The name of the British acoustic studio LEEMA Acoustics is made up of the names of its founders and permanent leaders – Lee Taylor and Mallory Nicholls. They have many years of experience working with sound, both in the largest British public media company, the BBC, and as independent experts in the field of sound engineering and design of sound-reproducing equipment. In addition, both play various musical instruments. The love of music and the accumulated experience required implementation, and in 1998, LEEMA Acoustics was born in Wales in the south-west of Great Britain, whose products to this day reflect Taylor and Nichols’ views on what home audio should be.
The starting point for the company was the LEEMA Xen compact acoustic systems – a fairly typical product for the British acoustic school. And although speakers never left the company’s product line, the focus over the years has shifted to stereo electronic components. It was LEEMA CD players and amplifiers that made the British famous throughout the world. The first integrated amplifier was introduced by the company in 2006 and was named Tucana. The proprietary LIPS (Leema Intelligent Protocol System) switching and control system automatically adapts system parameters depending on the selected source or operating mode of one of the components. A little later, the Antila CD player was added to the lineup. Today, the LEEMA electronics range is divided into four series – Constellation, Spectrum, Elements and Essentials.
A distinctive feature of LEEMA electronics, so to speak, a “proprietary feature”, was an amazing combination of a conservative approach to designing the sound path itself with the use of the most advanced solutions in the field of component control and organization of their joint work. One example of this approach is the proprietary switching and control system LIPS (Leema Intelligent Protocol System), which automatically adapts system parameters depending on the selected source or operating mode of one of the components.
Thanks to the use of a common proprietary data exchange bus, it became possible, for example, to transfer the volume control function to a power amplifier, completely abandoning the use of a pre-amplifier in the system. Moreover, for the LIPS bus there are two switching options – a regular cable with minijack plugs, and balanced XLRs, providing communication between components at distances of up to half a kilometer!
