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Jolida JD100 Missing Bass

A little history, I was in the process of buying my father a 2 channel system. All my life he was very proud of his first hi fi system. Sansui receiver, Sansui Turntable, Acoustic Research AR3's. It has been gone for 25 years or more. I spent the better portion of this year buying a set of Usher V-604's, B&K Pro10-MC preamplifier, and a matching 2 channel amplifier. The next thing on the list was an entry level Denon Turntable. Unfortunately in October he got sick and was diagnosed with AML (Leukemia) on a Friday, and died the following Thursday. It was very sudden to say the least. I also never got to give him his Christmas present, so I am left with an aching desire to play with all of his old LP's.
This last Saturday I went to a local store and picked up a Denon DP-300F turntable. Right now I am using the cartridge it came with. I also wanted to see what all this vinyl chit chat was about. I only have one album that I own on both CD and on Vinyl. I decided to do my own quick A/B comparison between my Jolida JD100A and this Denon Turntable. I instantly noticed the treble on the turntable was very soft compared to the CD, but this might be a little to do with the way CD's are mastered, but I definitely see the need for a better cartridge. I am thinking about buying the Denon DL-160 for starters.
The next thing that I noticed was all the bass I get from the turntable. It was a bit shocking that I was missing that much from my CD Player. Since I have had this CD player I had gone out and bought a subwoofer to go with my Usher X-719 Monitors (which are known for their bottom end. Now, for the first time since I got this CD player, I turned the sub off. I didn't feel like I needed it anymore. I have read that the Jolida CD Player Mods can improve the bass a lot.

What's your opinion of Affordable Audio, Hot Rod, Underwood HiFi, and any others that do mods for these. Can you reccomend one of these from experience?

Will I see an improvement worth paying for?

Should I sell this CD Player and buy a Solid State Player?

Is their something else wrong with my CD Player (I think this is unlikely because it sounds so good otherwise)?

What do you think?
jdfelice
abucktwoeighty's avatar
abucktwoeighty
1,079 posts
 
I use Svetlana tubes in my Jolida. I bought one with mods, and the tubes came with it. I tried some old Telefunkens and found I liked the Svetlanas better. What really increased the bass in my system was a Virtual Dynamics Power 3 power cord. It increased the bottom end so much I had to remove it from the system. Try one out. They come up every so often in the classifieds for less than $100.

The bottom end is very comparable from both the Jolida and my turntable. The analog just presents the music much better than the digital.
rotarius
431 posts
 
You probably picked the worst album to make any comparison. Radiohead cds I have heard are horribly compressed and thin/bright sounding. Your ears will bleed regardless of the cdp you end up with. Good luck.
jdfelice OP
26 posts
 
Thanks for all of your responses. For anyone interested, I bought a couple of cheap RCA 5751 tubes, and it has improved from the very second I turned it on. I'm hoping that the tubes break in a little and get even better, but the difference was very pleasing. I don't feel the need to mess with it right now. I'm just going to enjoy for a while.
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samzx12
1,216 posts
 
I tried the RCA black plates with good results. Much better than the stock tubes. Consider some GE triple mica black plates if you want to experiment. I found them to be more lush or organic. The RCA's were a tad drier but I could have lived with them. Have fun :)
seekburk
126 posts
 
Radiohead's albums are not bright sounding at all to my ears. I think quite the opposite actually. Tons of nice bass on radiohead albums and i'm a bass player who enjoys to hear the bass when i listen to music.
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