Anyone have experience with new Jolida power amp?

I have had the pleasure of working 50 yards from the Jolida factory and United Home Audio store for the past couple years. I just auditioned both the 1501 and 502. Jerred Dunkerson let me bring my source, DAC and auditioning material to the store for a listen. For a short answer, I have decided to buy the 502.

Both the 1501 and 502 are wonderful amps, but the amount of pure A/B power on tap with the 502 is clearly evident. Control, low end grunt, musicality, and resolution are noticably improved with the 502. Given the difference in retail price (about 300), the 502 is clearly a better deal. The only thing the amps share from a tube perspective are the 12AX7s in the buffer stage.

The gear I auditioned with:

Laptop (24/96 FLAC)
M2Tech HiFace
Beresford TC-7520 DAC
JD3000 (I think) pre
All cables and ICs were Celtic Silver

If you want to know more send me a PM.

Evan

Meskandar,

I haven't done near as many mods to the 1501 but some. I had my 1501 in my office system but I just currently put it in the main system again to play around with.

The 502 is a better amp in my system. But I have expensive caps throughout and resistors in critical areas. That said the 1501 is sounding very nice playing right now. I'm thinking of doing some more work to it. It does have nice bass control and overall it sounds good. A little bright! That would be reduced by some component upgrades.

As far as which is better? I think that really depends on what you want and your associated equipment. The 502 is much easier to work on and mod that's for sure. The 1501 is low maintenance. "only two tubes" But they have a very different sound and I'm not sure what you will like better?

It then goes into the "which is better" argument of tube and solid state and I'm not going to start that. Have fun and enjoy the music that is the most important thing.

I haven't had either piece you mention but I do have the JD-1000P now and had the 1000 integrated a few years back. I have also used the 302s as amps before. As you can tell I like the Jolida equipment, I think it is very good equipment at the price point. As much as I like the 1000P I have gone with a Wyred4Sound ST-500 now so the 1000P will be up for sale here in a few days. It isn't that I don't like the 1000P it is just that with my current speakers a solid state amp is what sounds best.

Dan

Detredwings,

Do you have an opinion on how both of the modded amps stacked up? I assume the 502 was better, but it's not a given. What was your experience?

I've done mods to both of these units and I believe you are right. Some including myself like the 502 as just an amp instead of an integrated. It's only a matter of removing the 100k alps blue pot and adding a two resistor attenuator on each channel. They also kept the tube input stage on the 1501 so they probably did the same to it.