Today, digital sources come in 3 flavours: Spinning physical media, CD’s and SACD’s. Playing computer files (generally .WAV files) from storage using a dedicated Media Server. And finally, playing music direct from Internet Streaming services (Tidal, Qobuz and Internet Radio). All of these methods require a Digital to Analogue comverter (DAC) and this is often a separate device in its own chassis., connected to the CD transport or Streamer/Server by a digital interconnect (USB, Spdif etc.)

We sell CD transports and integrated CD players from Wadax, Kalista and Vitus Audio. At the very top end, a CD/SACD played in the best transport sounds as good or possibly better than the best Server playing a computer file. The problem is it takes a lot of money to get there and at more sensible High End money, a Server/Streamer will easily outperform a similarly priced transport.

Many people also now build systems purely around subscription based music Qobuz and Tidal – it’s become that good if you improve the noise floor in the home network. In the last few years this might actually be the most popular choice. Some customers go to great lengths to lower the noise floor in the home network to the point where the sound is a good as playing a file.

The streamer is very important in the chain if you are playing digital  files from a hard disk. Development and understanding in this area has advanced hugely in recent years. The retrieval and transmission of the information into your DAC is subject to all sorts of noise so the better the the streamer, the impact on sound quality can be as profound as changing the actual DAC.

Apart from a few exceptions, streamers/servers do not generally improve the noise floor from the internet though, so spending money on a dedicated server with storage is perhaps less important if you are mainly using internet streaming services to play music. A better use of money then to employ a DAC’s inbuilt streamer if it has one (most of our DACs come bundled with a basic streaming board) and then spend the budget on improving the home network instead.

Optimising the home network is very important. Your home network is a huge source of noise and it is connected to your hifi through the streamer so we find that any improvements in noise reduction to your router and its connection will pay handsome dividends in terms of sound quality, specially if you are playing streamed internet music. Read my guide here if you are interested. The take out headline is that the “network” should actually be viewed as a component all of its own that can be upgraded considerably, just like an amplifier or a set of speakers.

Finally, the digital interconnect, whether that be a USB cable, SPDIF, AES or ethernet cable, the wire that sends the digital signal from the streamer or internet to the DAC is also extremely important; it is probably the second most important cable after the speaker cables. It is as influential on the final performance of the digital front end as both the Dac itself and any streamer/server. Some of our digital products use more advanced and beposke technology here (Wadax’s Glass Optical system, Tidal Audio’s i2S TidalLINK) because it is critical if you want to push the boundaries of the best digital in the world.

Despite all that complexity, our range of digital sources is very straightforward but one we are very proud of. All solutions are completely non-digital and analogue sounding  but without being soft, warm or bloomy. High resolution and exceptional transparency and of course, very natural, expressive and musical.

Vitus is a very common option here for digital for over 10 years now. If you were impressed by their amplification, wait to you hear their digital sources. Their standalone range begins with the £11,000 RD-101 which is then improved upon as the SD-025 in the signature range and then their flagship is the MP-D201 Masterpiece DAC.

The RD-101 is a lofty starting point, it regularly floors customers who are used to popular and more expensive flagship digital sources. As you move to the SD and then the MP-D, you get an even more natural sound, more resolution, more life and dynamics and you simply get even closer to the true essence of the music and the files you are playing. Fluid, weighty, rich and beautifully texttured, Vitus Digital strikes a very well judged sonic balance.

Both the RD and SD have an additional ethernet input and a Vitus streaming module built in so they can just be plugged straight into your home network, and using the Vitus Mconnect app or JPLAY on your phone/ipad you can enjoy music streaming services, radio and any files that are on a NAS or storage device also on the network. The latest units are also Roon ready too. Using a dedicated streamer/server will make for a better sound though if playing files.

Vitus also still makes the SCD-025 derivative of the Signature series DAC and this includes a a transport as well instead of the streamer input so is a fully fledged CD player. This is the only one box integrated CD player we sell and a fine one it is too. The late Chris Thomas, he of Hifi Review fame, once pronounced it as teh best single box player in the world.

Vitus also offers an internal DAC module for both the RI-101 and SIA-030 Integrated amps. These very popular low cost options perform so much higher than their asking prices would suggest. The 030 module is actually on par with the RD-101 and the RI-101 module regularly floors rival DACs in the £4000-£10,000 price range.

Brinkmann from south Germany are extremely well known for their turntables but they make one DAC, the Nyquist which is slightly more expensive than the Vitus RD-101. It is extremely functional with native support for Roon, MQA and streaming services. Although it has valves in it, it feels a touch more neutral and linear than the Vitus DACs. It’s treble is very extended and detailed sounding vis a vis the Vitus’s smoother and more obviously analogue and ever so slightly bloomy presentation. It has that German sonic precision but without every straying into an analytical or digital world. It has very good dynamic pressure and sounds keen and alive. It’s a fine addition to our range and with its beautiful German build, exhaustive functionality and connectivity, and built in headphone amplifier, it has won many fans.

Thrax Audio from Bulgaria is our newest primary electronics brand to join Tidal, Vitus and Allnic. Their Maximinus DAC at £28,000 stands somewhere in between the Vitus Masterpiece and Tidal Camira DACs. Like the Camira it is a ladder DAC but one originally in 2013 based around the MSB diamond DAC motherboard but of course reworked and improved extensively and now in Mk 3 guise as of 2022. With a host of inputs and outputs, a streamer board and a generous array of user selectable filters, it is an extremely accomplished and feature laden product. The sound it produces, its natural tonality, exceptional 3d, master level of dynamics and transparency levels, put it in the very top category as far as digital front ends are concerned. We would happily toe to toe it with almost any other DAC out there. Being a Thrax it also is imbued with an enthusiasm and a hook of musicality which will reach out and enrapture you from the very first notes.

A few decades ago were told that vinyl was dead. More recently with the development of excellent sounding digital servers from the likes of Melco, Innuos, Aurender and Taiko, we were told that CD was dead. Just a brief exposure to the product range from Kallista though will firmly put paid to that particular axiom. Say a big welcome then to the Kallista Dreamplay, a small series of products all essentially revolving around the world’s most advanced and ambitious CD+SACD player.

Some of us are still emotionally connected to the process of selecting and installing a silver disc in the same way as cherishing a piece of Vinyl. The slower, ritualistic pace of music selection and handling of physical media and its associated increase in human effort, arguably primes the listener with a more attentive and focused frame of awareness, augmenting the final amount of listening enjoyment extracted. For these people, Kallista has all the answers. There is no need to compromise on performance and you can still spin discs yet enjoy a source that is every bit the equal as the best present day hard disk based sources or indeed vinyl front ends. With optional digital inputs, optional Leedh Volume control, and optional streamer unit Dreamplay can also mirror other types of digital source alongside CD play if so desired. No need then to compromise on modernity and current expected functionality.

In the case of the beautiful Dreamplay XC why not simply feature it as the statement Hifi system in its entirety, hide a stereo power amplifier out of the way and just connect to the very best loudspeakers you can acquire. These days the best audio systems needn’t overpower the whole room with a myriad of boxes and wires.

Kalista is available exclusively in the UK at Lotus and it sits very comfortably inside the walls of our demonstration room. Customers familiar with our incessant pursuit of naturalness and emotional conviction within the music will understand this product immediately. Its singular presentation builds upon the bold, beguiling and fleshy fingerprint of the best of the latter day CD laser transports which many of us grew to love but have now lost. It staunchly avoids assualting you with an overwhelming, clumsy cipher of detail and instead, brings you pure organic joy. Enveloping, fluid and implausibily delectable on the senses. This isn’t the correct sequence of numbers processed through the world’s faster processor but something very human at its core, poignant passion from a burning heart. It will linger, it will mood enhance, it will move you to a higher state.

In 2024 Kalista released the separate Mantax DAC. This builds further on their portfolio, it represents the very best digital source the company can build.

Tidal Audio only make one standalone DAC, the £38,000 Camira. Its performance level puts it in a very small club indeed. It has a purity which is almost uncanny. It is so completely natural and free from artifice or colouration yet also offers the very best levels of musical insight and resolving power. In mk1 form it was our flagship DAC by some margin but now in 2020 mk2 form, it has moved deeper still into its own domain of performance. Being a Tidal, it is best enjoyed in a very open system that is pure and neutral at all junctures. Then its naturalness and invisibility can be fully appreciated. We have many customers mixing it with all sorts of makes and as such it is a great cross pollinator to introduce people to the brand.

New for 2021 was the Tidal Arkas streamer. Finally the Taiko SGM Exteme has some competition. One should note though they are very different products. The Arkas has no internal storage and has been optimised for streaming services, although it is very very easy to have it play stored files and can be as simple as plugging in a cheap USB stick into the rear panel. The Tidal Arkas also sports it’s very own proprietary TidalLink connection based around the i2S interface cand this moves it way beyond the best that USB or AES has to offer so in an all Tidal System using the TidalLink input of the Camira DAC, it surely is the only choice.

In 2022 Tidal made available the Contros. This is essentially the control unit from the flagship Tidal For Bugatti system reworked as a regular Tidal product. In short, an Arkas streamer with Camira DAC and volume control, all for far less than the cost of the 3 separate Tidal boxes plus mains cables and interconnects. At it’s price point it has revolutionised system building here at Lotus and if the most popular choice. The highest level of system electronics for £56,000 instead of £150,000; simply add a power amplifier and speakers and your home internet.

Up until we engaged personally with the Wadax Atlantis Reference in late 2023, we felt that all the best digital products – a fairly small club if truth be told – were all operating at a similar level of performance, all nibbling at the similar areas of technology. Flavourings change from one product to another, from the smooth and warm to the detailed and incisive but this isn’t like hypercars where the latest electric Rimac is so intergalactically faster than its next nearest competitor the Bugatti Chiron which in turn is indescribably faster than the top level Mclarens, Ferraris and Lamborghinis. All the world’s very best DACs are more or less equals (albeit not in asking price mind) and anyone who claims that their machine is a large percentage more resolving or higher performing than another probably has vested interest or is looking for emotional reinforcement for the large amount of money he or she may just have spent.

That view altered slightly though when we had an in depth encounter with the Wadax Reference suite of products at the end of 2023. The experience utterly ruined us for good and after the misery of seeing it leave the Lotus showroom to go to the UK’s Audio Deluxe show, we knew deep in our hearts that it had to come back !

Before one even arrives at a long and elaborate conversation about its shocking performance ability and the way it sounds, you are compelled to speak initially of the manner in which the Wadax so completely alters your belief system of the medium of digital music itself. Rather than leaping into an awkward quagmire of subjective listening jargon, it’s this fact perhaps which better and more neatly illustrates, just how powerful and high reaching the Wadax truly is. Consider that here is a product which has the power to completely rewrite your knowledge base of what you thought possible from a particular audio storage medium, all inside even just a fairly brief listening session.

That it is so far ahead, nay divorced, from any other product in the marketplace is a given and any professional review in existence has concluded the same; the Wadax Reference is only competing with itself, there really is no other product out there even remotely like it. What is perhaps not so obvious, is the important ownership notion of the Wadax system as a Formula 1 car, a secure investment for life which is not only conveniently scalable from the outset, but is sold with the gilt edged pledge from the factory that it will never be closed product, but one in perpetual evolution, that will be continuously developed, monitored and upgraded as knowledge, research and development permits; an “Ark of the Covenant” for life. Wadax themselves have hinted that further Levels are already some way through R&D, ready to be unleashed if the competition ever makes any reasonable headway. That of course, isn’t meant to trivialise other digital source products in the marketplace of which there are many highlights and from which one can build remarkable systems. But if one is to have the very best, that is digital which is truly equivalent to the very best Record decks, then this here is it.

The high cost of the full Level 4 system, with either Sever or Transport or both, is undoubtedly unprecedented, but then the best of anything, and what it has taken to scale that mountain, is never inexpensive. However, Atlantis Reference ownership is scalable in a tiered structure and can begin or even exist for good at Level 1, with standard power cables, inbuilt power supplies and a regular digital interconnect. The standalone DAC is really not so much more expensive than a number of other marketplace competitors and in the case of the Server, it is already lower than the highest cost seen in the industry.

The good news for mere mortals is that much of the Reference exists in the exciting new Studio Player which was released Autumn 2024. In similar fashion to the Tidal Contros, this new single box Streamer/CD/SACD/Dac sets a whole new for the industry. Studio Player has been very keenly priced, garnering attention and market position for Wadax who are steadily building their heritage. Studio massively over delivers at its retail price and happily sits in the very top level of digital replay that we alluded to in the opening paragraph; for the lucky few that have large budgets, there is the Reference but for everyone else, there is the Studio. It is a digital source for life and is good enough to represent the heart of any state of the art reference system, no matter how lofty. In 2025 it will also be available as a stdnalone Dac without transport and will also be joined by a separate power supply and Dac.

Before you get to the Ultra High End servers from Tidal Audio and Wadax, Melco is our go to streamer brand at more affordable prices. This is a well populated area of the marketplace now and other good similar products would be from the likes of Innuos, Antipodes and Aurender. We were never convinced that any one of them was a clear winner as they all had various pluses and minuses from aesthetics to functionality, sound quality, strength of the company, reliability etc. but we did always feel that Melco was at least at the top for out and out sound quality. Melco also happens to be born out of an extremely robust parent company so things like stability, market presence, aftersales, infrastructure and new product development are first rate.

Their range and how we sell them here is quite straightforward. There are 4 models we focus on, the small and entry N100 at £2149, through N50 and N5 to the top of the range N1 at £11,999.