Jedi, Jahdee, Jahdiss, Jadiss—I wasn't really sure. But one thing was beyond doubt: These amps indeed befit a Jedi Knight. The oversized transformers, massive chassis, and elegant profile bespeak nobility.
The JA 200 is but one step removed from…
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Ron Cox, Zen master and good friend from Zuni, New Mexico, gingerly navigated the crowded streets of Amp City—the essentially all-tube amp collection sprawled on my listening-room floor between the speakers. Ron had no trouble spotting the four chrome-and-black chassis of the JA 200s. He pointed a tentative finger: "Are those the Jedi?"
Jonathan Scull reviewed the Jadis in March 1994 (Vol.17 No.3):
Kathleen and I were catching up on our favorite "Mystery" detective one evening, Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot, in an episode in which Inspector Japp taps his nose, gives Poirot a look, and says, "Better to let sleeping dogs lie, eh, Poirot?" Poirot twitches one of his immaculately cared-for moustaches and delivers a wonderfully charming malapropism, "Non, non, non, mon ami, between reviewers, there should be no sleepy dogs!" Well, he didn't actually say "reviewers"...
The Sleepy Dogs I refer to are the gorgeous, $…
Sidebar 1: Dick Olsher's System
Over the course of several months I was able to test the Jadises with a variety of loudspeakers, particularly the MartinLogan Quest Z, the Nestorovic Type 5AS Signature, and the Mach 1 Acoustics DM-10 Signature. I change speaker cables as often as most people change socks—though I keep returning to TARA Labs RSC.
The front-end featured the Jadis JP 80MC full-function preamp, the Air Tight ATC-2 line-level preamp, the Theta DS Pre digital processor (with signal obtained from Tape Out), and the Basis Ovation turntable outfitted with the Graham Model…
Sidebar 2: Specifications
Description: All-tube power amplifier with a push-pull output stage. Power output: 160Wpc at 1kHz for 0.6% THD into 1, 4, 8, and 16 ohms (22dBW, 19dBW, 16dBW, 13dBW, respectively). Bandwidth at full power: 15Hz–35kHz, –3dB. Bandwidth at 1W: 5Hz–60kHz, –3dB. Input sensitivity: 775mV. Input impedance: 100k ohms. Power dissipation at idle: 480W.
Serial numbers of samples tested: 110576 & 110577.
Price: $18,990/pair (1993). Approximate number of dealers: 20.
Manufacturer: Jadis, Villedubert, France. US distributor: Fanfare International, New York, NY…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
The JA 200's main chassis was quite hot following the 60-minute, 1/3-power preconditioning, but the power-supply chassis barely got warm. The Jadis continued to run hot throughout the other bench tests, suggesting high-bias operation and the possibility of frequent tube replacement (though we have no empirical data to suggest that this will be the case). Its input impedance measured above 600k ohms—high enough to be difficult to measure accurately with our Audio Precision test set. This is unusually high, even for a tube amplifier, and unlikely to cause matching…
The New York Audio Show—really, any audio show within a 100-mile radius of Manhattan—is a chance for this reviewer to hear and see gear of every style and stripe. Right? More important, it's an opportunity to rub shoulders with and learn from like-minded audiophiles and members of my personal tribe: the Stereophile team.
In frigid New York temperatures I walked the many blocks to reach the Park Lane Hotel on Columbus Park South. Whose ever-cheerful face did I spot? Kal Rubinson. Sipping coffee and trading war stories—or, in our case, waiting-for-the-show-to-open stories—we pondered why…
. . . is here, with Outlaw's $799 "retro receiver" on its cover. "A conspicuously good-sounding audiophile product at a ridiculously low price," declared Herb Reichert. At the other end of the price spectrum, Michael Fremer reviews the most-expensive Grado cartridge yet, John Atkinson and Herb Reichert audition cost-no-object headphones from Audeze and HiFiMan, and Jason Victor Serinus reviews the Network Bridge from dCS.
And for the 27th year in a row, the December Stereophile includes our choices for "Product of the Year," with some surprises, some bargains, and something for every…
Seeing as I'd recently been in contact with the good people at Cambridge Audio when hoping to repair a 25-year-old integrated amplifier, it was great to put faces with names in the Cambridge Audio room. Presentation of their current line was well assembled and regarded, I thought. The room was often jammed to where I couldn't nab a photo, much less a seat.
Playing what I believe was a hi-rez file of "All Blues" from Miles Davis's Kind of Blue, the Cambridge Audio rig did the best-selling-jazz-album-of-all-time proud, the overall sound one of cleanness, depth, and flow.
Hinting at…
Christian McBride Big Band: Bringin' It
Mack Avenue Mac 1115 (CD). 2017. Gretchen Valade, exec prod.; Christian McBride, prod.; Todd Whitelock, assoc. prod., eng.; Timothy Marchiafava, asst. eng. ADD? TT: 68:59
Performance ****½
Sonics *****
Mack Avenue Mac 1115 (CD). 2017. Gretchen Valade, exec prod.; Christian McBride, prod.; Todd Whitelock, assoc. prod., eng.; Timothy Marchiafava, asst. eng. ADD? TT: 68:59
Performance ****½
Sonics *****
As musical movements go, rock and jazz seem to be running out of new ideas, most of the stylistic pathways in both genres having been explored to their logical conclusions. In rock in particular, every stream of inspiration has been followed past its headwaters, every droplet of inspiration wrung from established forms.
Jazz,…
"Why can't you stop being an audiophile?"
The question took me off-guard. It didn't come from one of the usual suspects—a hostile anti-audiophile, or a non-audiophile who simply can't fathom why we should care so much about something as nonessential as sound reproduction—but from Louis, a sharp dressed, goateed, middle-aged man who was known, among his audio repair shop's clientele, for not only his virtuosity as a classical solo violinist, but his expertise—some would say his preternatural ability—in setting up turntables to sound their very best.
Which explains why, on the day…