Black ice Audio owners, pet peaves


The new Jolida Black ice ,Jim Fosgste assisted, is better then the fusion which was good 
most parts good ,except in the past thin sheet metal cases, you would think a sturdy 2-4 Oz copper trace circuit board  good quality tube sockets the bosrd in fusion models which I owned literally flexed when you want to tube rolll, I broke solder joints and was very easy on installing remov8ng tubes ,even used Stabilant-22 
contact enhancer which works great and helps ease tube removal you would think for a lousy $50 orless 
toput in a top quality board with a thick bottom plate with stand offs to secure the bosrd from flexing 
whst good is a great sound8ng component when you have cheap internal parts ,just dumb.
my good friend is a 40 year vacuum tube expert ,and I ask him to mod put much better coupling capacitors in ,and Vishay naked coupling caps ,better connectors , he stated he was concerned the circuit board too thin ,minimal he said should ge at least a 2 Oz Coppergold double sided board  for under $50 much better conductivity,as welll as longevity,and mounted on 6 standoffs . Put some dam thought into the build . Many companies if you can’t see inside we will cut corners ,that tells me as a True Audiophile $$ comes before your pride in building a quality component .  I tell it like it is sometimes the truth hurts.prove me wrong. As Audiophiles sonics,and dependability are a Paramount .i would much rather spend an extra $200-300 to get a muchbetter product in the key areas copper Furutech IEC, less then $15 ,vs the $3 junk even in many $10k electronics Why ? 5 x more resistance to start 
stupid . Military grade 2-4 Oz Gold copper trace boards, Gold copper rca  at least off as a SAe option 
no extra labor if built as a SE model when being assembled. If they don’t like whst I have to say a Too bad , then show some dam pride .i know from experience if m6 name is on it I know everyth7g is better then average ,and when buying parts in quantity the prices go down to under 50% retail.
before buying question the mfg ,look for product description. In detail if it is not ststed or says 
proprietary it is BS, that just means there is nothing special and trying to cover their low cost tracks,
it’s your money Lin this small boutique Audio market ,it is about time companies especially the larger well name companies stop living on their name and lofty way over priced gear.quality  conpetive priced gear is what the majority of the market wants . Happy listening. 😎🎶

128x128audioman58

Its peeve. The device is only properly judged by how it does its stated job. Unless it was advertised as a ‘mod platform’, this mode of judging a device is misleading, ill informed and pointless. This notion that anyone with a soldering iron and an opinion feels qualified to opine on a professionally designed product is one of the pitfalls of audiophile culture.

I totally disagree with the statement that Black Ice is better then the Jolida Fusion 3000. Lots of mods performed on these pre's. I tube roll all the time with no problems. Paid $675 + mods. I think 1/2 the problem is that people don't give the unit enough air for cooling, and/or no zen when installing  tubes. 

Just my2 cents.

I have the Black Ice preamp in my exercise room audio system.  It's even spent time in my refernce system.  It's a helluvs preamp for not a lot of money imo.  When I put the Linlai 6SN7 tube in for the stock one, the improvement in tonal colors and meat on the bones was easily noticeable.