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Tube pre, SS amp incompatibility, which amp 2 use?

I wanted to see how a tubed pre-amp would sound in my system so I purchased a Jolida Music Envoy pre-amp to mate with my McCormack DNA-1 amplifier. When I put the pre-amp in the system it would not work. After talking to Jolida, where Jerred helped me try various things, we came to the conclusion that they were just not compatible, since the Jolida works just fine with an old Marantz I have. The Jolida has in output impedance of 600 ohms. The McCormack has an input impedance of 100K ohms.

Next I emailed Steve McCormack asking his opinion, and he also gave various reasons for the failure, but after letting him know what was done in an attempt at making them work together, he also stated it may just be a compatibility issue.

Now I would like to get a different amp to try with the Jolida, but am a little weary of purchasing another just to find out that for one reason or another it will not work.

Since this is just to see if I would like what I hear, I don't want to put a lot of money into it. My speakers are 6 ohm Gershman Acoustics Sonograms and are 89db efficient, so I'm looking at an SS amp with good power for less than $1K.
Does anyone know of any amps I can look into that DO work with the Jolida, knowing for sure, that they will be compatible?
128x128abucktwoeighty
zd542
5,339 posts
 
I think I just answered your other post. Basically, I asked you for more info on your system. I see that you provide it here.

The DNA 1 is a pretty straightforward amp. It should work with just about anything out there. If you have a preamp that is not comparable with the DNA, I suggest that you get a different preamp. Its a very popular amp; I had one myself. I tried tube, solid state, passive, balanced, single ended preamps and all worked OK.

Try a different preamp with it just to be sure that there is nothing wrong. Use the pre outs on a cheap receiver, if you have one. Unless something is broken, it should work OK.
brownsfan
1,508 posts
 
When you say it wouldn't work, can you be more specific? I agree with Zd, I would have thought it would "work" with just about anything. Now I can imagine that it might not be an ideal match with this or that preamp, but to not "work" at all seems odd.
abucktwoeighty's avatar
abucktwoeighty OP
1,079 posts
 
Sorry about the double post. I posted this one last night and didn't see it so I figured it wasn't going to be. Anyways...

When the Jolida is connected, it will only extend the drivers out, like they're getting DC. Then there will be a "pop" and this will repeat. I put an old set of speakers from the basement in the system when trying this.

The pre-amp was sent to Jolida where they repaired the voltage regulator and was given a clean bill of health. It was returned to me and after I put it in the system, it did what I described above. I then contacted both Jolida and SM to discuss various remedies and found that what we were doing should have worked just fine. The amp works fine with my other pre-amp, so the amp is working correctly. The Jolida works fine with the old Marantz I have, so it, too, is working correctly, just not compatible with with each other.

As stated above, this all does seem odd.
unsound
7,311 posts
 
The McCormack amps input impedance shouldn't be an issue. When Stereophile originally measured the McCormack its input sensitivity was greater than specified, which could be problematic with some tube pres typically high output, but this should typically only reduce the usability range of the volume control.
Just to rule out possible problems I'd try different interconnects (not for flavor, but for integrity). Just a hunch, but I'd hazard a guess that the Jolida is misbehaving.
johnsonwu
467 posts
 
Output caps are leaking DC if they pop when connected to SS amp.
Change them out with high voltage rated ones like mundorf and you will have no problem.
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