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Jolida JD100 Tube CD player
Only $950.00!
JD-100
Jolida's Giant Killer CD player!
24 x 96 DAC's and the
legendary Jolida tube output!
Liquid and magical is what we hear!
Yes we're impressed, you will be too!
Thick brushed aluminum face with red standby lights
and electric blue power light.
UPGRADES FOR THE JD-100 CD player
Most of the upgrades on the JD-100 players you've read about stink
but these changes will really upgrade the sound!
Don't believe me?
Come by the store and listen for yourself
I haven't had a person yet say that I was wrong!
Ask for Greg.
Upgrade #1.) Upgraded tubes:
The best I've found are the NOS Mullard $350 pr.
or
NOS Sylvania $150pr. Very dynamic sound lots of excitement!
Upgrade #2.) Power Cord:
PS Audio xStream Power Punch 2m cable $66.00
or
PS Audio xStream Power Prelude cable $149.00
or
Upgrade #3) Isolation:
Yes, isolation from acoustic vibration has a huge effect on the sound quality!
There are two problems;
Vibration through your audio rack.
Vibration from sound waves to the CD player's metal case.
Both can have an effect on the players ability to read the disc and to vibrate at the same frequency
that the player is trying to produce, not good!
Behold a 1950's Mullard 12ax7 tube!
That's it that's all you need one from upgrade #1 and one from upgrade#2 !
The remote is a solid black chunk of brushed aluminum,
don't drop it on your foot!
Check out this design!
Digital electronics on the left side.
steel partisan
CD transport in the center.
steel partisan
Tube output stage.
Everything nice and separate, with a steel wall
isolating the various components.
Tube out put stage
Here's a new review on the JD-100!
From
"TNT-Audio"
Reviewer: Nels Ferré
Reviewed: June 2002
Here's the link if you want to read the whole review!
http://www.tnt-audio.com/sorgenti/jolida-jd100_e.html
The build quality of the JD-100A is stunning, everything is made of metal, and there are no plastic bits to be found anywhere. The player weighs in at 19 lbs, quite hefty indeed. The build quality is evident on the interior of the unit as well. There are two large metal shields that run the depth of the unit that shield the transport from both the tube output section on the right side of the machine, as well as the associated transport electronics, power supply and headphone amp on the left side. There are two large transformers to power the transport and audio circuits independently. The transport is Philips' CDM-12.
The more I peered around the internal circuits, the more impressed I became. All circuits are placed internally to use a minimum of associated wiring. For example, the tube output section, which uses a pair of 12AX7 tubes, is located in the right rear of the chassis, right next to the rear panel, where the wiring attaches to the gold plated RCA output jacks. More attention to detail is evident with the headphone amp and associated jack. The headphone amp is located in the front left of the chassis, again very near the headphone jack. The associated wiring is of above average quality as well, low gauge wiring (for the application) sheathed in fabric.
How does she sound?
The JD-100A really lets the music flow. The JD-100A served the music, not the technology. Sure, the JD-100A has a vacuum tube output and a 24/96 D/A converter, but with glorious sound like this, who really cares? Right now I am listening to disc 4 from the Les Paul and Mary Ford box set (Capitol CDP 1 91651 2) and the music keeps stealing my attention from the keyboard and monitor. Most of the music on this set was recorded in the 1950's it sounds very fresh, even 50 years later. Les Paul's guitar work sometimes sizzles, sometimes soothes, but always amazes. The JD-100A lets the listener forget about the format, and enjoy the music.
Bass is deep and tight, a bit punchy. The midrange is very smooth and uncolored; again technology becomes a distant, almost non existent issue. While the JD-100A uses vacuum tubes, I tend to forget this too, and lose myself in the music. The highs are smooth and extended. The player images quite well for a CD player as well.
The JD-100A is a departure from most high end machines: it shuns the expected Burr-Brown D/A converters in favor of Philips chips. This is totally intentional. JoLida's design goal with the JD-100A was to build a CD player that was very linear, thus very listenable. This is the main difference, in my opinion, between digital and analog music reproduction. Analog, to my ears, is very linear. Many CD players tend to be bright and analytical. These players reproduce all of the detail, but they tend to be very fatiguing, especially during extended listening sessions. Listening to music should be enjoyable, not fatiguing. On the other hand, if the player is too smooth, then resolution suffers and much of the excitement of the music is lost, glossed over. The discontinued JD-603 is a prime example of going too far in this direction. JoLida has done an excellent job of striking the proper balance in the JD-100A, to my ears; it is "just right." In the JD-100A, JoLida has a player that makes music in very much the same way as my analog rig, which costs many times the price of admission of the JD-100A.
The punchy bass that I mentioned is another one of the design goals of the JD-100A. This allows the music, all of it, to be heard even at low volumes. This is one of the attributes that I found so dear with JoLida's integrated tube amps, as well.
I did have a very interesting discovery with the JD-100A. I was listening to collection of Cajun music on the Rhino label ("Alligator Stomp" R2 70946.) Like most of the other CD's I've played on the JD-100A, I was amazed at the musicality of CDs I was missing via other machines. This CD sounded better too, more open, more natural, and extremely involving, even considering the fact that this CD is far from reference quality. For those who are unfamiliar with Cajun music, Cajuns are people of French ancestry that settled the bayous of Louisiana.
They brought their music from France and adapted it, mixing it with American country music as well as black gospel music brought by the slaves from Africa. Cajun music, unfortunately, has not caught on very well in the U.S., and tends to be more of a regional style with low sales volume. Because of this, record companies did not spend much money on making the records; most have fair to poor sound quality.
And so it is with "Alligator Stomp," but there was a surprise. While tonally the disc sounded better than I have ever heard it, some tracks exhibited speed stability problems, which I was never aware of before. My thoughts here are that the JD-100 is so neutral that other aspects of the performance became evident.
All of my reference discs sounded exceptional. What I really found enjoyable was rediscovering discs that are of less than reference quality. Many of these discs are actually better than I was aware.
Sound quality with the JD-100 is directly related to the tubes used in the output section. The Chinese tubes (Sino?) that ship from the factory are good performers, but I would recommend changing them to Svetlana tubes, from Russia. Every aspect of performance improves with the Svetlana tubes in residence. A JoLida dealer sent some Philips tubes in addition to the Svetlana's, but I was unable to test the player with the Philips tubes, as I experienced a 75% failure rate over 2 pairs.
The performance of the JD-100A did improve slightly with the addition of aftermarket power cables and interconnects. The JD-100A was nowhere near as fussy when it came to the need for interconnects and power cables as was the Cambridge Audio CD-500SE that I reviewed earlier this year. With that machine, upgrades were required for good performance. This is not the case at all with the JoLida; the upgrades are more akin to the cherry on top of a hot fudge sundae.
I listened to the JD-100A with all types of music both reference and non reference, and have absolutely no complaints as far as sound quality. It is, by far, the most non-fatiguing, yet very musical and exciting CD player that I have had the pleasure to hear. I could listen to it non-stop all day long. In fact, on many occasions, I have done just that.
