Jadis Orchestra Reference

Denis, it's wonderful to hear the JOR sounds so good for you. I would like to point out to everyone that Denis (Springbok10) is one of the most knowledgeable and demanding listeners one will ever encounter. Unlike a lot of audiophiles, he will not accept less than the best sonics, and yes, he can distinguish great from good from mediocre from poor.

One tip I would like to offer up is that anyone with a JOR should consider drilling holes that line up with the four potentiometers and biasing resistors. Had I kept mine, I would have certainly done so. After one learns the procedure (which is not at all intuitive), the most difficult task is in reassembling the amp. Being able to access everything without taking the JOR apart would make biasing a simple 3 minute procedure, no muss, no fuss.

I feel that the fuss that Jadis is asking for biasing its Orchestra amp contributes to the no-longer-deserved reputation that owning tube equipment is trouble.

Modern tube amps are no longer a fuss to own, provided that some respect for the user is built-in, which is a concept foreign to Jadis.

I would not blame a Jadis owner for wanting to go back to solid state. It is totally unacceptable that one is expected to go to great length just to bias his unit. This situation will force many audiophile to just not adjust the bias when needed, and suffer inferior performance and tube life.

Why no just put in an auto-biasing circuit or at least, have the controls on the outside of the chassis, like Cary amplifiers and others? These units are expensive as they are, don't you think?

I have read all these posts about how much of a fuss biasing of JOR is... Certainly it is not a very staight forward task but for anybody with a litle bit of technical background, a small scredwiver and a multimeter would be quite easy thing to do. The biggest problem is to get that 20kg amplifier upside dowm in a safe manner. The rest is a piece of cake.
And the last but not least I got my JOR with 6CA7 tubes biased at about 18 mA ( 100 mV across 5.7 Ohms load resistor ) and in mine opinion it sounded metallic and harsh. I rebiased it to something like 35 mA and it sounds much better now. Would anybody know what are the "factory" settings?