Thank you for your kind words
Took a basic course in watercolors a few years ago Pete but didn’t really get the hang of it so stopped, but I was still a little satisfied with this one 
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Water colour is a difficult medium I’d be proud of any I’d finished. 
You lots of patience which I don’t have.
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I had a very good friend in college who was an art major, and he said watercolors were quite challenging because you almost couldn’t correct mistakes. He painted this, which was a copy off a Time magazine cover when NYC was going bankrupt in the 1970s, with mayor Abraham Beame portrayed as a beggar looking for money:
Sorry about the glare. Here is the original:
Sorry for the thread diversion.
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i’m sure it’s a lovely place.
Sorry about the foot, anyway the SBLs are performing beautifully.
The walnut SBLs are 33-34 years young, started out as MK1 but later fitted with MK2 drivers. A close friend gave me these wonderful speakers a few years back, they are now part of the main setup.
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No need to apologise for the foot being in the image, it seems to be generally the case in this thread that feet, socks, slippers and legs are a must, maybe to give the image that human touch? Or sense of scale?
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It’s not the foot that worried me. The protuberance to the right of the knee caused a double take - particularly as it seems to be tattooed. 
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Oh yeah, I see now!!
The diminutive looking but at 25kg heavy, Thrax Ares has replaced the Gryphon Diablo 333 on demo in my listening room. Oh wow…this is so good and blows the Gryphon out of the water. So natural, dynamic and detailed and without grain or noise. I had all but decided on purchasing the Gryphon when this little pearl came into my life courtesy of Richard at Lotus.
And it has a fantastic onboard DAC/Streamer that sounds so liquid !
Time for a rethink 
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Interesting. Quite a substantial price difference too. I like the way it looks.
Are you streaming from its onboard DAC?
How do you compare it to your previous digital source?
It does look rather smart; it’s also available in black and that really does look the business.
The demo unit is fitted with the onboard DAC/Streamer, which brings the total cost of the unit up to £16k - still substantially lower than the base Gryphon sans DAC.
The quality of the DAC/ streamer has surprised me. It is very cultured sounding but retains the verve and immediacy of my NDX2/XPSDR. What it does very well is remove a veil and opens up the soundstage. Well recorded music sparkles. It is a little less tolerant of poor recordings, though it doesn’t make them unlistenable it just reveals them as poorer quality recordings.
Unquestionably this is a very high quality unit and is making me really think about system building!
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Many thanks for the info
What particular genre’s have you been playing and are impressed with.
When will you make the final decision?
Enjoy listening 
I have a varied musical taste and have been listening to female vocals - Agnes Oble, Joni Mitchell, Billie Eilish, Joan Armatrading, Sade, Bishop Briggs.
Electronic/ Synth - Air, Talk- Talk
Rock/ Pop - Led Zep, Bruce Springsteen, Dire Straits, Who, Teskey Brothers,
Classical Music - various
I have the Vitus RI-101 Mk2 in house on Thursday, so will give that a good work out before deciding
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I’m connecting my entire system through a crappy Thor surge suffocating power board, while my decent power cables bought in bulk have cheap connectors.
And it still sounds amazing to me. Just ordered 4 pairs of Furutech connectors and 3m of cable (TCS31) and waiting for a green light from Supra on a custom order for one of their power boards stripped of any filtering circuits.
I also upgraded the printer, for a massive lift in SQ. 
Not to mention I can easily imagine that’s a 500DR. I better print out a $35.000 dollar bill before A2A stops the discounts on the Naim gear.
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The Vitus RI- 101 Mk2 now taking on amplifier duties. It has the DAC/streamer board fitted.
This is part three of my home demo. It’s only been in the system a few hours but sounds very nice. I am told it will continue to improve over the next 24-48 hours. If that is so then heck, I can’t wait.
Only initial impressions but this could be the keeper
Speaker cables are the impressive Hemingway signature
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How long will you demo it for?
Looks great by the way. Love the Heritage Speakers
You prefer over the Thrax already?
The Thrax was very revealing but just lacked a bit of bottom end grunt. The Gryphon had lots of bottom end grunt but not as revealing as the Thrax. I am hoping, from initial impressions, that the Vitus is somewhere between the two.
I think the Thrax would suit a Jazz fan who also likes listening to simply recorded instruments and likes a big soundstage.
The Gryphon is for someone who likes to rock it hard.
I hope the Vitus could do a bit of everything, which is where my tastes lie 
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Not sure about the white
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