Hinky? The German verb 'hinken' means to limp, hobble and by extension, behave clumsy. Combining a classic (sub) woofer of heavy large-excursion cone with a light high-efficiency widebander was classically shunned for the same reason that electrostatic hybrids can struggle with mixing disparate transducer tech. The worry is that bass will limp behind the faster upper bands like a bad Broadway production of Beauty and the Beast. Acknowledging the issue, today's Rethm widebanders champion active isobaric bass, Voxativ active Ripole bass, Zu active sealed bass. With already two active subs in Cube's portfolio and Qualio's 9½" Satori woofer in their 3-way, Lotus 10 works with in-house precedents. Being passive, we share our amp's flavour with both drivers and an active sub's volume has become the new 4-pole switch. Applying identical diameter, cone and surround materials is further proof that our Poznán design team chased a narrower tech gap between their transducers.

This $75'000/pr Voxativ 9.88 system is a triple-docked affair of passive wideband monitor on top, active Ripole sub on the bottom and passive 8-inch coupler between. The latter addresses widebander criticism of an insufficiently fleshy lower midrange and lacking upper-bass punch. That's obviously bandwidth above where one works a woofer optimized for low bass. With its 300Hz entry on a shallow 6dB/octave slope, the Lotus 10 woofer answers the same criticism but unlike Berlin's 9.88 coupler, runs all the way down. This can't be a classic brute bass pump as we'd expect in a standalone sub. It must work a lot higher to become a 4-octave wide-bass affair. I asked Cube for photos and any R&D insights they could share on how they killed two birds of lower mid/upper bass augmentation + classic subwoofer range with one cone. Back to hinky limping, my FedEx tracker announcing a 120 x 80 x 105cm 180kg crate suggested that soon I might be doing some of it. And though I didn't ask for it, our Cubists know me too well to ship out piano-gloss black. Instead I'd get gloss white which photographs far easier and looks nowhere near as heavy. Cube cater to custom colours so clients have décor-conscious calls to make.

"We approached this from the start as a two-way design with unfiltered upper range. The new woofer has typical parameters for vented or TL loading. Our priority wasn't sub bass but coherence between the drivers and generating bigger scale and greater coverage for large rooms. This 1½-way configuration enabled higher magnetic flux thus greater responsiveness of our widebander. And soon the Lotus 10 drivers will become available without cabinets. We're even prepping a switch box so DIYers can make the same adjustment module as we build into the Lotus 10. We don't have photos of either driver yet." If we unpack Marek's statement, we arrive at the uncut 95dB sensitivity spec as the new high for this model. For its single-driver speakers, Cube never pursued extreme sensitivities to instead chase better LF bandwidth. With the high entry of the Lotus 10 woofer, the twin-whizzer mains no longer needs maximized down-low reach. It can pursue higher magnet flux to roll off sooner. In one fell swoop, Lotus 10 gets closer to the classic widebander concept where high efficiencies played come hither with flea-power SET whilst adding fullness and reach the classics struggled with. Whether we'd want a SET in a suitably sized room I can't answer. I don't have one. But I could go as low as 25wpc off Enleum's AMP-23R to shrink my usual 250-watt monos down to approximately 211 SET power. And with Nenuphar v2 in the crib, I'd not just square this circle but cube it. I had my marching orders. Round and round I'd go? Possibly. My 6x8m room isn't that big. Neither do I listen very loud. If for me zero cut on Lotus 10 worked best, would I notice sonic advantages relative to its higher sensitivity? And if I did hear +300Hz gains, how would I know true cause?

The review pair.

"Some more information. As you would expect, the woofer has a heavier larger voice coil but apart from its dust cap rather than whizzers, its diaphragm is actually identical to ensure greatest possible uniformity. The woofer also has greater Xmax. That was dictated by our configuration which wanted higher sensitivity for the widebander. Each of these drivers is optimized for its particular bandwidth. Because the top driver's magnetic flux increased, we now obtain slightly better definition in the transition of lower midrange to upper bass which the new woofer complements below. We also changed the order of the switch positions. Now 0 equals pass-thru and 1 through 3 add resistive padding to increase relative woofer amplitude. Additionally we added an impedance correction switch to accommodate low-power valve amps."