AVALON PM2

Avalon was the first brand of speakers I ever stocked. In point of fact, the Avalon ASCENDANT floorstander was the single piece of equipment that inspired me to become a hifi retailer. You see I used to own a pair and their performance was so unlike anything else I had ever housed that it instilled in me the desire to bring the knowledge of this and other similarly special products to a wider audience. "Why don't other people know about these speakers" I surmised. Like many Brits I had grown up on Heybrook, Ruark, Monitor Audio, Linn, B&W, Epos, Keff, [...]

29th April 2020|
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ALLNIC Factory Visit 2019

Here at Lotus we take on a new brand only very rarely and only after exhaustive research and scrutiny. We drop a brand though even less frequently, something we hate doing and something that there really shouldn't ever be a need to do if you select properly in the first place. Occasionally of course, the political landscape or business approach of a company can alter which means it's suitability wanes but thankfully this is a very rare event and to date in 9 years of trading we have only had to let go of a very [...]

15th December 2019|
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VITUS SIA-030 vs SIA-025 vs RI-101

ADDENDUM 2025 I note in 2025 that this is still a very popular article and gets a fair amount of ongoing attention. Six years is a very long time in Hifi though and much has changed so reading this section first might pay dividends.The most important note is that theRI-101 Integrated is now in Mk2 guide. This was almost an entire revision inside, bigger soncially and in scale than the 100-101 mk1 upgrade. The Mk2 is now fully competitive with the SIA-025 on basic performance and many customers prefer it in a straight shootout. More transparent, cleaner and more refined [...]

28th November 2019|
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NEW VITUS MASTERPIECE DAC

Say hello to the new flagship digital source from Hans Ole Vitus. The team over in Herning Denmark have been working on this one for some time now and here at Lotus we have had plenty of time with it and a chance to compare back to other machines of similar pedigree. Any discussion of a heavily reworked Masterpiece DAC might start with some notes on the previous model. I wrote about this unit extensively back in 2014 but this summer an example passed through my classifieds so I recently was able to freshly reacquaint myself with its abilities and [...]

3rd September 2019|
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Introducing the Vimberg Mino

For those of you who don't know yet, Vimberg is the sub brand of Tidal Audio in Koln Germany, available exclusively at Lotus Hifi here in the UK. Vimberg is the result of Tidal CEO Jorn Janczak's vision to offer a Tidal-like zero compromise product with Tidal sound and credentials but for half or a third of the price and hence to a much wider audience. If you've not been keeping up with the worldwide audio shows the past year or so then take a quick glance at some of my links below. When the Vimbergs [...]

16th May 2019|
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Life after the Linn LP12 SE ?

Like my original Naim to Vitus writings, the LP12SE to Brinkmann Bardo upgrade path has become so commonplace here at Lotus that I felt it was finally time to sit down and explain it all in detail. Many LP12 owners with the Keel and Radikal have been stuck at an upgrade dead end for some years now. Whilst having fun with small additions like the various third party top plates, counterweights and bearing modifications does bring about additional worthy improvements within the performance sphere of the Linn, the truth is that moving into the very cheapest deck we sell here [...]

13th April 2019|
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VITUS RD-101 DAC/STREAMER

Somewhat belatedly the new £10,800 Vitus RD-101 DAC/Streamer has arrived at Lotus and this new year I have had some time to really put it through its paces. Some of you may remember the RD-100 which this new 101 replaces. The RD-100 was a superb Dac and sold well here in the UK but had it's own linestage as well. This new model ditches the linestage and is just a pure DAC with a plethora of regular inputs and crucially its own streaming board for use with an additional ethernet input.  Without a linestage it makes it a perfect partner [...]

11th January 2019|
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First UK VIMBERG delivery

I am extremely proud to document the first ever UK delivery of a pair of gorgeous Vimberg speakers, the new offshoot brand from the Ultra highend German company “Tidal Audio”. Available at Lotus Hifi as of now, the Vimberg Mino, starting at £23,000 for the ceramic tweeter version, will provide over 95% of the clarity, purity, transparency and sheer invisibility that we know and expect from a Tidal loudspeaker, but at less than 50% of the price. A huge sound and simply so much speaker for the money. The highest levels of openess and transparency but, like a Tidal, [...]

2nd January 2019|
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The new VITUS RI-101 Integrated in depth

The previous Vitus RI-100 has been a firm favourite here at Lotus since the very first days we started with the brand back when there was only 2 or 3 other UK retailers and most people had never even heard the name of this obscure company from Denmark. We have been championing this multi award winning amp for nigh on 5 years now and it is the heart of many a Lotus based system still to this day providing year upon year of pleasure. All those years ago we also devised the Naim to Vitus philosophy and pathway. We pioneered [...]

28th October 2018|
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TIDAL / VIMBERG FACTORY VISIT 2018

In the Summer of this year I had the pleasure of visiting the Tidal factory. We do pop in to periodically to keep abreast of things but this time was rather special because firstly we were set to investigate and gloat over the newly launched Vimberg brand of loudspeakers and secondly, the team have just finished a sizeable factory expansion with the launch of a stunning brand new demonstration room. Whilst the electronics assembly and R&D has always been off site at a different location, the speaker manufacturing and assembly was always located on the ground [...]

4th September 2018|
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