Anyone have honest opinion of Jolida amps?

Owned a 2003 302B powering Meadowlark Kesrel 2s for about a year, then Vandersteen 2Ce Signatures. Then traded up to a Rogue Cronus, than to a CJ CAV50. The Jolida was OK as a entry point into tubes but if I could do it all over again I would have gone straight to CJ for the simple reason that the dynamics witht he Jolida were way too soft and laid back for my tastes. I mean tubes are somewhat polite, but the 302B was way too polite, my sense is that there was some incoherence that was the cause.

No problem Sloane and I have to agree with your assessment on higher end gear for the most part. A lot of the differences in audio is the design. You can build something with decent parts and if its implemented correctly it will sound very good . Just because it costs an arm and leg doesn't mean it will sound fantastic. A Jolida amp with better tubes does improve it quite a bit. I do have to say I had a Jolida JD-100 CDP an d for the price it sounded very good and better with NOS tubes. I replaced it with a Cary 303 CDP and liked the Cary much better. The Cary was a few hundred dollars more but Cary's are designed very well. Its also how it fits in your system and personal tastes.

I have compared Jolida 502P and 801BRC with Conrad Johnson ( classic sixty and ET3SE)  over hours and hours. I can tell you the difference is not all that much. Jolida had KT88.  In my opinion , it is excellent value for money.

I've also done in house comparisons of my 502p (factory upgraded) to other tube amps and it has won every shoot-out against some far more expensive stuff (all relative of course, and by "won" I mean it sounded as good or better to me)…it has been an amazingly great sounding thing over the 4 plus years I’ve used it. Tube rolling fun, reliable, quiet humlessness (is that a word?), and the newer version looks cool and is maybe 1400 bucks. Great stuff. After using KT120s and 150s I returned to KT88s (matched Gold Lions from thetubestore) this year and the amp really takes to those tubes.

Wolf, you are likely knowledgable regarding the Jolida factory upgrades. I was thinking of having my Fision pre upgraded. Not sure which upgrade offers best return/$$ spent. Any thoughts?