Jadis amplifiers: rolled off treble?

hi chris:

if you reduce treble energy, you will lose resolution. it is necessary to decide which is more important, a pleasant, euphonic sound, or resolution.

regarding jadis products, i have heard the defy 7 mk 1 and the ja 80. i enjoy listening to them because, they can be very forgiving of less than ideal recordings.

"i enjoy listening to them because, they can be very forgiving of less than ideal recordings." I agree completely, Mrtennis.

My DA60 is difficult to describe, as I can't really call it sweet or euphonic, but it seems to always make the music sound great. I realize that isn't "accurate", whatever "accurate" is, but one is left enjoying the music to the point of not caring.

Going back to the original question of the thread, I thought about some of the recordings played over the year, and despite the above comment about making even bad recordings sound good, I've most probably been able to dig more of the treble out with my Jadis amps (Orchestra Reference, DA30, and DA60) than any other amp I've tried. Cymbals can be majestic, but, flute, piccolo, triangles, etc. come through in a way that I think I have yet to hear eclipsed. The only amp I can think of to put in the same conversation is the Consonance Cyber 300B PSE (none of our other amps approach this) that I represent as the importer/distributor.

Chris, one other thing I can say is that in my experience, a Jadis is more reflective of its output and driver tubes than any other tube amplifier I've been around. It gives you a tremendous amount of power in terms of altering the sound, but you have to really work through a lot of combinations to find the ideal match for you - mine is Sylvania 5751 Triple Mica Black Plate drivers in the 12AX7 driver position, with JJ E34L output tubes. For whatever reason, I've found the preamplifier tubes don't yield nearly the same level of impact.

Previously owned Ja30´s and se300b and listened ja-80´s and ja-200´s.
IMHO all the Jadis with pentodes sounds rolled off on the top in comparison with the triode based ones.
In a direct comparison between a ja-80 and a cary AE805 the highs of the jadis appeared anemic .
On the other hand the jadis sound is outstanding and no matter the roll of is real or not , just listen and enjoy it.

I owned Jadis JA-80s for many years. Yes, I beleieve that they rolled off in the highs a little (this was the old, 1990 version, and I used Philips 6550s and Gold Lion KT 88s in them with Telefunken phase splitter and driver tubes), but I didn't care at all, as they got the midrange right and I believe most recordings to be a bit brighter than what I hear in the concert hall anyway, probably due to what Mr Tennis points out. I agree with the poster above about the 500s (even without the Da Hong mods, though they certainly do get rid of the classic tube sound), they were a different animal from the lower powered JA monoblock series; and Joe (Trelja) is quite familar with the sound of the newer models and you can count on his observations to be accurate.

In general, I would say that you don't buy a Jadis piece of equipment for aural thrills or necessarily to accurately reproduce everything that it is fed, you buy it because of the musical enjoyment it brings you. There are many pieces of equipment out there that will outperform it from a technical standpoint, but there are few that can match it from the standpoint of conveying the music (especially classical and acoustic music).

I have a friend who owned a pair of Jadis JA-80s in 1990's. He was an unsurpassed tube and circuit expert who found what he believed to be four engineering errors in the 80's that he corrected. The resulting sound was so impacting I continue to recall its beauty many years removed.