Best Dac for Jadis Defy and JPL combo?

Ive owned a JPL for over 15 years and IMO the American black plate RCA 12AX7 from the 1950s sound the best..Tele tubes are too sterile (again IMO) and the prices are ridiculous.1950s Raytheon are nice as well and a little cheaper. The 1950s Mullard are great but hard to find and really $$$..Ive found that tube selection in the Jadis pre is not as critial as the Defy 7 which Ive owned..Thats where I would put my money if retubing and spending vintage prices

lessloss dac mk11

I put a pair of Mazda 12ax7s's in there last night and it sounds pretty bright to me. Also, the soundstage seems narrow and the detail is disapointing, but it is starting to develop an interesting smoothness in the sound.

I think the tubes in this unit are very old possibly. I am going to replace all the tubes to eliminate them as a possible root cause of the disapointing sound quality.

I emailed the seller to see if he knew of any modifications or service that was ever done to this unit. I hope that gets me on the right track.

I've always preferred the sound of Telefunkens in my Jadis equipment, which have included JPL, JP80 and JP200 preamps, as well as the JA80 amps. EIs, Amperex and Seimens were also good to my ears. Telefunkens to me sound more uniform in tonal balance than other tubes--just make sure you get the real things. There are others in these forums who disagree, feel the Teles are too bright and who prefer NOS Mullards, but I never really liked them, because I felt THEY were too bright (however, given that the last thing people seem to say about Mullards is that they're bright, maybe my Mullards were really rebranded Brimars, as Andy Bouwman of Vintage Tube Services suggested). Since you're near your tube supplier, maybe you could have him come over with a couple of brands to try out. You could even experiment, using one of the better tubes in the first position (following the signal from the inputs) and two lesser tubes in the other two spots, if the cost of the best tubes is an issue--that's a trick another Audiogoner mentioned in another thread that Andy Bouwman and Mike O'Keefe had showed me as well. And don't forget the tape loop option, it was generally felt at the time I had my JPL (shown me by the then-importer Victor Goldstein) that the tape loop input was the best sounding input on the preamp. I always felt that the 12AU7 in the CD input circuit was an attempt to soften the harsh sound of the early CD players, but it's not really needed now given the improvements over the years in digital sound reproduction.

Just check out the EMM Labs dacs.... I bet that sounds awesome. It better for that kind of money.

I just started rolling a few 12ax7 into it. I know the JPL came in with some worn out tubes. I live near Brent Jesse who I buy my tubes from, so I will be calling him in the morning.
Do you mind if I ask which 12ax7 and 12au7 you had the best sound with in the JPL?

I run a Nova Physics Memory Player through the EMM Labs DAC, closest I come to computer files (the player is really a computer, pretty much). Don't have a normal computer setup near the audio system.

Thanks RC..
That is good info on the CD input. I will see what difference it makes on my system.
Just out of curiosity, are you running any computer files into your system?

I used an Audio Logic 2400 DAC with my JPL, and use that and an EMM Labs DCC2SE with my current Jadis preamp (JP200), enjoy them all very much. If you were to get an early Jadis JS1 DAC it would be similar (same designer).

One thing you should consider with the JPL is that it has an extra tube in the CD input stage. I would try using any DAC or CD player through the Tape In input before making any final decisions. I found that the CD input on the JPL softened the sound a little too much for my tastes. YMMV, of course.