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First Impression: Hagerman Bugle vs. Jolida JD-9

Posted by Scottrt (A) on August 9, 2006 at 16:22:52

System details: Technics SL-1600MKII w/Cardas wired arm, Benz Ace medium output (0.8 mv), Petra ic's, Denon AVR-3300 pre, Rotel RB990BX amp, Paradigm Studio Monitor 100 v.2 speakers. For this comparo I have the loading of the Bugle and the Jolida set for 47k. Gain on the Jolida is set so that, coincidentally, its a virtual match to the Bugle (currently at 54 db gain). I bought a slightly used JD-9 with stock tubes, so I am assuming it's already broken-in.

If I had to boil it down to one comment, it would be 'the Bugle is the over-achiever of the two...'

I guess in a way that's kudo's to Jolida for making an inexpensive tube output phono stage with the punch and detail of a solid-state unit, but with the sharp corners of the sound smoothed a bit compared to the Bugle. I am aware that the Jolida's use of op-amps for gain makes the two designs very similar from the get-go. The Jolida specs better S/N ratio's than the Bugle, and listening with the tonearm lifted and the volume up loud bears this out. When actually playing music I cant percieve the difference. The Jolida has just a bit more authority in the lower bass than the Bugle, but is very well balanced top to bottom overall. The Jolida soundstage is a bit deeper, but both units have a wide and tall soundstage to my ears.

My Bugle has been slightly modified by me recently. I changed resistors R8 and R26 from 8.45k ohms to 8.2k ohms. This shifted the RIAA treble 'pole' (the frequency at which treble attenuation begins its 6db/octave cut) up from the RIAA standard value of 2.122 khz to 2.170 khz. This small shift gives just a bit more air to the upper-vocal presentation.... basically had the same net effect as turning the treble up 2 db at ther preamp. I did this so my turntable had the same 'voice' as my Jolida CD player (again with the stock tubes). In fact, the two now sound amazingly similar when comaring a decent lp to a decent CD of the same album.

So where am I at? Good question. Both phono amps are killer performers for there prices IMO. After only 2 hours of A/B-ing I cant decide yet whether I prefer the slightly smoother presentation of the Jolida, or the bit of extra air and detail my Bugle delivers. At this point though, I am sure the Jolida would be much more relaxed to listen to for extended periods. I plan on listening to the Jolida exclusively for a couple days, then switch back to the Bugle and see if I still like it, or if it seems too hard-edged.

I was listening to Heart's Dog & Butterfly, SD's Gaucho, and Anita Bakers Rapture.

Oh...Question for other Jolida JD-9 owners. If you turn off the Jolida without turning down the volume, do you get squeels and noises out of your speakers for a couple of seconds? This doesn't seem right to me. It doesn't happen when I turn of my Jolida CD player......thoughts?

I will post more thoughts once they occur to me. MintVinyl will be up soon to listen too, and maybe he would share some thoughts.

Scott T.

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