Jadis Monoblock Amplifiers

[Ron Resnick]

Have you compared different models of Jadis monoblock amplifiers? Is there a consistent change in sonic attributes as one moves from two output tubes to four output tubes to six output tubes to 10 output tubes (holding output tube type constant)?

How does the JA100 sound different than the JA120? How does the JA100 sound different than the JA200 Mk. II?

Does transparency increase or decrease as the number of output tubes increases?

Does resolution increase or decrease as the number of output tubes increases?

Does midrange fuzziness increase or decrease as the number of output tubes increases?

Thank you!

 

[Ron Resnick]

What are the sound characteristics in the Jadis Class A amplifiers of KT88s versus KT90s?

Are KT88s closer in midrange voluptuousness to EL34s than KT90s are to EL34s?

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Ron,

i know nothing about Jadis amplifiers, except, as i recall, there was a time they moved sideways into a different building voicing philosophy, and then later returned back to their roots. so you need to dig deeper into feedback on the various iterations/versions of particular Jadis amps.

my sense is that this detour might have been more than 10 years ago, and the last 5+ years all is well. at one point i had the hots for Jadis (tube lust run amuck) and took a strong look at them, but that is now years ago.

 

[Ron Resnick]

You feel strongly the pull of the tube Dark Side, but you have great Jedi strength to resist the temptation.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

You feel strongly the pull of the tube Dark Side, but you have great Jedi strength to resist the temptation.

i'm weak as sh*t.

during my 19 year room building journey, i had periods of malaise, where i was not connecting. at one point i tried bicycles, later photography, and strongly thought about tube amps. use to drive Jonathan nuts. then i fixed my room. no more periods of malaise.

at this point i feel i have plenty of tube like sound. but still lust after tube amps.

 

[davidavdavid]

You feel strongly the pull of the tube Dark Side, but you have great Jedi strength to resist the temptation.

Great "JADIS" strength.

 

[thomask]

I had moved up from Ja 200 to JA 500 on 2000.

The speaker used was Avalon Ascent II and B&W Notilus 801.

It was night and day difference .

JA 500 had lot of headroom and gave most powerful bass that I had experinced at home.

 

[Ron Resnick]

I had moved up from Ja 200 to JA 500 on 2000.

The speaker used was Avalon Ascent II and B&W Notilus 801.

It was night and day difference .

JA 500 had lot of headroom and gave most powerful bass that I had experinced at home.

Thank for checking in here!

Did the JA500 have the upper bass/lower midrange "weightiness" of the JA200?

Can you tell us about any comparative sonic impressions between the JA200 and one of the smaller amplifiers?

Did you have any reliability or operational problems with JA200s or the JA500s?

 

[thomask]

Thank for checking in here!

Did the JA500 have the upper bass/lower midrange "weightiness" of the JA200?

Can you tell us about any comparative sonic impressions between the JA200 and one of the smaller amplifiers?

Did you have any reliability or operational problems with JA200s or the JA500s?

I had no experience with lower power model.

Since the difference between Ja500 and JA 200 is huge, I will consider only JA 500 or Ja800 if I go back to Jadis.

Since JA 500 use 12 6550 tubes, one tube tends to pop up every two month or so.

But it did not cause any damage to either amp or speaker.

It may had been problem with cheap Russian tube.

 

[Ron Resnick]

I had no experience with lower power model.

Since the difference between Ja500 and JA 200 is huge, I will consider only JA 500 or Ja800 if I go back to Jadis.

Since JA 500 use 12 6550 tubes, one tube tends to pop up every two month or so.

But it did not cause damage to either amp or speaker.

It may had been problem with cheap Russian tube.

Thank you.

 

[thomask]

Thank you.

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[caesar]

On the opposite side of the power spectrum, many years ago I heard their 845 compared to a higher powered Jadis amp. I have heard countless systems since then so don't recall the specific situation. However, what struck me is that the higher powered amp had that beguiling and intoxicating Jadis sonic signature. But when we hooked up their 845 amps, it had the same Jadis sonic signature but was much, much, much, much more transparent. Hence, the music was even more beguiling and intoxicating.

Don't get me wrong, the higher powered Jadis is INCREDIBLE, and I would still take higher powered Jadis over the popular tube hifi like Audio Research, CJ, VTL, VAC, etc.. Yet that experience definitely helped me understand why some guys start building their system around their favorite amp instead of the speaker.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Thank you for this report, Caesar!

 

[Ron Resnick]

With the JA100s being such a smashing success, I think trying JA200 Mk IIs, with both EL34s and KT88s (hopefully KR Audio KT88s) would be very interesting.

There is reason to believe that nobody before this has ever used 80 watt tube amplifiers on Pendragons.

 

[Ron Resnick]

The Siegfried IIs are more transparent and more resolving than the JA100s. So it is too simplistic or dogmatic to say that more output tubes necessarily reduces transparency.

I suspect the slight penalty in transparency from Jadis comes from the giant transformer.

Still it makes some sense that nothing good happens for transparency from a signal passing through more tubes rather than fewer.

Ralph, how do you feel about this number of tubes versus transparency question on your amplifiers?

 

[microstrip]

The Siegfried IIs are more transparent and more resolving than the JA100s. So it is too simplistic or dogmatic to say that more output tubes necessarily reduces transparency.

IMO we do not need amplifier comparisons to consider that such kind of general statements are absurd.

I suspect the slight penalty in transparency from Jadis comes from the giant transformer.

IMO as absurd as the first statement. Anyway, both amplifiers have potted output transformers, using different core materials and different winding techniques. How can you conclude anything on them just on guess?

Still it makes some sense that nothing good happens for transparency from a signal passing through more tubes rather than fewer.

IMO there is not such correlation. But sometimes we make such naive associations and audiophile myths are hard to ignore.

 

[Ron Resnick]

IMO we do not need amplifier comparisons to consider that such kind of general statements are absurd.




IMO as absurd as the first statement. Anyway, both amplifiers have potted output transformers, using different core materials and different winding techniques. How can you conclude anything on them just on guess?



IMO there is not such correlation. But sometimes we make such naive associations and audiophile myths are hard to ignore.

Have a nice evening, Sunshine!

 

[microstrip]

Have a nice evening, Sunshine!

Yes, we need a lot of sunshine to counterbalance your desire to keep audiophile debates in the mushy darkness.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Thank you, thomask, for your comments!

 

[Folsom]

I'm with micro on this. If you asked me to design a tube amplifier then your criteria of what you think makes it sound the way it does would be entirely useless for presenting the desired outcome you want.

It's very obvious Jadis has less feedback based on measurements. While it might be part of their sound there are some capacitors in Jadis I'd swap out in a hurry, and you would gain a bit of what was lost back.