CAT JL-2 amp upgrade

In Late 2004 I had my early model JL2 updated to the Mk II status. The biggest improvement I heard was a great reduction of noise and a much more quieter backgroud. This very postive change was apparent from the first moment I played the first tune on my table. The reduced noise level results in better transparency and more inner detail being revealed. Was it worth it, Yes in my opinion.

Note: This is not the $5000 signature upgrade which is much more extensive and costly but the Mk II upgrade from there early version of the Mk I which I believe was about $1000 at the time. A nice improvement indeed.

Johnny

I know what you mean regarding the Manley vs. CAT products. Both operate from totally different design philosophies. For the past year and a half I have owned the Manley steelhead phono stage and it is rich, full bodied, has nice tone and is very enjoyable to listen to. The cat Ultimate preamp is faster and more detailed than my manley but lacks size, substance and body which is my I sold my cat preamp and bought a Jadis JPS 2 (the linstage version of the Jadis JP80). Ken Stevens will insist when you talk to him his design is superior to others but this is true with most manufactures and the reality is all designs are imperfect. When I go to live concerts I hear the excellent detail and great bottom end extension of the Cat. When listening to live music I also hear the rich full body sound of the Manley and Jadis products which add size, substance and rich tonality to the music, something sorely lacking the Cat preamp.

The Cat JL2 amp has the common Ken Stevens design signature that the preamp has and yes it is not as rich or full bodied as other amps but I will accept this one weakness for the many strengths this amplifier has. I prefer the Jadis line stage and Cat JL2 combo where Ken prefers the JL2 and Ultimate mix. Going from the JL2 Mk I to the JL2 MK II was a nice upgrade Ken did for me while my amp was in the shop for some repairs and for 1k the price was well worth it because of the reduction in noise and greater transparency. The Jl2 went from a numeric rating of 9.1 to 9.4, very noticeable and positive but not huge as the basic character is the same. When talking to Ken Stevens about the JL2 Signature $5,000 upgrade he said the improvement would be about the same as going from Mk I to Mk II, what I did in late 2004 with my JL2. The biggest improvement in the JL2 Signature over the standard JL 2 is the addition of black gate caps in the power supply. He told me the other circuit board design changes were very minor sonically and was done mainly to improve reliability. If I had to guess based my past experience the signature upgrade would take this already excellent amplifier to a 9.7 but at 5k the improvement becomes quite costly and there are a lot of other ways to spend 5k including buying more records, upgrading your preamp or upgrading a turntable all of which I suspect will provide more of bang for the buck improvement for the money. Yes black gate caps nice to have if you have the money to spend but not a necessity, the JL2 is already so good in many ways.

There are three things you can do yourself to really improve the performance of the Cat JL2 for very little money, about $200.

1) Remove and replace the cheap tin male IEC connector in the JL2 with a pure copper or bronze furutech IEC. This made a bigger improvement than I expected giving cleaner power to the power supply resulting in greater energy and more drive.

2) Remove and replace the two poor quality Cardas brass female rca’s on the side of the amp with Vampire pure copper rca’s. You will notice cleaner and clearer sound and improved bass that is fuller without the bloatness of brass.

3) Remove and replace the two brass cardas speaker binding posts with copper. Eichman cable pods or a good pure copper posting will yield positive results similar to the rca’s mentioned above.

If you want even more performance from your JL2 bypass the internal 20 amp fuse and fuse holder located next to the IEC and expect another 3-5% improvement in sound. All these just take a little time, very little money and a good soldering iron.

Johnny

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I talked to Ken Stevens before bypassing my fuse and fuse holder and since I already have a 20 amp circuit breaker at my main fuse box we both agreed it should be fine. The 20 amp fuse was designed in for warranty reasons but in the 8+ production years for the cat amps he is aware of no problems with any potential power surges or damage that resulted. Ken indicated in a previous conversation that the JL2 is "self contained" meaning all major parts and assemblies are enclosed in a seperate retangualr steel case. The input transformer, output transformer and all wiring is enclosed with thick gauge steel greatly reducing any risk. In the rare event a fire does occur in one of these steel enclosures, none has occured yet, the damage would be limited to that specific area.

Johnny

Enjoy

Johnny