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Tubes Asylum Questions about tubes and gear that glows. FAQ |
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Tubes Asylum Questions about tubes and gear that glows. FAQ |
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In Reply to: Re: How do the less expensive Rogues measure up? posted by Frihed89 on March 24, 2006 at 05:28:41:
Man, you bring up a lot of stuff in one post. First, let me erase the notion that you (or anyone else) can get Jolida equipment from HK directly. Be advised that any product that is branded Jolida and being sold directly from Asia is grey market and is NOT the same quality product as that which is sold in the US or Europe. If you are in doubt, speak to the Jolida president, Mike Allen, I have. He is going to make a move to stop that practice very soon as it is creating huge problems for consumers. The amps are not servicable and have been failing. They also carry NO WARRANTY, none. If you send one back to HK to have it repaired, you may never see it again! These are being sold through Chinese dealers, not Jolida so don't expect any type of service or honesty. They are making money off of shipping only because a few dollars is worth considerably more there. They still can't afford to help you after a sale and have no motivation to do so. The product is designed for use in China/SE Asia only and does not use the same quality components, most importantly the transformers.
Now on to things that we know to be reliable and repeatable. The Rogue Audio Cronus is actually a little cleaner sounding than the Metis/Atlas combination. First, the Cronus integrated uses only a single 12AU7 as a preamp tube and it is inches away from and directly soldered to the next stage of amplification. That is an extremely short signal path and provides only a little more warmth and depth to the outstanding sounding Atlas amplifier, by being built into the Atlas chassis. The Metis uses a pair of 6SN7 tubes and has a somewhat softer focus at the frequency extremes. Mark does a great job of not letting them sound soupy or rolled-off but they still are not quite as tightly controlled or as extended. The new Perseus preamp uses the 12AU7 tubes, so you can have the flexibility of separates there and still use that tube. In addition, the Perseus offers a fully flexible phonostage that is very similar to the one in the stand alone Stealth phonostage.
I have used the Atlas amplifier with a Bryston BP25 solid state preamplifier to good effect. Very smooth and neutral with only slight softening of bass dynamics which is HUGELY impressive from a 55wpc EL34 based amplifier. Using a tube preamplifier of course provides a softer and more full sound at the expense of some added noise and compression at higher levels. You can't really compare these amps to the Jolida as they are another level all together. I mean, you can, but you will see and hear why they are more expensive. You would actually have to compare the Cronus to the JD502B to get onto a level playing field in terms of power delivery and distortion. The Jolida amplifiers are actually power amplifiers with a set of passive controls on the front, so even more leveling of the field, you would be comparing the JD502B to the Atlas. I know you can't see the difference in transformers and such from looking at pictures on the net, but surely you can see the features such as the built-in bias meter, fusing for each output tube, etc. The quality level is better at every point from the circuit board material, to the resistors, chassis, etc and so on, not one part is equal. One other factor that may go unnoticed is that the Atlas amplifier uses the same output trannys as the Stereo 90! So the Jolida JD502B is a great sounding budget amp with budget parts (it's a freak of nature and a miraculous overachievement if you ask me) but the Atlas is in the big leagues for only a few dollars more. Hope that helps.
-Bill
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Follow Ups
- Tube amp mating rituals - KT88 11:34:50 03/24/06 (2)
- Re: Tube amp mating rituals - Frihed89 16:24:14 03/24/06 (1)
- Re: Tube amp mating rituals - KT88 09:35:16 03/25/06 (0)
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