[DarkAngel]

Stryker
Maybe I should more seriously consider that Music Hall 25 mod level 3 you have there......does it play "average" recorded rock music without brightness or treble glare?

What price level stock CDP does it compete with?

 

[stryker]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkAngel Stryker Maybe I should more seriously consider that Music Hall 25 mod level 3 you have there......does it play "average" recorded rock music without brightness or treble glare? What price level stock CDP does it compete with?

That never-connected clock power supply does amazing things with the sound. After I had it put in, there was absolutely NO treble glare or bite at all. It became very smooth and the pacing and timing was more relaxed. I liken it more to a Naim sound with a better attack. However, if you're talking some of those bad 80s recordings well...it will reveal the limitations of the recording and its mastering, that's for sure.

I'm not sure what stock unit to compare it to. The quality of the digital signal going to the dac chip is so robust with this mod. I listened to an ack! dAck! again at the MD Head-Fi meet and I believe it sounded similar--of course that was with my Level 3 as a transport! In comparison to when I had the DAC 1, I liked the way it handled treble and treble transients during busy passages just a bit better than the DAC 1 but that may have been the upsampling I didn't like.

Two other owners of Meridians have PMed to me that their modded MH "had gotten close" to their Meridian and in both those cases they had the Level 1 player. That's about all I can say based on my experiences. I finally threw in a zapfilter in mine which really took it to the next level, but you're a talking a few hundred more.

 

[dprorok]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bahamaman As others have remarked in past threads, the headphone output [of the Jolida JD-100] was really quite outstanding. I recall with great fondness its smooth, liquid sound, superior build quality, and that nice bit of warmth the tubes convey.

This is a supremely dumb question, but has anyone actually confirmed that the tubed output stage isn't just for the RCA outs and bypassed through the independent headphone output? This would be easy enough to confirm by rolling tubes and seeing if it makes a difference on the headphone jack (or just examining the wiring the next time I have the cover off). I have only recently started using the headphone jack on one of my Jolidas as a stop-gap until I decide on a the right headphone amp for it, so I haven't had time to experiment and examine myself.

The reason I ask is that I remember the headphone jack has discrete amplication circuitry in the front left of the chassis, right behind the headphone jack, and the tubes are isolated in the rear right hand side, right by the RCA outs. I don't remember seeing wiring between the two, but I guess it would explain why I hear so much transport noise out of the headphone jacks of both of my Jolidas, since any use of the tubes requires a wire run across the entire chasis, past the power supply transformers and under/around the transport and digital nastiness in the center.

Dan

 

[stryker]

I recall that the headphone out is a discrete FET design. It was not all that great, imo, but perhaps good enough for occasional use or with low impedenace phones. It didn't do much with my Senns.

 

[KZEE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gopher I miss my Meridian sometimes. It was an extreemly nice player, with a very romantic/engaging sound. And whats best is it did a great job with everything.

Which 508 did you have (508.20, 508.24...)?

 

[Gopher]

508.20, as per my profile. Sorry for the ambiguity.

 

[KZEE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gopher 508.20, as per my profile. Sorry for the ambiguity.

Sorry, I never thought to check your profile. The reason I asked is that the 508 is on my short list of players that I'd like to upgrade to (current player is MF X-Ray v3) so when ever I see that someone owns or has owned a 508, I like to pick their brain a little bit to see what they thought of the player.

 

[Gopher]

Quote:

Originally Posted by KZEE Sorry, I never thought to check your profile. The reason I asked is that the 508 is on my short list of players that I'd like to upgrade to (current player is MF X-Ray v3) so when ever I see that someone owns or has owned a 508, I like to pick their brain a little bit to see what they thought of the player.

feel free to pm me any ?s you might have

 

[GlowWorm]

Personally, being a tube guy I would go with the Jolida.

 

[dprorok]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dprorok ...has anyone actually confirmed that the tubed output stage isn't just for the RCA outs and bypassed through the independent headphone output?

Because there's nothing more fun than answering one's own question on a forum, I thought I'd mention I did bust open my Jolida this weekend to do some tube-rolling and, in the process, answer my own question.

It turns out if you pull the tubes out of the Jolida entirely and run it with your cans plugged directly into the headphone jack, it sounds precisely the same. Apparently the headphone jack isn't influenced by the tubes at all.

If you want to use the Jolida with headphones and actually benefit from the tube sound, you have to do it the right way and use a headphone amp. (Yeah, yeah, I know...duh.)

I also did confirm there is a good collection of power supply wires that run from the right-hand side of the case to the left, right under and behind the transport, which would explain where all the transport noise comes from in the headphone jack.

Next trick is to figure out if I like the sounds of the GE tubes I popped in this morning...