplicity and small footprint.

TRANSPARENCY

First let’s talk about transparency – that feeling of hearing back to the actual music with little or no contribution to the sound from the equipment. Andrew Quint from the Absolute Sound magazine stated during last years 2023 AS Awards that “Transparency’ is an independent variable when it comes to perceived sound quality, and no one does it better than Tidal”. There are many ways to design a hifi system of course but if you want to recreate to the real thing, if you want real life in your listening room, if you want to fully discover all the richness, refinement and delicate expressive detail that truly lives on every CD, hard disk and Internet stream, then high level transparency is probably the very best starting point.

When talking about transparency, some people like to refer to the ‘seven veils’ and if Tidal Audio lifts off all seven then let it be know that Thrax Audio similarly, dispenses with all seven too, and at prices that may be a lot lower than you might imagine. So the system you see before you is first and foremost incredibly detailed and see through. Yes its heart is only a £12,500 “Ares” Integrated amplifier but one that for me is a whole lot more invisible and resolving than many a pre-power from just a few years ago costing £30,000 or upwards, let alone other Integrated units.

Secondly, this system possesses all the Thrax hallmarks and anyone who has sampled the brand in passing, or even just the direct drive Yatrus turntable, will recognise this fingerprint immediately: presence, directness, focus and life. Without ever sounding analytical or forced, Thrax has an enthusiasm to it and a boldness in the way it unapologetically casts itself into every 3d nook and cranny in your listening room which means it is always an exciting and captivating listen.

THE THRAX SOUND

With top level transparency comes low noise so despite the inherent zesty and articulate footprint of Thrax, this system is also very high on refinement and will not fatigue the grey matter on greedier listening sessions. Whilst it is a tad sharper and more “zingy” than Tidal, and not only more alert but a good few centimetres more on its toes than a Vitus system, it never gets close to sounding like a showcase of detail, space, air or indeed any other hifi properties. I would say that there is a remarkable level of resolving of many of those delicious sonic elements which many audiophiles covet so much – space, air, ambience, decay, harmonics, treble extension, image localisation – but none of these properties are augmented or spotlit. The Thrax sound is still natural and non-electronic in nature and like both Tidal and Vitus, still chiefly concerned with the complete story of the whole musical picture rather than specifically chosen audiophile properties.

With its extended treble, commitment to absolute neutrality and high resolving powers, Thrax is perhaps less forgiving than many other brands though. There is no extra warmth for protection from those poorer recordings, no rolled off treble, no rounding of edges,no thickening to combat leaness and noise elsewhere in the system, so care is needed when building a truly winning combination. Certainly, one can never really go too high in terms of mains, cables and network improvements because these will add more and more refinement and organic quality and the boxes have the inherent performance to respond in kind. This then is why I have built this system with high Level Hemingway speaker cables and XLR, the cost of which is more than double the price of the amplifier or the same price as the DAC. The Ares will of course sound just great with the basic £3000 Hemingway Indigo II speaker cables so don’t imagine that very expensive wires are mandatory, but the Betas extract so much more from it and show you just how high performing the boxes can be.

DAC

Starting at the top then, the Maximinus DAC began life over ten years ago and was based around the MSB diamond DAC motherboard. Since then and through various development stages, it is now an all Thrax R2R ladder design and whilst it sits below the Tidal Camira in the Lotus showroom, it gets agonisingly close to the raw performance level of the Tidal DAC for a lot less money. Bundled within is Thrax’s basic streamer so the unit can be simply plugged into the network and Jplay at £50 per annum with its superb interface and great sound, is the chosen control software. The Maximinus DAC is fluid and analogue sounding but not in a massaged coloured way. It is not intentionally warm, fat or rounded. In fact its closest cousin in style (albeit at a lot lower performance level) is probably the very neutral and linear Brinkmann Nyquist 2. The Maximinus has a perfectly even-handed and neutral rest position; from the lazy to the laid back to the forward, the excited and then out and out aggressive, it seems to sit dead centre and this always means music has a rightness and a calmness to its energy patterns. After that the Maximinus plays further trump cards with its incisive and accurate imaging and the delectable manner in which music from it always seems to emanate into the air well beyond the speakers and exists physically. It’s a truly fabulous source in a simple and lightweight chassis and is well appointed when it comes to connectivity and functionality as well.

AMPLIFICATION

The entry Thrax pre power combination, the Dionysus and Teres stereo in this system, would add £24,000 or so to the price over the chosen Integrated Ares but I have elected to put this money into the mains, the signal cables and speakers. Generally this is how we usually build systems here at Lotus. The best source and speakers come before amplification and so good now are Integrated amps that you only move out of one into a pre-power once you have ‘max’d out’ or finished off the cables, the mains, the network, streamer and source. The Ares integrated is also just so good that it’s more than happy receiving a feed from a £30k front end and feeding it into £30k loudspeakers using £30k of wires. You certainly do not sit down with this system and hear a weak linkage in the position of the amplification. It is effortlessly neutral and transparent and almost like a baby Tidal, the perfect low cost foundation for amplifying a true high end system.

HEMINGWAY

Hemingway cables is the obvious first choice for this system. We met the brand through Thrax and they work in partnership together at all the major shows so superb synergy is guaranteed. We have actually seen huge sales in the first 6 months of Hemingway to Vitus customers because it’s a product that has a magical way of releasing so much more from the Danish equipment, but Hemingway Thrax is a meeting of already similar minds so you just hear more Thrax in the way it was originally intended. As I touched on before, the Beta speaker cables and XLR are hugely expensive – second in line on the flagship Z-core range – but the system is easily good enough to respond in kind with even greater clarity, insight, coherency and calmness. If Thrax has made a very firm mark in the sand some 24 months on, then Hemingway just 6 months in the UK has shone even brighter and I would urge you to read the full introductory blog I wrote late last year to understand more about what makes them so special.

POWER

Mains is important for any Thrax system. Some brands which may be noisier, softer, fluffier, warmer, are more tolerant of a lesser mains feed but less so Thrax. I furnished this setup with two Tara Labs Muse power cords. These are no doubt expensive but the most balanced, linear and invisible power cords I have before you go further up the Tara range to the Cobalts. These are the mains cables most in keeping with the electronics. That said, it would be no bad thing if you switched to Shunyata Sigmas. Outright resolution levels and “trueness” would drop just half a degree but the Shunyatas would provide a small trace of warmth and bloom to proceedings. They also have one notch of “spice” or extra energy to them which clearly the Thrax system does not need, but it would probably be a negligible element in the context of the other outlined pluses. At this level with a low noise network and very good signal cabling, the Tara would probably be my preferred choice but in a lower cost noisier build or for a customer who enjoys a morcel of warmth and roundedness , the Sigmas would be perfect.

LYRA SE + HADES

More on these new to the UK speakers in a separate blog but suffice to say that from the first note they are out and out Thrax. The Lyra SE can be purchased as an £18,500 standmount but then the Hades stands with low frequency side firing bass woofers take the price up to £31,000. Whilst the price might seem alarmingly high for the spec sheet, be aware that like the electronics, these speakers are also operating at the highest levels of transparency. The Lyra SE are incredibly see through, direct and dimensional. Of all the demo units I can place in my room, these sturdily finished aluminium cabinets might be the loudspeakers that not only disappear the most but produce the most holographic layered images through the room. The sound is super transparent, pure and neutral; not a gram of artifice or added character, they really do sound like an immediate and unobstructed pane of glass to the recording.

Mirroring the electronics though, whilst they are deliciously articulate and precise, and surely capable of telegraphing the finest of details from the very best sources this industry produces for us, they are at the same time natural and effortless in the way they present. The tweeter is like an electrostatic in that it is utterly seamless in its cohesion into the rest of the spectrum and there is never a sense that any note in the treble is protruding, glistening or even emanating from a device that has anything to do with musical reproduction. Voices in particular are absolutely standout on the Lyra, precipitating into the space in front of you with so much feeling of “thereness” and believability.

Not only is the Lyra SE + Hades combination a very smart and useful buying trajectory in that one can add the Hades in future years and improve the speaker dramatically without having to suffer any financial depreciation, but there is also a unique quality to its form factor. There is something in this combination that seems to marry the best of a standmount and a floorstander but without either of their oft-experienced ills, and it begs the question why more manufacturers aren’t producing designs like this. Whilst the Lyra SE on their own are easily good enough and have enough bass reproduction to stand as a credible alternative to a small or medium sized floorstander, adding the Hades easily catapults their ability to the region of a £30,000-£40,000 floorstander.

Yes the Hades add more bass and that bass goes lower too but more importantly every part of the music just has more inherent body, weight and image depth. Let it be said that paper thinness, leanness, lack of density is the ill of many a component and system and it is one of the essences of the derogatory use of the word “hifi”. It serves to completely ransack the suspension of disbelief and the feeling of real instruments. The Hades serve to increase acoustical pressure at the microdynamic level, meaning all your music is more palpable, with greater structure and flesh, and occupying more real space in all 3 axis. So acoustic solo guitar is more spacious, richer and more believable but then dramatic film scores and symphonies have so much more impact, crescendo and drama. You will neither hear the leanness of a standmount but all its precision and time coherency. You will hear the scale, fullness and macrodynamic authority of a large floorstander but without that nagging last few percent of noise in the bass, the bit that seems to annoyingly become trapped in the cabinet, the extra foggy low frequency overhang that all but the very best large floorstander designs seem to suffer from.

NETWORK

Finally, as a Qobuz based system (although the playing of files would be easy enough to implement) some network improvements are essential. The system will only be as good as the feed from the home internet. I have chosen Melco’s flagship dataswitch the S10 and the top Hemingway Zcore ethernet lead. These will bring about much more refinement, body and overall realism to streamed music. The network can be further enhanced with products from ADOT and Waversa. The Melco S10 likes decent footers too, especially Tungsten Grooves.

SUMMING UP

You can hopefully pick up on my passion for this setup. On the continuum that is a Vitus system to a Tidal system to a Thrax system, it is the one that is most alert and eager to please. It is also the keenest and most naturally penetrating. You will hear that in the first few bars. It won’t be for everyone and some customers will want to steer left a bit to something a little more laid back and rounded, either by mixing back certain ancillaries or even actual boxes, but I love this system for its immediacy, its extreme see through holographic quality and the sheer volume of musical detail which gets precipitated into the air. This is still Lotus Hifi though so it’s a setup that is still delightfully natural and unforced, one that can be enjoyed for hours and hours at all volumes. It has beauty, delicacy, scale, dynamics and a feeling of deep insight. It does everything.

UPGRADES

Obvious upgrades would be a Shunyata mains conditioner which would drop the noise floor even further and add even more calmness, purity, space and resolution. One of our most loved upgrades by our customers.

The most suitable footers would be HifiStay Absolute Point for electronics and Stella 3 under the speakers. These would float the sound into the air even further, increasing depth and perceived naturalness, and bring about a considerable uplift in rhythmical coherency and the feeling of overall surefootedness and assurance. The HifiStay footers are another exciting new range to Lotus and preferable with Thrax over other support systems we sell.

In terms of boxes, the next steps with this system would be to add a separate dedicated streamer to play files or a fully fledged Tidal Arkas if internet streaming is also important. One could also move to the Thrax Dionysus pre/power as described above. These would represent large sonic steps.

DOWNGRADES

To make this system a little less expensive the Hemingway wires could be reduced to the entry Hemingway Indigo II and the mains cables to Tara Labs ONE. The network switch could be downgraded to the more modest S100 and the ethernet lead swapped for the Hemingway Signature. This would mean a reduction of £32,000 and a final system price of £84,500. It would still be an exceptional system, with the same presentation but just at a lower performance level. One could also employ the Lyra SE as a pure standmount with the intention to add the Hades at a later year.

Thrax Maximinus + Ares + Lyra SE + Hades, £28,500 + £12,500 + £18,500 + £12,500
Hemingway Zcore Beta SC + XLR + Zcore Ethernet, £18,000 + £10,000 + £3000
Tara Labs Muse x2, £4200 + £4200
Melco S10 dataswitch, £5000

System Price, £116,400