I too have the lotus and am using the black orpheus cable triwired. I would not be so fast to blow off the orpheus as inferior cable. It was developed to be a reasonably priced way to triwire their speakers as the cost of triwiring their speakers was a significant customer complaint. FWIW, when Alon has sent it's speakers for review, including the $10,000 Circe, they have sent along the orpheus cable. Now they wouldn't do that if they felt it was a budget cable and couldn't deliver the "goods". I can tell you that in my system(VPI TNT,JMW10,Grado Reference,Atmasphere MP3 and S30) it is not the "rate limiting" step.
Is their better? Probably. But as your finding out, it gets expensive fairly quickly even when using "moderately" priced speaker cable when you have to triwire. You might want to try the Cable Company (800 FAT-WYRE)who would send you some loaner cables for you to listen and compare yourself.
Is their better? Probably. But as your finding out, it gets expensive fairly quickly even when using "moderately" priced speaker cable when you have to triwire. You might want to try the Cable Company (800 FAT-WYRE)who would send you some loaner cables for you to listen and compare yourself.