Just ordered the Jungson 88D Luxury Edition.

Same here no way I could afford this type of performance with domestic/euro gear. Thats what I had heard about the Cayin. Thats why I think you'll find this alot more exciting amp. Its anything but boring, big big 80wpc.

The owners manuel is intersting. English on the front and back. First page is in English with the same thing in Chinese under it saying be sure to read the manuel. Everything after that is in Chinese. LOL Not that you really need instructions.

One thing I did learn though is if you hold down the mode button on the remote, which is used to select the input source, it allows you to go up and down much faster on the volume control which being a stepped attenuator is fairly slow.

Love to see the Luxury Edition. Andy at Sekei after seeing the LE said he was going to be ordering it as standard rather then the non LE because its such a cool looking amp.

Later.

BW Maxx

Probably not totally relevant to this thread, but I just bought the Jungson 88C (budget 80W, class AB integrated) used (on Audiogon of course). It was interesting for me to read the link to the review that Maxx posted on the more expensive gear, as the 88C exhibits the same kind of behaviour with the volume control as its more expensive brethren in the lineup. I have never had the volume control past about 18-20 for serious listening, but there is a point at which going one notch further seems to harden the sound up noticeably. I think this is a characteristic with most gear, but it was noticeable immediately with the Jungson; it would be nice if there was a little less gain delivered between "notches" on the volume control as you get higher up on the volume scale.

That, however, is a pretty minor quibble and I can tell you that I am thrilled with this amp. It replaced an older Audiolab 8000A which I bought used for about $400 Cnd. in 1990 or so. The Audiolab had been modified a bit (Vampire RCA's, Cardas jacks, extensive damping of the chassis) and sounded considerably better than it did stock and was pretty highly thought of in the budget integrated category for a long time (it retailed around $900-$1000 Cnd. in the early to mid 90's). I paid $300 U.S. (about $380 Cnd.) for the Jungson expecting it would be kind of a sideways move sonically but I'm getting old and lazy and really wanted a remote. The 88C is miles ahead of the Audiolab in terms of digging into the recording, transparency, smoothness, bass control, etc. etc. I can literally hear stuff on many recordings that was not there with the Audiolab and the overall presentation is much more refined and less aggressive. The 88C, however, will not make poor recordings sound good; certain (particularly pop-fortunately I don't listen to much of it) recordings which sounded hard and aggresive on the Audiolab sound even worse with the Jungson, but well recorded material sounds significantly better.

Unless there are reliability issues (and I would doubt it based on how the stuff appears to be built-it is gorgeous and appears to be of extremely high quality), this stuff is an absolute bargain. I have always been a "value for money" audiophile; I'm not particularly interested in paying 2 or 3 times as much for what I consider to be limited performance gains, so the Jungson stuff is pretty appealing to me. I know that Maxx had an e-mail from the previous owner of the 88c that I now have who felt the amp might be a little weak dynamically (he ended up upgrading to the class A 88D) but I honestly don't hear that. I'm a very happy guy.

Small world. Daniel emailed me and said he sold his 88C to someone who was a little apprehensive about the dynamics before buying it.

Actually the dynamics thing was a little out of context. What I basically said on AA was that I had not heard the 88C. Recommended the 88C on what other owners were saying.

He really liked the amp but thought it might not be quite as dynamcic as his old setup. This really had me curious since the 88C like the 88D is suppose to be quite dynamcic.

It really floored me to find out the 88C had replaced his Bryston 2B LP amp/Forte3 preamp combo. Nuff said?

Bw Maxx

That former owner to which Hdm refers is I. I am starting to think that the dynamic weakness I noticed was due more to the awful wiring/power of my house than the actual unit. I live in a hundred year old house that hasn't been updated electrically in a long time (I want to say that the house is not even properly grounded), and since I share a circuit with some two other people and a bathroom, I don't have the best setup in terms of power. It was supposed to be updated a few years ago, but an estimate of $70,000 to get everything up to date scared off the house manager from doing it.

Anyhow, glad to hear that the 88C is working out for you, Hdm. It is a wonderful piece especially for the price. Have you compared the balanced inputs to the single ended ones yet? I never got around to doing that (anyone done this with the 88D?). Furthermore, I must agree that it does justice to well-recorded material.

However, I have gotten around to listening a "little" to the 88D as well. By far the biggest difference between the two is the warmth of the 88D. Never before had I ever enjoyed listening to vocals (and all music for that matter) as much as I do now. More importantly in my opinion is that the presentation is not colored overly with warmth, and details remain detailed but never near a point where it can be fatiguing, just as BFS, posters here (and AA) have described.

-Dan

Actually, I wasn't really overly concerned with the dynamics issue; I was just kind of pulling your leg Dan because I read on Audioasylum after I'd bought the amp from you but before I met to take delivery that Maxx had the e-mail from you that he described above. There's no keeping anything from anyone with all the information on these forums! I figured if the amp didn't work out, I'd sell it, perhaps at a small loss, but I can assure you that won't be happening. Thanks again Dan for a smooth transaction and I'm glad your happy with your new Jungson as well.

I haven't used the balanced outputs yet and will probably not use them in a totally balanced mode anyway. My intention is to run my CD player on one single ended input, my turntable on the other and my satellite receiver (single ended) into the balanced input. Still have to buy a new phono stage.

But I'm in total agreement with Maxx that it is pretty impressive that this level of performance and quality of workmanship is available at these kinds of price points. While I don't have any sonic comparisons other than my Audiolab, the build quality of this piece at $399 U.S. full retail is comparable to things like Classe, Musical Fidelity, Sim Audio, and other pieces costing 3 to 4 times as much. Not that I'm into "audio jewellery", but it really is an "audio jewellery" piece at a Best Buy price.

The instruction manual is a bit of a hoot though; either Chinese has a bit of a problem being translated into English or there are some pretty quirky expressions and ways of describing things in Chinese.