General writings from Lotus Hifi

HEMINGWAY FACTORY VISIT

I am sluggishly wandering through the circuitous elevated alleyways of Itaewon, one of Seoul’s more vibrant and international districts, looking for some decent barbeque. Today though everywhere is closed and there’s very few people in sight; it’s a ghost town. The weather app on my my iPhone tells me its 92% humidity and it feels it too. This is the middle of Korea’s summer and many Seoulites have left for the coast or the islands to escape the high heat. Maybe people just avoid stepping outdoors altogether at this time ? This is certainly a whole different feeling to [...]

30th December 2025|
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JOSEPH PULSAR 2 & PERSPECTIVE 2

THE LOUDSPEAKER PROBLEM Speakers are arguably the most important part of your system and the most difficult choice you will make. They are by far the hardest item to design and manufacture because of their propensity to introduce a very large amount of colouration and inaccuracy into the sound. Engineering all the colouration and noise out of a transducer, so that it has no inherent character, so that it does not introduce any sound of its own, so that it acts only as a perfectly transparent and almost indetectable three dimensional window back to the music, is nothing [...]

5th October 2025|
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The Superstars of 2024

This year might have been our busiest year yet. No surpise then that the year was also peppered with some very powerful new products, most new to market although some simply just new to the UK or to Lotus. Way back 8 years ago I wrote a "stars of 2016" article and after such a successful 2024 it might be informative to do the same again, to create a quick roundup of the items that shone so brightly here in the Lotus demo room and indeed, in customers' homes. WADAX STUDIO PLAYER, £37,500 Superstars are of course [...]

17th December 2024|
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Soulnote E2 – reshaping the landscape

You may not have heard much about Soulnote but that is soon going to change. This bespoke passionate company, headed by ex-Marantz genius Hideki Kato in Kanawara on the outskirts of Tokyo, first came to our attention in the Spring of last year when our friends and UK importers Kog Audio lent us a small unassuming and modestly priced £6800 Integrated amplifier named the A2. We had a brief listen and were quite startled at the performance for the money. We also put it into a customer home up against a secondhand Vitus 010 integrated. The Vitus is a [...]

30th October 2024|
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GOLDILOCKS VINYL: Yatrus vs. Taurus

Its taken over 40 years for digital to match or indeed exceed the best vinyl setups. Now at last with the WADAX Atlantis Reference we have CD, file and streaming playback which can be as vivid, as dynamic and as alive as the best pressings played on the worlds best turntables using the finest phono preamps. But it comes at great cost, around £250,000 of Streamer/DAC and optical interface as a starting point, in excess for £500,000 for the whole hog. This elucidates an important point. At the very upper end digital costs a lot more than the very [...]

10th September 2024|
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LOTUS SUGGESTED SYSTEMS #4

ARTICULATE AVALON   £71,515    For our fourth suggested system we have yet another two boxer. Later on in this series we will definitely get into some more extravagant and complex setups but as regular readers will already know, the low box count, small real estate system is something we really do specialise in. This is partly because it’s what the UK market demands but then it’s also partly because these days our Integrated amplifiers are so high performing that we do not advocate a pre-power or mono amplifiers until the customer has obtained a top level source and Loudspeakers, [...]

15th March 2024|
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LOTUS SUGGESTED SYSTEMS #3

JUNIOR VITUS   £42,575    As I embarked on assembling, photographing and writing about this setup, I felt as excited as I was with my first two 2024 suggested systems, both of which were far more lofty and prestigious. Why was this so ? Simply because money does not have to be primary driver behind musical enjoyment and this neat little one box solution we have here is an absolute winner and just a real fun way of enjoying music. This hobby has always been about special combinations and there’s most definitely a real magic going on here, which we will [...]

27th February 2024|
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LOTUS SUGGESTED SYSTEMS #2

SENIOR THRAX   £116,400    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 [...]

18th February 2024|
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LOTUS SUGGESTED SYSTEMS #1

THE ROAD TO BUGATTI   £175,400    Welcome to Lotus suggested systems 2024. I first wrote a similar article back in 2017 and it proved very popular. Since then technology, products and prices have changed dramatically. Given that this hobby of ours is all about finding magically synergistic combinations, creating beautiful alchemy with a carefully curated recipe of differing products, a new and updated version of suggested systems would not go amiss. This time around though I would like to photograph and explore each setup for real; no easy or quick task in itself. As a result I will be publishing [...]

12th October 2023|
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INTRODUCING HEMINGWAY CABLES

First a small warning. This is a long article. This is a very important brand and the products are unusual in their technology and not so easy to understand. I also estimate that the impact of Hemingway to Lotus will be enormous. Early traction and sales already bear this out. Not only are we talking about a very exceptional wire but one that possesses an ingenious inherent cleaning effect which appears to exert its technology throughout the entire system, something that I don’t believe has ever been seen in the industry before. So I have taken my [...]

22nd September 2023|
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© Copyright 2016 Lotus Hifi | Parabolique LTD, Registered in England & Wales 2008, Company no. O6593893, VAT 936854286, Registered Address 124 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX
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