[royphil345]

Technically you're right. Maybe my preamp has an unusual input impedance. If you follow the thread there is another one who believed to hear some better bass with an higher value.

I still haven't ordered anything. The only thing I could find from my usual parts sources were 600 volt polyester film "orange dips" which probably wouldn't fit in the same space due to the higher voltage rating or polypropylene tube capacitors like the "audiophile" ones you guys say may sound even brighter. I was tempted to try a budget version of those... I got frustrated, confused and gave up looking. I'll have to check out some different electronic parts sites...

Have you guys seen this?

http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?ddpreaphon&1268332056&demo&3&4&

It doesn't look like a clone. It looks like the Jolida down to every part and every wire. I wonder if the Chinese factory that manufactures for Jolida decided to go into business for themselves? I bet there's trouble over this...

[Dr. Ear]

This is absolutely identical. The same happened some years ago to Mr. Levinson with his "Red Rose" line of amps when the Chinese factory decided to sell them under the label of "Korsun" and later "Dussun".

[doug s.]

This is absolutely identical. The same happened some years ago to Mr. Levinson with his "Red Rose" line of amps when the Chinese factory decided to sell them under the label of "Korsun" and later "Dussun".

i dunno about the jolida situation, but you got it exactly backwards w/red rose.  what happened is that mark levinson decided the korsun (now known as dusson) gear was good, and he re-labeled it and marked up the prices 5-8 times...   he did the same thing w/his re-labeled aurum cantus speakers.

i have a nice korsun 50wpc integrated amp that i bought used for $150 shipped, direct from hong kong - original price was ~$250.  red rose was selling them for $2k.

doug s.

[Dr. Ear]

From the marketing point of view Red Rose was first and then came Korsun (or Dussun). I owned a V8i for a few months. It was not so bad for the price. It is ridiculous how much Red Rose wanted for their "clone".
BTW, I have never seen any specifications of the Jolida's RIAA curve .

[doug s.]

From the marketing point of view Red Rose was first and then came Korsun (or Dussun). I owned a V8i for a few months. It was not so bad for the price. It is ridiculous how much Red Rose wanted for their "clone".
BTW, I have never seen any specifications of the Jolida's RIAA curve .

uh, no, actually, korsun was out before red rose - how do you think mark levinson discovered it?     yust cuz you may have heard of red rose first doesn't mean it was first.

doug s.

[doug s.]

i emailed pacific walve the following question:

"hi,

does shenda make this for jolida, or the other way around?

thanks.."

answer (which took all of two minutes):

"Shenda makes Jolida"

doug s.

[royphil345]

i emailed pacific walve the following question:

"hi,

does shenda make this for jolida, or the other way around?

thanks.."

answer (which took all of two minutes):

"Shenda makes Jolida"

doug s.

I guessed they were the manufacturer for Jolida. The real question is if Shenda has the rights to the design or if it's Jolida's patented design used without permission. That question was not answered at all. It looks like Jolida may be rebadging stuff designed and built by Shenda because there is other Jolida-looking Shenda gear I wasn't aware of and I haven't heard about any trouble yet. I'd be curious to see what Jolida has to say on the subject. They lead you to believe you're getting an exclusive product designed in the USA by Jolida and built overseas. I wonder if Jolida is really owned by the Chinese company or was just a USA distributor for them without even having exclusive rights to sell their products?

EDIT: Or on the other hand, Shenda just might be in the wrong here since the Audiogon ad I linked to was just removed and the Pacific Valve site says... "This product has been temporarily removed from our catalog."

[philltubes]

I've had the Jolida JD-9 in the past and while it sounds OK in stock form I wouldn't call it a giant killer, it's seems at the retail price to be priced about right for what you get.  What I haven't read in this thread is any comparison of the modded JD-9 to other phono stages that sell for more $.

[royphil345]

I've had the Jolida JD-9 in the past and while it sounds OK in stock form I wouldn't call it a giant killer, it's seems at the retail price to be priced about right for what you get.  What I haven't read in this thread is any comparison of the modded JD-9 to other phono stages that sell for more $.

I'm going to be comparing a stock one (other than the Sovteks) to a solid-state Pro-Ject Phono Box SE II tomorrow. I've decided if the Jolida wins, I'll quit picking at it's slight imperfections and just enjoy it, maybe try higher value and / or higher quality output caps eventually. If it loses, I'll keep the Pro-Ject. My guess is it's very "round" sound has something to do with how high the gain is and how you have to use the outputs with resistors on them for a standard preamp or receiver. I think it might sound better using the full output and a passive preamp. I know when you reduce the level of a source by adding resistance, funny things tend to happen with tone... like if you have a CD player with an output control and turn it down, it'll sound a little different.

[royphil345]

I thought the Pro-Ject Phono Box SE II sounded promising at first. But, I don't think it's going to work out. It has better frequency extension and detail than the Jolida, but it just sounds harsh and not quite right to me in some way I can't quite explain. I just don't like it. I took a peek inside and there's nothing in there but ICs and those tiny micro parts they use in PC cards. I'm sure this and the tiny PC board traces are what's "choking" the sound and making it harsh. The unit could never be modded or even repaired outside of replacing the whole PC board. I think they have a lot of nerve selling this as the "new version" of a phono stage that was well-reviewed, built 1000 times better and has absolutely nothing in common with this one.

So, I guess I have renewed respect for my Jolida. It may not be perfect, but, it always sounds powerful, reasonably refined and reasonably involving once I listen a few minutes and my ears adjust to the "round" sound. Definitely seems like it was worth the price and I'm not likely to find anything better without spending more.

Hope the place I bought the Pro-Ject from has a good return policy for non-defective items... didn't even check.  I really thought I was going to like this, based mostly on what I've read about the completely different older version. I didn't think I'd want to return it.

[Dr. Ear]

An interesting oberservation. I am testing a Pro-Ject Tube Box II SE at the moment and find the sound much more pleasing. It is warmer sounding than the Jolida thus more involving and has better channel separation, too. Belive me, the Tube Box II SE does not sound harsh at all.
There are high quality Burr Brown OPA's inside, fine tubes with substantial dampers and not such flimsy aluminium caps. The housing is solid like a brick and does not need extra damping. And it is very quiet. I have listened to MM's only by now, AT20Sla, AT150MLX and AT25, and have not tried my AT33PTG or the DL103.
Depending on the environment the Jolida may be a better choice for some, esp. with not so treble friendly speakers or when the listening room is heavily damped. With my very revealing NS-2000 speakers the Tube Box sounds better.
Both pre's share the same much-too-bright blue LED which I will rip out soon.

[royphil345]

Glad to hear your search is going better than mine. I've heard great things about The Tube Box SE. The case for the solid-state was about brick-sized and brick heavy too. I was shocked to find absolutely nothing I would consider "audiophile quality" inside! Really, not that shocked after listening to it a couple days.

Does the second phono stage look like a new, improved version of the first one that should be sharing the same name and reputation? Notice how the case is twice as big as it needs to be just to deceive...

[Dr. Ear]

A friend has both the Phono Box II SE and the Tube Box II SE. We made a short comparison a few weeks ago. As far as I can remember was the difference not so huge, but the Tube Box was preferred for its warmer sound. Maybe you should also try the Tube Box II SE? If you still like the Jolida more after this you can keep it and don't need to worry about it any more.

[Dr. Ear]

Your pictures came with a little delay, it did not see them before. The II SE is entirely SMD'd which needs less space. The sockets are soldered directly to the pcb. There are 5 OPA's per channel whereas the old model has only 3. Electronics are getting smaller. IMHO this is indeed an improved version. Of course, you are right regarding your comments about the size of the housing.

[royphil345]

Your pictures came with a little delay, it did not see them before. The II SE is entirely SMD'd which needs less space. The sockets are soldered directly to the pcb. There are 5 OPA's per channel whereas the old model has only 3. Electronics are getting smaller. IMHO this is indeed an improved version. Of course, you are right regarding your comments about the size of the housing.

I don't think 5 op amps is an improvement when 3 quality ones will do. Both models have all the parts soldered directly to the PC board. The difference is the new model uses cheesier op amps and those micro resistors and caps which I do not consider audiophile quality at all. Also, they cannot be upgraded or even replaced. The "improved model" is absolute rubbish compared to the old one. My ears told me that before I opened it up to see if there was any hope of getting good sound out of it. They ought to be ashamed of themselves selling that as "audiophile" gear for over $300.00. It's worth about $50.00 tops and there are more musical sounding $50.00 phono stages using full-sized parts. All electronics are not getting smaller, certainly not "audiophile" electronics. It's just that a couple companies went cheap. The only other phono stage I'm aware of that uses these micro parts is the NAD PP-2, another phono stage that doesn't sound all that great. Coincidence? At least the NAD sells for a much more realistic $100.00.

[royphil345]

I just discovered something that made my Jolida sound twice as smooth. The overly "forward" sound is gone and both frequency extremes are smoother and more extended. I'm hearing deep bass I haven't heard from my vinyl rig in a long time.

The fix?... I found the capacitors for capacitance loading in the Jolida are tiny, cheap ceramic discs. Definitely not the first thing you want in your signal path. I turned off all the capacitance switches and used Y-adapters and loading plugs with silver mica caps in them instead. 91pF seemed about right for most modern  moving magnets that liked the 100pF setting. The Y-adapters add a little capacitance. HUGE difference. Smoooooth and more extended. Definitely try this if you have a Jolida you're not 100% satisfied with yet. It's no small difference and it's all for the better. I thought about replacing the stock caps with silver micas, but the stock ones are tiny and I'd be worried about ruining the PC board traces trying to install the larger silver micas with larger leads. The plugs and Y-adapters work fine though.

[face]

You didn't happen to take any pics?   

[royphil345]

You didn't happen to take any pics?   

You want pics of the stock caps?... or how to do the capacitance plugs? I can take some...

The first pic shows how to use them. Just plug the plug into the Jolida, your turntable into one of the jacks and the loading plug into the other. The second pic shows the silver mica soldered into an RCA plug. They're non-polar, so just one lead to the plug tip and the other to the ground. I did use a cheapo heat sink clip with a 90 degree bent tip on the lead between the cap and where I was soldering. The plug tip particularly seems to hold a lot of heat for awhile. Not sure how necessary that was or how easily silver micas are damged by heat.  There are a couple dealers on eBay who will sell you a few silver micas without ridiculous shipping charges or a minimum order. You have to watch the size if you want to be able to put the covers on your plugs. I've bought some silver micas that are much bigger, even though the values and voltage ratings were lower (I believe these are 300 volt). Maybe older ones?...  I also found the plugs on eBay from a Chinese dealer for less than $1.00 each shipped. Pretty snazzy plugs... These really come in handy if you have a phono stage with fixed capacitance and a vintage cartridge that likes higher capacitance. Just have to find the right value.

Here's a rip I did using the new loading plugs and an Ortofon Blue. I think it sounds less "round" and harsh in the upper-mids and closer to "reference" than any rip I've made with the Jolida yet. That song doesn't have a ton of bass, but I can definitely hear it's going deeper now. The sound is just less "congested" overall. I should have made another rip using the switch on the Jolida for comparison, but I didn't think of it. The main reason I made that rip was to compare different values of capacitors and find the best one, not to compare the silver micas vs. the ceramics in the Jolida. I'm working with an older AT cartridge now to try and find the perfect capacitance and make plugs that work for that.

http://www.4shared.com/file/0eJpNWzf/new_caps_91pF.html

EDIT:  My friend says he likes this one I did with 86pF capacitors better (2 43pF in parallel). I think it's just a little too thick in the mids. I may end up with a value between 86 and 91. I'll have to try some different music and keep comparing...


http://www.4shared.com/file/niz3h2tD/new_caps.html

ANOTHER EDIT: I just got a pair of Python Y-adapters from eBay and they sound better than the ones shown in the photo and used in the rips. They sound a touch more "open" and detailed for some reason, still very smooth. Maybe the conductors in the other ones were very thin? Anyhow... Pythons recommended if you want to try this and need decent, reasonably-priced Y-adapters.

[face]

FWIW, I just purchased a pair of new prod Gold Lions, tantalum resistors for the loading switches and in series with the tube, and also Amtrans AMCH film caps for the loading switches.  Unfortunately, that rig is down for the moment as my speakers are being finished. 

I'm curious to hear your impression of MR vs. VSF in this circuit. 

[undertow]

face,
Honestly I have not heard Gold Lions, I found the new production Tung-Sol 12AX7's excellent in this unit, but for High power MC or MM it is much better with 12AU7's as they are 30% of the gain a 12AX7 provides.