Why all these JC-1's for sale?

I would guess that these amps were bought by folks who had expectations exceeding the capabilities of the amps - the world is full of people looking for quick fixes and miracles. Seems to happen all the time. Usually the differences in the top of the line stuff (in comparison to the second tier products) is small and only heard on well set up high res systems.

Probably several factors involved here.

1) Things are tight and it is tax time.

2) People that can afford to buy $6K amps often do so i.e. "flavour of the month" club. CES just took place and they saw something else that has their mouth watering.

3) Their preferences and / or system goals have changed. Many folks are moving from big systems to smaller systems. In the process of this change, they are swinging from SS behemoths to tiny tubes.

4) These amps don't have enough sonic colourations to keep them happy / band-aid the rest of their system.

5) The amps aren't performing up to snuff due to a lack of available current i.e. each should have their own 20 amp AC line. As such, they blame the amp when there are other problems.

6) The heat and power consumption of these amps are more than they bargained for.

7) They don't have enough space for these amps. Two amps instead of one, both generating heat and requiring more space to dissipate that heat, etc....

8) After purchasing these amps and dealing with trying to locate them in their existing rack using their existing cables, they now realize that they have to buy more cabling, probably of various lengths. They don't want to go through finding suitable cabling, pay the price for such or re-configure their entire system

9) The rest of their system is below the sonic potentials of these amps. They therefore blame the amps for what they hear.

Need i say more ???? Sean
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These are some awesome solid state amps.

For those that are selling or those that are interested in buying them, Empirical Audio does a modification to these amps that I think is a serious upgrade. I heard Empirical Audio's room at CES and it was solely composed of components they had modified. None of these components (stock) I would ever (and I do mean EVER) imagine having in my reference system (like the Adcom amp he was running). But I swear this system at the show sounded EXCELLENT. The mods these guys do are definitely a step up from stock (a HUGE step in many cases).

Anyway, I do not have any relationship with Empirical Audio in the least. I just think they do a fine job at a somewhat reasonable price.

Keith Forrest
Glacier Showroom
Monterey (Seaside), CA

Sean -

Your #5 (insufficient available current) is quite possibly a common culprit.

In addition, the JC-1's really do take two months of continuous play to fully break in, and that's probably the equivalent of several years of normal use.

The JC-1's do not work well with passive preamps, in my experience.

And of course there are system synergy issues, as well as individual taste and preference. As a dealer, I get to see that there really are enormous variations in listener preferences. I can't trust that my taste in sonic presentation will match someone else's any more than I can trust my taste in music to match someone else's. Diff'rent strokes, somebody from the 60's once wrote.

It would be interesting to know how many of the folks offering their amps up for sale:

1) actually home auditioned the JC-1s prior to purchase to see how they sounded in their system

2) actually home auditioned the JC-1s prior to purchase to see how they actually looked and fit into their home