CAT JL-2 amp upgrade

Thanks for your response Posbwp555. I had been considering a Joule LA150 MKII for the reasons you suggested. In speaking with Bobby at Merlin (I own VSMs) he suggested that rather than go that route I might want to try (I ordered it) the Ars Sonum integrated amp which he feels is very, very close to the separates considered to mate well with Merling (e.g. CAT, Joule, Atmasphere, Berning). This is somewhat of a leap of faith, since the Ars is a 30 Watt integrated costing $3,500, versus what some would consider SOTA seaparates worth $20,000. It would be very interesting to see if a synergistcally optimzed integrated and speakers can compete with some of the better separates. Of course the CAT will sound great with many different speakers with different sensitivities and impedance curves - it is a more universally "great" amp - that is not a point of contention. But the Merlins don't require a lot of power and have a very benign, easy to drive impedance curve, and Bobby know his speakers inside out. It will be an interesting experiment. After the trial I will be selling the little integrated or the CAT JL2. All things being equal, I'd rather run a small, simple integrated that can do the job (at least with Merlin speakers)- but I won't sacrifice musical satisfaction.

I am now using a Manley Steelhead phono preamp as my preamp and running it directly to the JL2s. Much better than my CAT SL-1 III preamp.

Still using my JL-2 original version amp. Has anyone had the upgrades to this model? Are they worth the money? Has the reliability been improved? Mine blew something expensive awhile back. Thanks for any information.

Suttlaw

Tube gone bad blow your resistors?

Had a "standard" JL-2 that I bought used and it worked well with one re-tubing for 3 years. It handily outclassed anything before it, tube or SS. Then a bad tube took out a resistor and damaged one of the boards. After some attempts at repair myself, took a deep breath and sent it back to CAT. After some discussion and another very deep breath, had it upgraded to MK2 signature. Just got it back and the improvements are NOT subtle. Was already the best amp ever in my system, and is now substantially better. The newer boards have the offending resistors spaced out and sized more appropriately so bad tubes in theory do less damage. Haven't had it back long enough to comment on reliability, but the sound is very greatly improved, and the earlier version was nothing to sneeze at.