Jolida JD9 ... and ... best way to split signal?

Vinyl Asylum

Welcome Licorice Pizza (LP) lovers! Setup guides and Vinyl FAQ.

Much to my surprise I ending up buying a Jolida JD9 phono stage. I've been curious about it since its debut and talked Omer at Oz Enterprises into letting me try it. He and I both knew it was audition only but in the end it bowled me over and I just had to keep it. My current stage is the excellent phono stage in the Dolan PM1. I really didn't think the JD9 would touch it but boy was I in for a shock.
Now, thing is, I still prefer the Dolan on noisy vinyl as it is one of those stages that seems to do the impossible in its remarkable ability to ignore record noise, tick, pops, etc. And then there is some material where I just plain prefer the Dolan's performance. On the whole however it would appear to be working out to 60/40 split with the JD9 getting the bigger slice. Briefly the JD9 has a very vibrant "live" or "alive" sound which could never be characterized as laid back. At first it seems a little overdone as in ... sounds great but seems to be calling attention to itself ... but this settles down after an few hours of play. Music featuring vocals and acoustic guitars is served very well, e.g. Bob Dylan material is absolutely addictive! After such a spell bounding performance you get the impression that it will be a bit of a specialist, great at what it does right and inappropriate for other stuff ... but you would be wrong ... I was! Purity of tone is spectacular leading to excellent performance with large scale orchestra, the various sections and especially the contribution of passages for individual instruments, a horn, flute, bassoon, whatever, standing out in a very natural easily comprehended manner. It turns out to have a cameleon personality in that it handles quiet laid back material (e.g. quiet chamber/church music) as well as it does energetic stuff. The extreme bottom end may lag behind the Dolan a bit but not by much.
On the con side isn't endowed with the gift of ignoring record noise. This isn't as bad as it sounds as if the recording is of sufficiently high quality you are easily drawn into the music and pay little notice to the cacophony accompanying it. On quiet piano music however a miracle worker like the Dolan will serve better. I should add that I'm pretty tolerant of record noise in general, have little problem listening through it, and don't have a collection full of audiophile authorized (and priced) LPs ... mind you if I did record noise would be much of an issue anyway.
In a nut shell not just a bargain at price rather ... a overwhelming steal!
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Anyway, I've decided it make sense to run both phono stages. Thus I'm trying to determine the best way to split the signal (only one arm and using a Denon DL103). I'm looking for a high quality solution. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
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Aside
As the JD9 is a tube stage some may be curious about the Denon DL 103 compatibility. Well for starters the JD9 appears to be a hybrid with a solid state initial gain stage(s) implemented via op amps. This is based on having a look inside only as no circuit details are provided in the documentation which is admittedly pretty scant. There are two sets of outputs, the normal ones labeled Hi-Output, the other called RIAA which as far as I can tells is just an alternate with passive attenuation near the output jacks (speculation here). Anyway the three level of gain specified in the manual are 70dB/MM, 85dB/MC High, and 95dB/MC Low. You're likely thinking No Fricken Way! which is exactly what I was thinking until I arrived at the !!lowest!! gain setting with impedance set to 100 ohm for the Denon DL-103. So it has no problem with a DL-103, in fact the better question is ... is it compatible with high output MM!? ... I guess that's what the alternate outputs are for.

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Topic - Jolida JD9 ... and ... best way to split signal? - bjh 11:09:59 08/29/05 (2)

Nice review-sure looks like a sweet preamp - StylinLP 11:51:45 08/29/05 (0)

Nice Review....thanks.... - deaf_j 11:41:37 08/29/05 (0)

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