Jadis Fidelity

The above posts are all accurate. I've owned my pair of Jadis JA80s for about 9 years and my JP80 about 7 or 8, and I can say I've heard many pieces of equipment in my system both before and after buying them that will do one thing or another better than these pieces, but none of which sounded as musically "right" as the Jadis equipment. I stretched my budget each time I bought them, and I haven't regretted it at all. They haven't been completely trouble free, they roll the frequency extremes a little (I've had some mods done to improve that), and they don't give you those instant on/off dynamics you can get from other equipment, but they have clearly been designed by a music lover to sound like what you hear in a concert hall in real life and have a naturalness and continuousness to their sound that makes it easier to imagine you're listening to the original recorded event (as opposed to the master tape). Now if only I could find a catche of MO Valve KT88s and Telefunkens to retube them for the next 20 years....

Oh, by the way, Odiomuse, the JA100s really were designed to run with KT90 tubes; that's the tube for which their transformer was optimized. If you want to use EL34s, as I think you were saying, you might want to look for a used pair of JA80s, which I think sound best with NOS KT88s but which also sound excellent with the EL34s. You may lose a little power with the 80s (I think they get about 40-50 watts with the EL34s), but not that much. Good luck!

Good follow ups, and accurate. Jadis stuff offers long term satisfaction, as other gear might offer certain audiophile checklist advantages without ever sounding more "real". Beautiful gear with high pride of ownership.

I recently sold my Jadis JPL. It was perfectly reliable for 7 years and sounded just fine. Can anyone please comment on the Defy 7 vs. ARC tube amps? Also, a very minor point, but I found the silver and gold finish on my preamp a bit dated over time and the gold surfaces became very smudged and cloudy. Maybe there is a secret to restoring it to its like new lustre but warm water, isopropyl alcohol, a little soap etc did nothing.

Cwlondon, try silverpolish, but very carefully and sparingly, that worked with me. You can use it freely on the chrome parts, but must be careful on the gold.