Thrax Audio Siren

Based in Bulgaria, European audio company Thrax has been active since 2009.

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Their ingenious and varied design approaches seen over several product lines have continued to intrigue me with their conceptual originality, innate musicality, and imaginative use of a broad spectrum of technologies. Their products range from valve (tube) amplification to digital audio and, more recently, loudspeakers. There are 16 products in the Thrax range.

Thrax founder and chief engineer Rumen Artarski packs a capacious scientific kitbag. His love of music and fine sound reproduction is self-evident. In the disputes that sometimes occur between measuring and listening, Rumen says, decisions made by the ear are final.

Writing for HiFiCritic in 2012, I supported Chris Bryant's evaluation of the all-tube Thrax Spartacus, a 40Wpc triode-based power amp. In 2014, Bryant examined the all-triode Orpheus phono preamp.¹ You could say that we-Bryant and I were both pretty much solid state diehards, even though we'd both enjoyed good experiences with tube designs over the years. In both the 2012 and 2014 reviews, we described how we were shaken up by these two thermionic designs, whose purist tube technology had been finessed using advanced electronic design principles to deliver a winning combination of tonal accuracy and transparency with the dynamics and musicality of low-feedback triode circuitry. We knew then that Artarski's Thrax was a force to be reckoned with.

The range of distinctive high-end electronics has continued to expand to include a loudspeaker, the stand mount Lyra, now joined by the smaller Siren ($13,600/pair), also a stand mount and the subject of this Stereophile review.

Technology and engineering