Jadis DA60 with Separate Preamp

Thanks Trelja;
I love the DA60 very much, especially now with the Wilson Sophia 2.  I am just wondering if connection my  Hovland HP-100 with MC phono to it will make it even better.  IMHO, I like the DA60 more than my Burmester 911.

@gmbt2k the Hovland is a honey of a preamplifier.  Interested to hear how it compares.

Two questions, if you are willing:
1. What tubes are you running in the DA60?

Jadis components, including the DA60, show as much reflection of the tubes employed as anything on the market.  I find it amazing how much more mine provided me once I put that effort into it

2. What sort improvement(s) do you hope for?

Also, if you want to hear, I can lay out what I feel represent the DA60's weaknesses.  No matter what people think, EVERY component has flaws

Yes, I drove down to Mr. Hovland's place, he did his recommended updates and checked it completely, excellent preamplifier.  Regarding to the DA60, it currently has Gold Lion KT88 x 8, Telefunken 12ax7 x 2 and Amperex 12au7 x 3.  I love to listen to others experience and advice.

You're not at all far away from the top 12AX7 and 12AU7, so it may not prove worth it to you to run any farther down that road.  My personal opinion is that Jadis amplifiers wake up and come alive with the right EL34 tubes.  That's something to consider, but you may feel otherwise.  Likewise, for whatever reason, I've just never heard the Wilson Sophias sound right.  Maybe that's just me?  Conversely, the Sasha can melt me down in a puddle, and I think would mate splendidly with the DA60.

Likely, some of aspect the DA60 cannot move forward.  Which drove my writing that all components have their flaws.  In my opinion, the DA60 has three:
1) It imparts a sweetness / euphony on the music.  Something altogether different from warmth or bloat or the syrupy sound you get from products such as Quad ESL63, Conrad Johnson, Pass Labs, etc. that people label "tube-like".  I have a pair of sunglasses with blue lenses that just make everything in the world look better, my own sort of "rose colored" glasses.  The DA60 does something akin to that, though to a fraction of it in absolute terms.  That characteristic makes almost everything sound better, but I must admit it diverges from absolute purity

2) A bit fat / lush in the lower range. It's obviously not lacking in low frequency extension or slam, and few components embody the "iron fist in a velvet glove" more than the DA60.  But neither can I deny it also veers from neutrality.  Personally, I like that more than not, as the other side of the coin means cold, clinical sound that most, including me, find unpleasant and even irritating

3) It's a tick slow.  That's not to say it's slow amplifier.  But it's not a fast amplifier, and that becomes noticeable in comparison to some of the very fast amplifiers I've had.  The cathode bias gives it a bit more elasticity to the sound as that same topology does for the VOX AC30 compared with a Marshall JTM-50, albeit balanced by the DA60's solid state rectification which is tighter than tube rectification.  Of course, the cathode bias does lend that lush and beautiful sound, and the ability to simply and mindlessly plug and play output tubes

Again, I've owned and own an awful lot of amps.  There's definite magic I've found in certain 2A3, 300B ($100K Audio Note 300B monoblocks at a show may have produced the absolute best sound I've encountered, but who really knows?), and fixed bias EL34 amplifiers, but top to bottom and left to right, I consider the DA60 the best of all of them, overall

I totally agree on your finding on the DA60.  To minimize those issues, I am using the Audioquest Everest speaker cables (pure silver) and a pure silver power cord from Wireworld on the transport, getting good result.  I would like more of your input on selecting a set of EL34 which I love to try, but NOS is just very hard to find.