Munich 2019, I walk into the Vitus room, to see Vitus of course, but he is busy with customers. So I take a good look around and as expected our favourite Scandanavian brand are launching their hotly anticipated 030 mega integrated amp but hang on, what’s this attractive and compact device in the corner, being used as a source ?

Now you may not know this but Mr. Vitus is a devout vinyl and record deck afficionado. His turntable collection is legendary, including such lofty masterpieces as the Micro Seiki 8000, Continuum Caliburn, Kronos, Dohmann Helix 1 and Kuzma DC. He really is the last manufacturer that needs to borrow a deck for a Hifi show. So if he does, and is using it to demonstrate arguably his most important product launch in recent times, you sit up and take notice.

The Yatrus is Thrax’s exceptionally clean and neat assault of the problem of making a disc spin round at the perfect speed whilst  minimising all interference to the stylus groove interface. It uses a new cogless motor of German origin with an integrated bearing, an all aluminium chassis specially bonded from layers, a multilayered platter with exceptional damping properties and an ultra low resonance adjustable suspension system making it truly home and even furniture friendly.

Like most goodies in the Lotus folio, the Yatrus has performance to spare at it’s pricepoint. Extra quiet, explosive dynamics and fabulous texture and harmonic saturation. It’s an honest giant killer especially when paired with the cost effective Schroder tonearm and it really is not so far behind our £20-£30,000 Turntables as you might imagine.

Sonics isn’t the whole picture of course and the Yatrus scores very highly elsewhere too. It is compact, fully integrated into one single simple piece, completely maintenance free and exceptionally handsome too. Direct drive also happens to be my personal preferred drive system until you get to the very best and most advanced belt systems. Overall then, it was always a very natural fit for Lotus and the way we do things here.

“By the use of a direct-drive motor we eliminate multiple noise sources like belt knock and jitter, high speed motor vibration, multiple bearings chatter and so on. The result is a stunningly quiet drive system mounted on an inert rigid body with dampened rigid coupling to the armboard manifesting as the most explosive dynamics and clean textures.”

Thrax Yatrus (silver, black), £13,500
with Schröder CB 9″ , £18,950
Uprated Thrax Yatrus power supply, £999