BUYING YOUR FIRST HIGH-END SYSTEM

Although our website features many of the world’s most prestigious and expensive audio products, a significant part of what we do is focused on introductory high-end systems starting from around £40,000 for a complete setup. Helping people make their very first move into genuine high-end audio remains one of the most rewarding things we do.

Most people who visit us for the first time are not newcomers to hi-fi. They’ve often spent a long time gradually building a system they’re proud of and have happily owned brands such as Linn or Naim for decades. They know what they like, but they have perhaps reached a point where they are simply curious to discover what lies beyond it.

A well chosen high-end system excels at realism. It brings you closer to the music you love, allowing you to hear more detail, emotion and drama while simply making listening more enjoyable. Beyond improved sound quality, these systems offer greater refinement and dynamic ability, performing exceptionally well across every musical genre. Another advantage is their consistency. High-end systems with a vanishingly low noise floor are typically less sensitive to fluctuations in mains quality, cable dressing and recording quality, making them more dependable and enjoyable to live with on a day-to-day basis. Rather than endlessly tweaking and adjusting, avoiding certain albums or waiting until the system sounds ‘right’, you can simply sit back and enjoy your music for hours on end.

Your first foray into high-end also doesn’t have to mean filling your entire room with equipment. Many music lovers eventually tire of large racks packed with multiple components and endless cables. Modern advances in electronics design mean that if the system is expertly specified from the network to the mains, mechanical isolation and interconnecting cables, remarkable improvements in sound quality can be achieved with surprisingly few components.

A number of our recommended introductory systems are built around a single high-quality integrated amplifier with a built-in DAC/Streamer. In some cases, this one component is all that is needed to deliver a transformative upgrade in performance from a flagship “mid-fi” system commonly found on the high street. Later in this article, I will explain the thinking behind this approach and how this is possible.

Most important of all is the way we guide you through this purchase. Still today, high-end audio is poorly understood and rarely sold in the correct manner. Some customers have also already experienced disappointing purchases or advice in the past, making them understandably cautious about taking the next step. There are countless products out there, conflicting opinions, no universal handbook to follow, and ultimately a significant investment is involved. Our principal aim is to make the process enjoyable, easy to understand, and free from pressure, while helping you feel confident in every decision along the way.

Helping customers buy their first high-end system has always been one of our specialities. In our first decade of trading we moved over 100 Naim owners into Vitus Audio. If you browse through our Museum section, where we showcase customer systems and testimonials, you’ll find a number of remarkable setups. Some of these represent investments approaching or even exceeding half a million pounds. What may be less obvious is that many of those customers were previously long-term Naim 500 Series or Linn Klimax owners. They didn’t come to us simply looking for an upgrade, but were curious to begin an entirely new journey, a step into a world far larger and more boundless that opened the door to much deeper musical engagement and gratification.

Today, the appetite for better home audio remains strong, but customers increasingly value a carefully guided approach that removes uncertainty and minimises all risk. They also want to work in an environment where every product offered is profoundly understood and all the possible combinations of equipment have already been deeply explored.

Moving to high-end audio is not always daunting in financial terms – particularly as our introductory systems are often considerably more affordable than the flagship products from major high street British brands – but it can feel like a significant step in terms of confidence and emotional commitment. Most people want reassurance that they are making the right decision, along with a clear and proven path, and the comfort of knowing that others in a similar position have successfully made the same journey.

When you work with us, you are in safe and experienced hands. You are not embarking on an uncertain experiment; you are following a route that has already helped countless other enthusiasts discover a deeper and more rewarding connection with their music. Because of the careful, methodical way we introduce and validate every system and component, customers are never asked to make a precarious leap of faith.

While the demand for high levels of customer care and genuinely exceptional sound quality has not changed, what has evolved in recent years is the range of equipment now available. Today, Vitus Audio is joined by a number of other outstanding manufacturers, all of which can also form the foundation of a wonderful high-end system. Thrax Audio from Bulgaria and Soulnote from Japan both offer an alternative but equally compelling approach. For customers who have a very large budget, we can look toward our ultimate reference systems from TIDAL Audio, JMF, Wadax and Rockport.

In recent years, UK hi-fi retail has become noticeably more open, with dealers now offering a wider range of brands and approaches. Many of these are excellent companies producing very capable products, though in practice they often represent different interpretations rather than a fundamentally different level of performance. If someone is moving to a new system, the time, effort and investment involved really need to be justified by a clear step forward rather than a largely sideways change.

Many of Naim’s principal dealers have also now expanded their portfolios to include a selection of very high priced audio brands which for some have become a kind of shorthand for luxury audio. These products are often physically substantial, typically comprising multiple large units with amplifiers and digital sources separated into several components, which may not suit those who wish to move away from large equipment racks and visually dominant systems. There is reassurance in choosing a widely recognised name with a strong global presence but larger organisations do, however, carry significant costs in areas such as marketing, international distribution, staffing and brand development, all of which are reflected in the final retail price.

Our approach has always been centred on smaller, boutique manufacturers and privately owned companies, whose products often represent exceptional value within the wider industry. We find that the passion and ingenuity found in these companies is particularly evident in their work. Combined with careful system design, thoughtful component matching and precise setup, this allows us to focus on achieving the highest possible performance for a given investment. In our experience, larger, more expensive and more impressive looking systems are not automatically better systems.

We have also always deliberately avoided a large choice of products. This means that buying your first system is less daunting with fewer decisions to make. Some components naturally go better with others so some of the system will assemble itself to a degree as you go along. Every manufacturer and product we represent has earned its place after years of listening, comparison and validation. We believe customers do not benefit from a dozen different amplifier brands. Choice is valuable only when every option is exceptional.

One of the most reassuring things to understand about the Lotus methodology, is that you may not need to spend as much as you might initially expect. It is easy to make the mistake of thinking that your next system needs to cost a lot more than the one you are leaving behind but if you are graduating from systems such as Linn or Naim, there is usually no need to match the retail value of the individual boxes you already own. In many cases a separate preamplifier and power amplifier is not necessary, and in some cases, even a separate DAC or streamer may not be needed. We will explain every single decision, advise you against spending money where it is not necessary or beneficial and show you how to extract the very best sonic performance from the equipment that you eventually invest in.

For us, the speaker will typically be the most influential component in determining the overall system. As the item that actually creates the sound waves in the air, they have the greatest influence on the final sound of the system but also have the largest potential to spoil the final result.

We find that amplification and digital components are generally more straightforward to choose and match within a well-designed system. This is partly because speakers are far more difficult to design and manufacture and are less well understood, so unlike amplifiers and digital, truly exceptional designs remain rare – even amongst well-regarded and expensive models.

Because of this, our selection of speakers for the newcomer is highly focused. The sub £20,000 speakers we sell from Joseph and Thrax Audio will share many of the qualities we value in our flagship offerings from TIDAL and Rockport.

Many customers worry that choosing loudspeakers will be difficult. Selecting one of our speakers though is not like choosing from a wide variety of ice cream flavours many of which lack appeal. In fact customers often tell us it is one of the most enjoyable parts of the process. Most people find themselves hugely taken with every loudspeaker model investigated, more akin to choosing between a handful of extremely fine wines. You could happily live with any of them, but one will simply speak to you a little more than the others.

If the loudspeaker is the foundation then it is the system ancillaries which allow every component to perform at its full potential. High-end audio is not about the creation of a certain “sound” which has a tailored sonic appeal but rather, the achievement of “no sound”, allowing the system to recede from one’s perception and the true performance of the artist to be recreated as truthfully as possible.

Our systems achieve this by relentlessly lowering the noise floor in the whole setup and increasing transparency throughout the entire signal path. We don’t regard cables, supports and mains products as accessories; they are every bit as important as the primary components because they are just as influential in preserving the integrity of the signal. In addition, the cables, mains and isolation products we sell go much further than you may imagine in their power to better preserve the music and lower noise whether that be mechanical, magnetic, electrical, or airborne varieties of noise.

Many customers understandably will often want to spend more of their budget on sexy amplifiers, but here we can help you by easily demonstrating the magic that ancillaries can bring and that one single noisy or coloured component can let an entire system down.

Our integrated amplifiers furnished with all the correct ancillaries will often perform at a level that surprises even experienced listeners. When you purify and lower the noise throughout the system the outright ability of your electronics will increase dramatically and this is partly why newcomers often achieve a dramatic upgrade with an integrated amplifier and just the entry DAC in the range.

Sound quality is not a magical ingredient that emanates from a single expensive box, but rather a shared sensibility of low noise floor and high transparency throughout the entire signal path – Consumer unit, Home router and the surface of an LP record right through to the loudspeaker cones and the reflection of sound around your listening room.

Our Integrated amplifiers from Thrax, Soulnote and Vitus represent the pinnacle of what is currently possible in a single chassis. If you wish to progress further there are outstanding pre/power combinations available, but we rarely recommend prioritising these at the expense of loudspeakers, system support or cabling.

The same thinking applies to digital. Our range of digital sources come from Vitus, Soulnote and Thrax. After that you get to the flagship products from TIDAL and Wadax. All of our digital solutions combine exceptional transparency with remarkable naturalness and freedom from the harshness and digital fingerprint that still characterises many systems.

The importance of ancillaries here remains just as prevalent and we devote a great deal of thought and care into how we dress our digital sources and also greatly improve the digital feed from the internet.

Vinyl lovers will be pleased to hear that we are most definitely turntable specialists as well. With a range of exceptional decks and tonearms from Brinkmann, Thrax, Primary Control, Supatrac and Schröder we can satisfy all budgets. We believe that the phonostage remains as critical as the turntable in an analogue system and our offerings from Soulnote, Thrax, JMF and TIDAL represent a very powerful choice spanning a very wide range of budgets.

Buying a high-end system should be one of life’s great pleasures. Unfortunately with so much product available, conflicting opinions and reviews online, and no reference handbook, many people have found it confusing, intimidating and almost impossible to get right. We believe it should be exactly the opposite.

If you’ve spent years enjoying Linn, Naim or a similar mainstream system and have often wondered what lies beyond, we’d be delighted to show you.

There is no pressure to buy, no expectation that you already understand high-end audio and certainly no need to make decisions before you’re ready. You certainly do not need special ears either. We’ll simply spend time listening to music together, answer every question honestly and help you discover what is possible.

Most people leave their first demonstration smiling. We hope you’ll feel exactly the same.