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Upgrade my Jolida on the cheap

I have had the JD100 cdp, bought new, for a couple of months now and had purchased it with a more 'budget' system in mind. Along the way I acquired a better preamp and amp than I anticipated (combination of good deals and lust).
Now, although I love the way my system sounds and can attribute some of this to the dear Jolida, I am wondering if I can do better for not loads more by dipping into the used market. Specifically, I could do with a bit more detail and soundstaging, along with some more refinement. Now the Jolida is no slouch imho in any of these areas, but it IS a sub-$1K player....?
I know, the grass is always greener, but isn't this what being an audiophile is all about?
What can I go to in the used market (but not too used) for about $1200 or so that will obviously better the JD? Or am I better off buying nice tubes for the JD?
kck
8 responses Add your response
beatlebum
184 posts
 
Kck,

I've gone from Rotel 1070 to Arcam CD 73T (for sale now btw) to Marantz SA 8260. While the Rotel was a good player I felt that the Arcam did everything the Rotel did but better and with alot more musicality and refinement. Now the 8260 is head and shoulders above these other two fine players. The Marantz excels at imaging, soundstage and detail with both redbook and sacd. I haven't been to bed before midnight since I got the thing. To me, this is a sign of a good piece of equipment.

The 8260 is available at Music Direct for $999.00 with a 30 day trial period. Talk to Mark, he's a great guy to deal with.

Oh well, back to my listening couch!

Tim
swampwalker's avatar
swampwalker
5,138 posts
 
Don't know how good the Jolida is as a transport, but something like a Muse 2+ DAC at $500 might be a great addition at pretty reasonable cost. Add a Pioneer Elite stable platter CDP or DVD as a transport and you could be way under $1K. Or for your $1.2K, how about a Classe' DAC-1 w/an Elite DV-05 or a Sony DVPS-700 for a transport?
mtbrider
150 posts
 
Have you tried different tubes in your Jolida? If not, then I would recommend you start there. One of the benefits of tubes is changing them to suit your listening tastes.
jayctoy's avatar
jayctoy
4,127 posts
 
Stick with the Jolida, I heard one, very very good,
I heard it with the Jolida reciver, sooooo... LIVE
nealhood
199 posts
 
Hey Jayctoy, for redbook playback do you prefer the Jolida over your Sony or, any other SACD player that you have heard? I really like my JD-100 but, the upgrade fever is high and I would like to have a player that exels in both formats.
lou_3rd
74 posts
 
The Sony DVP-S9000ES is going for about $600-650 now. It's stock redbook is very impressive. If you can solder you can turn it into a monster for very little investment, or what I consider very little, under $150. Replace the caps in the audio section with Black Gates, I know, Silmics are supposed to be great, replace them! Bypass the PS cap and the Black Gates that are used in the DC circuit with AudioCap RT's .1uF's for the large power supply caps, and .01uF's for the Black Gate caps. Pull and install sockets for the opamps, and install LT1364's. For well under a grand you will have one of the best sounding redbook and 2 channel CDP's out there.

Best Regards,

Lou
dw600's avatar
dw600
2 posts
 
look into a clock upgrade for the jolida.

I put a tent in my jd100 and I don't think that I will be looking for anything else in the near future
boa2's avatar
boa2
1,551 posts
 
Mullard CV4004 tubes. They will skyrocket your Jolida head and shoulders above many other higher priced players. They were the best money I've spent on this system. No kidding.
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