Jolida JD-100 or Eastsound CD-5 ?

I owned both also. I sold the Jolida to my brother-in-law. His system I thought tended to be on the bright side, and the Jolida warmed it up nicely. I think in his system the Jolida may have been a better match. Since he need the fuller sound of tubes to warm up the sound. The Jolida is fatter and more forward sounding. The Eastsound is more resolving, more extended (highs and lows) more neutral, not as forward, and built much better. The remote control is not as good as the Jolida. The Jolida doesn't suck by any means. But in a neutral system the Esound is a much better match. If you system tend toward brightness the Jolida may be a better match with tube rolling.

I've actually owned both of these players. I enjoyed the Jolida very much; a very involving, high quality tube output player. It is no match however, for the Eastsound. In terms of detail, resolution, refinement -- the Eastsound is truly hi-end to Jolida's hi-fi IMO.

Much has been said of the build quality of the Eastsound with good reason -- it is as if it were carved from a single, thick piece of aluminum. It uses a zinc-coated plate under the transport, which makes it run absolutely silent.If this player were manufactured here, it would easily sell for at least $3000.

Although I am a great fan of tubes, the background of the E5 is perfectly black in a way that is probably only possible in SS given the natural distortion that occurs with vacuum tubes.

The mids are quite warm and to my ear, virtually indistinguishable from tubes. You will not get the kind of tube-y bloom you hear with the Jolida. But that is a small trade off for a player that eats Jolida's lunch in bass extension, believable - not digital sounding - high frequency reproduction, layer upon layer of rich detail and depth of soundstage. Even if you're a hard-core tube head, you'll love this player.

An important note: the Eastsound requires a long break-in -at least 1000 hours of playtime - to truly reach its potential. Also, can't say enough positive things about the people at Cattylink Analog Research (cattylink.com) -- the company that sells this product direct from Hong Kong. My player cost $747 shipped to me in two days from Hong Kong. They threw in an excellent pair of interconnects which made me put my expensive, brand-name ICs up for sale.

The only downside (and it's not much of a downside) is the remote control -- which looks nice enough but doesn't function very well. You nearly break your fingers trying to press the buttons hard enough to make it work properly.

If it seems a little strange to buy a player direct from Hond Kong from a company you've never heard of, reassure yourself by looking at the thousands of raves about this product on head-fi or audio asylum. An absolutely remarkable piece of machinery. Cattylink does warranty the product for one year and will run a 120 hour quality assurance test before sending the player out.

Yes good idea to be cautious of raves over a product especially from new owners.

I had one of the first Eastsounds in North America. Bought it about 15 months ago. I knew very little about the E5 at the time so I emailed a audiophile in Canada who owned the E5. I Was really very suprised by his response. Said he owned a audio store and sold CDP's that ran up to $9000, not sure if that was Canadian or American $$. He said the Eastsound sounded as good as any CDP that he sold. I still would take that with a grain of salt. However I have no question that if made and sold in the States it would run in the $2500-$3000 price range, maybe more.

The only other expensive CDP i have been able to do a direct A/B is the Musical Fidelity A5 which sells for $2500 which i had on loan for a long weekend. The A5 sounded very good. But in comparison it sounded more Hifi and less natural and Analog then the E5. I really didn't find any areas the A5 was able to equal or better the Eastsound. Just my opinion of course.

There is only one professional review of Eastsound that i have been able to find other then the reviews at Audiocostruzioni the Italian website you referenced. Its a review of the now discontinued E3 which is at Audioholic. The E3 sold for about 60% of the E5. They had a shootout between the Eastsound, Creeks $1500 CDP and a $3500 Lexicon universal player. Read the review carefully and you will notice the E3 beat or equaled the Creek and Lexicon in EVERY area. I take this review seriously. I noticed after the review that the E3 had replaced the Creek in Audioholic's reference system.

You may also want to go back to the Audiocostruzioni website and find a 3 way shootout they did with the Eastound, jolida and Cayin CDP. They don't go into great detail but do give numerical ratings for things like midrange, treble, build quality etc. Again if you look at the numeric ratings the only thing the Jolida was equal or better was the remote control ;)

Even though the poster above had only had the Eastsound for 2 weeks I completely agree with his accessments. The only things I would add is the background is dead quiet. Amazingly black background. Second if you do get an E5 run it unbalanced mode. The balanced mode runs thru the opamps. The unbalanced bypasses the opamps and runs in dual class A mode.

Honestly I doubt if you could go wrong with either player. Both seem to be extrodinary values.

BW Maxx

I received my Eastsound CD-E5 about two weeks ago. It replaced a Proceed CDD transport and Audio Note DAC1.1x dac. Wow what a great player the CD-E5 is. I also built a CD-PRO2m transport and a 0x oversampling DAC. The CD-E5 killed that too. For $750.00 the Eastsound CD-E5 is the best bargin in Audio. Oh, the sound? Deep and wide soundstage. Every instrument is well defined and placed in the soundstage. It is not a foward sounding player. The music appears between and around the speakers. This player is not bright or harsh, but no slouch in detail and clean, clear highs. The mids are perfectly warm (smooth may be a better term), but not boring or layed back. Bass is amazing. It is deep with very good kick. My speakers are Merlin VSM-M, integrated amp is Karan Acoustic class A 180 wpc balanced.

Hello: Since no one has answered your post so far, I thought I'd chime in. No, I have no experience with the Eastsound CD5. I do own the JD100. Obviously I'm biased but the Jolida is a good to very good player IMHO. How good the Jolida is depends on the tubes, PC and isolation you use. It's not as detailed or resolved as many but in it's price category I think it holds up very well against the competition. My only advice is to consider the synergy that can exist when pairing components of the same manufacturer. I'm sure you've already considered this.