Should I?

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mandd

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Hi all,

I need a new amp (oh...darn it!!) and have a local opportunity to get a reasonable deal on a used tube integrated. It's Jolida jd1000rc with slightly upgraded tubes. This would be my first venture into the tube world and I'm a little apprehensive. Before I do this, I'd to run some concerns by you all.
Right now I've got 500 watts (@ 4ohm) going into Spires. They sound good, but not as good as I'd hoped for after getting really excited by some Puritys that I had. In fact, in some ways they sound not as special as the Puritys. In most ways the Spires are better—smoother, more dynamic, ‘bigger’ sound, *much* more low end, less harshness or glare on some music—but there doesn’t seem to be as much of that Martin Logan magic that we all crave—that perfect transparency and holographic soundstage. I think some of that is my amp. It's an old Carver tfm-45. I remember doing some quickie testing when I had the Puritys and finding that they sounded better using their amps straight from the pre-amp than when going through the Carver to their high level inputs. I don't know if that really tells me much or not... Anyway, I’m thinking hard about this Jolida, and I’m wondering if there is anyone out there who will tell me to *not* get it. I listen to just everything except rap/hip-hop. Mostly fairly mellow stuff—Jazz, instrumental, vocal. But sometimes I crank up some large scale orchestral stuff, or want to rock out. So do you think that with 100 wpc I’ll be losing much?
Thanks very much for any thoughts and suggestions.

mandd

PS My listening room is about 18x27x8. The Spires are on the narrow end, about 3½ feet from the back wall and about 4½ from the side walls. There is a low, wide cabinet between and just slightly behind them. No real room treatments are possible (I’m lucky to be able to put my ugly equipment (hence the cabinet) into what is quite obviously my wife’s beautiful room)
 
Mandd,

I used that amp with my Aerius with good effect. It will put "meat on the bones" on vocals, sax, etc. Unlike some here, I am not a Carver fan, much preferring the Jolida sound to what Carver transistor amps I've heard. Now, Carver tube amps are probably a different story, but unfortunately, I've never heard any. Too bad you don't live down my way, else I'd loan you the Jolida to try out.
 
Although I like the Jolida products (I have a heavily modded phono preamp), I think the 100 watts the Jolida jd1000rc will put out is kind of low for electrostatic speakers. I would be very cautious with this as you might get clipping at higher volumes when the ohms rating transiently drops down to 2ish with certain frequencies.
 
Well you guys are no help!!

Just kidding.
slowGEEZR, thanks for the hypothetical offer. It sure would be nice to hear it first.
invenio, I have the same concerns but...
I've decided to give it a try. I really want to try tubes I'm not sure how else to do it. This will give me a chance to check things out for as long as I like and compare them to what I have. Hopefully if it isn't a good match I'll be able to sell it and try something else and not lose too much.

I have some other amp questions:
With the new ML models that have the crossover and powered woofers, what kind of load does an amp see? And how can this change what would be the best amp? In a normal system we would want an amp to have a reasonable high damping factor to control the woofer right? But since our amp doesn't control the woofer, does that mean we don't care at all about damping, or does that apply to the panel too? And as the amp doesn't drive the woofer because of the crossover, does this mean it is as free to drive the panel as it would be if we were bi-amping? Or does the crossover present its own sort of load, or absorb some power?
Also, are there impedance curves of our speakers out there? (mine is a Spire) I know that it drops way down by 20Khz, but there's probably very little energy way out there. It is probably more important to know the impedance at 10K. And 5K.
Sorry for all the questions (especially *after* I have agreed to buy and amp) but hopefully they are relevant to others as well.

Thanks again everyone!

mandd
 
Well you guys are no help!!

Just kidding.
slowGEEZR, thanks for the hypothetical offer. It sure would be nice to hear it first.
invenio, I have the same concerns but...
I've decided to give it a try. I really want to try tubes I'm not sure how else to do it. This will give me a chance to check things out for as long as I like and compare them to what I have. Hopefully if it isn't a good match I'll be able to sell it and try something else and not lose too much.

I have some other amp questions:
With the new ML models that have the crossover and powered woofers, what kind of load does an amp see? And how can this change what would be the best amp? In a normal system we would want an amp to have a reasonable high damping factor to control the woofer right? But since our amp doesn't control the woofer, does that mean we don't care at all about damping, or does that apply to the panel too? And as the amp doesn't drive the woofer because of the crossover, does this mean it is as free to drive the panel as it would be if we were bi-amping? Or does the crossover present its own sort of load, or absorb some power?
Also, are there impedance curves of our speakers out there? (mine is a Spire) I know that it drops way down by 20Khz, but there's probably very little energy way out there. It is probably more important to know the impedance at 10K. And 5K.
Sorry for all the questions (especially *after* I have agreed to buy and amp) but hopefully they are relevant to others as well.

Thanks again everyone!

mandd

I can tell you that my 85W/ch Prima Luma KT88 based monos sounded incredible with my MLs... but in the end, it wasn't enough juice. Had to up the power (and boy did I up it). However, since you're only powering the panels of your Spires (versus in my case having to power the whole shooting match) - I think you may well be OK with the Jolida for 99%+ of everything you throw at it.

The other thing I do have a little trouble with wrt tubes (and I don't know how the Jolida performs in this respect) is that many have a slightly higher noise floor than I can tolerate. I need dead morgue-like silence from my system whenever music's not playing.

That said, best of luck and let us know how it goes!

(p.s. as for your various questions... you can gather/ponder all the answers people might send you, but in the end, it's all about the perceived performance to your ear - specs and electrical interaction are secondary :))
 
Your Spire's are hands down a better transducer than the Purity's so not knowing the rest of your system I'd say amplification is a place to start, like Steve I'm not much a fan of Carver transistor amps either (too many bad memories of the stupid 'cube' thing trying to drive a reactive load). Anyways as you can see in my system I use a pair of tube mono-blocks (Rogue M-150's which are going back to Rogue next week to be upgraded to '180' status) and they do wonders for my ears. I also have a Plinius SA-102 that is stellar as well.

BTW....what's your budget ??
 
My dealer has JD1000 (without remote). It's a good sounding amplifier. I was thinking of buying it as a spare amp and to play around with electrostatics and tubes. I didn't buy it because it has no remote and he wanted too much for it. As far as non-exotic (read inexpensive) tube amps go, the JD1000rc is good value. I would buy it. If you didn't like it you could sell it and get most of your dollars back.

BTW I have tried a Consonance m100+ with my Theos. It wasn't as good as the Bryston B-60 - being a little softer in the bass and it had a slightly flattened perspective. I reckon the Jolida would be way better.
 
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My dealer has JD1000 (without remote). It's a sounding amplifier. I was thinking of buying it as a spare amp and to play around with electrostatics and tubes. I didn't buy it because it has no remote .

you may be the first person I know of to worry about a 'remote' on an amp.....preamp, yes....amp...who cares !
 
Dave, (hopefully I haven't messed the model number up with the one I was looking at), the jd1000rc is an integrated amplifier. :D

Plus, I believe the later models with remote controls have updated electronics compared to the earlier models without remote.
 
Yup this intergrated amp (ie preamp and amp). Almost no amps have remote controls as they only have on/off switches. If considering an amp I would not let the remote control option be a negative as most over $10,000 do not have remote controls. :)
 
Good point about remote controls, invenio. I guess my Audio Research SP9 doesn't have a remote, and I don't even miss one not having one when I'm listening to music. With the later Jolida amps, the remote option is a nice bonus to go with upgraded caps and transformers.
 

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