My Experience with a Jolida 202s (SoFar..)

[jerrynsr]

I wanted to post this so anyone looking to get a Jolida 202s would know what to expect. Maybe this post will save the some money.

If you are used to the sound of a tube amplifier, such as myself, you won't be initially impressed with the sound. If you are not, well it sounds like a decent solid state amp when you get it. Initially I started emailing friends looking to see if they had any old 12AX7 and 12AT7 tubes for the preamp and some old 6AC7 output tubes. No luck. Instead of hooking it up to the stereo rack in the family room (the initial purpose of the amp was to replace my 26 year old Kenwood) I set it up in the bedroom, taking the place of my MiniWatt N3 for now. I figured it couldn't hurt to give the tubes a burn in. I also bought a matched quad of EH 6AC7 output tubes, NOS matched pair of sylvania 12AX7 and NOS matched pair of GE 5159 online. I decided to go with the 5159 due to the lower mu than the 12AT7. Initial impression of the Jolida 202 was it needed some head room, so I I wanted to reduce the driver gain a little. I figured a little less is more.
I also ordered the matched pair TungSol 12AX7 and matched pair Phillips 12A7T online. I guess I really shouldn't of jumped the gun and ordered all of these tubes. The factory tubes started to sound great after the second week of use. As I was working out the bass deepened and the sound stage opened up! I was listening to the Todies (Grunge) while I was working out. It went from lack of bass and sound stage to .....WOW!
After I worked out I had to verify the drastic improvement in sound . Pink Floyd - "Great Gig In The Sky" sounded amazing. All the detail you would hear with decent headphones was there playing through my speakers.
This was one one of the song in my test audition set, and there was
no depth, and I couldn't hear all the detail that I do now.
My Blues collection really sounded great too! Horns. Sax, Bass, Harmonica, Guitar, Vocals, Cymbals, all good! and with depth! The only thing that can use tweaking is taking the edge off of some of the highs, then again my sound source was an iPod. I don't have my CD player or Turntable upstairs.I think that means all I really had to do was replace the 12AX7As with some decent ones. I am really liking the sound of this amplifier now! I tested with Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture at 75% Volume. All I could say is WOWWWWWWWW!

"Bar Room Boogie" sounds amazing on this thing!

My advice to anyone that buys a new tube amplifier. Give the stock tubes at least 40hrs burn in. The amp won't sound like it's the best amp you heard until the tubes burn in.

I emailed marc at Jolida and recommended that he burns in the tubes before he ships the amplifiers out. This way hecan get a Wow factor instead of the email I sent stating "WTF my little 3.5 watt SE amp sounds better!"

It sounds so good that I'm not gonna move it to the family room for a month or two!

[picowallspeaker]

Tubes ,capacitors ,all the gear , your attitude ...

[jerrynsr]

ok... My first tube upgrade arrived. 2 JJ ECC803s gold and 2 jan phillips 12at7wc tubes for the preamp. WOWWWW! I don't know if I am going to need to upgrade the output tubes. The sound is amazing!. If anyone is buying an amp like this Jolida I would say JJECC803s and 2 jan phillips 12at7wc for the driver. I really like the way it sounds now.

[speakerfritz]

I have this amp. it sounds real good and it's definetly a good amp for a new comer. Very quiet and very wide bandwidth.