Well I've had my JVC ES1SL hooked up for a week now. I thought I'd wait 'till it had a bit of a chance to warm up before posting some impressions.
Here in Europe I found the cheapest price at a German online dealer. The receiver itself was going for Euros349; but if I bought it as part of a cine-pak which includes a DVD player, the package was only Euros299.00. Go figure!
I've seen what looks to be basically the same JVC DVD player for sale locally for Euros 199.00 by itself, so given prices on this side of the Atlantic I don't think I did too badly.
Being a Euro model all the analogue connectors are scart/peritel, apart from the DVD-Multi which are, of course, standard RCA.
I've just reached the 100 Hour mark and my impressions so far are pretty much in line with what others have said here. I find this a romantic amp, very tubey sounding, in the nicest possible ways. As it's warming up I hear the soundstage expanding in terms of depth; but not so much laterally. Mind you this is on Ed Schillings Horns and horn speakers are not exactly known for being soundstage champs, so I think the soundstage is actually very good.
Like some of you here, I find the DVD-Multi to be significantly better, overall, than the other inputs. The sound opens up and breathes more naturally through DVD-Multi. In comparison, standard DVD sounded a little constrained and coaxial digital even more so. Having said that I listened to a live radio broadcast of Chick Corea through the scart connection from my STB and the sound of this concert was awesome. This is using a cable service which routes certain sattelite radio transmissions to subscribers in Monaco. I brought some High Quality Tech+Link scart connections and I'm going to have to listen some more through these connections. The built in FM tuner in the receiver sounds a little closed in by comparison.
I've only used the Toslink connector to connect an Apple Airport Express for streaming audio from my Mac using iTunes. I must admit, using non-compressed aiff or WAV files this sounded amazingly good. It might even be worth my while investing in one of those Glass Toslinks Chairguy's been talking about.
For hooking up either CD or my Turntable, though, it sounds like DVD-Multi is the best option. I've got my TT hooked up to it right now and I'm getting beautiful results. High quality LP's are sounding very impressive and mediocre ones are still very listenable. I think this is because you don't really hear any harshness or exaggerated sibilance through this receiver.
A session with the TT confirmed for me that this is a very enjoyable little amp. The higher the quality source you feed into it the more you hear what it can do, and probably my TT set-up is my best source.
For CD playback I used a CEC TLX2 feeding a GW labs anti-jitter device via AES/EBU to a Meitner Bidat via Coaxial. I also got some very good results here, except to say that on certain disks the end result was a bit too lush, romantic and warm. I think this could be partly because the Bidat (which has all the latest mods) also has a very rich and full sound, especially in the mid-bass and together with the JVC it can be a case of a bit too much of a good thing.
In another system I've been evaluating the little TEAC amp and been very impressed by its transarency and timbral accuracy. What I like about the TEAC was perfectly described a couple of pages back by Mudjock when he said
For a lot of music, I preferred the Panny - which is transparent to a fault, but maybe a little thin sounding. The dead silent background gives instruments a very natural sounding attack and decay - which I am finding quite addictive
I imagine the TEAC and the Panny's have a very similar sound in this respect. So far though, the TEAC has proved less than satisfactory on larger scale orchestral music. Massed strings and classical music are obviously something the JVC excels at. I don't think it has the timbral accuracy of the TEAC or the Pannys though, which is frustrating. I could find myself using one amp for one kind of music and another for other kinds, which would mean that neither would really be a complete solution.
Both amps are warming up though, so it's probably too early to tell. And then there's the mods.
Another frustration with the JVC is that to really hear it at its best you need to use DVD-Multi, for which there is only one connector.
Dmason came to the conclusion that a tube preamp is not necessary with this amp and can distract from its virtues, and I'm taking his comments into consideration; but there's no other way to have multiple sources going into the DVD-Multi connector without swapping connections. I'm going to try my Fi Y tube pre-amp for sheer practical reasons and post how it works out. I'll let the JVC reach the 200 Hours mark first though.
geoff
