2. amps-preamps
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Tube pre, SS amp incompatibility, which amp 2 use?

I wanted to see how a tubed pre-amp would sound in my system so I purchased a Jolida Music Envoy pre-amp to mate with my McCormack DNA-1 amplifier. When I put the pre-amp in the system it would not work. After talking to Jolida, where Jerred helped me try various things, we came to the conclusion that they were just not compatible, since the Jolida works just fine with an old Marantz I have. The Jolida has in output impedance of 600 ohms. The McCormack has an input impedance of 100K ohms.

Next I emailed Steve McCormack asking his opinion, and he also gave various reasons for the failure, but after letting him know what was done in an attempt at making them work together, he also stated it may just be a compatibility issue.

Now I would like to get a different amp to try with the Jolida, but am a little weary of purchasing another just to find out that for one reason or another it will not work.

Since this is just to see if I would like what I hear, I don't want to put a lot of money into it. My speakers are 6 ohm Gershman Acoustics Sonograms and are 89db efficient, so I'm looking at an SS amp with good power for less than $1K.
Does anyone know of any amps I can look into that DO work with the Jolida, knowing for sure, that they will be compatible?
128x128abucktwoeighty

Showing 2 responses by atmasphere

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,632 posts
 
Abucktwoeighty There may be other ways to sort this out too. How are your power cords set up? Are they both running off of the same power strip?
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,632 posts
 
Abucktwoeighty, do you have a Digital Volmeter (DVM)? If so you might want to measure the voltage at the output of the Jolida with the volume turned down. If its anything other than 0volts, you have a problem that should be fixed.

If the preamp employs paper and oil coupling caps, they can sometimes develop electrical leakage, resulting in a slight DC voltage at the output of the preamp. This would cause the behavior you have described. I have no doubt that the insertion of a passive control or an attenuator is degrading the sound; IOW its worth pursuing this.
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