JLTi Review and Comment
Under Construction
Hi Joe,
Trust you are well.
Val has loaned me your phono stage and it is indeed rather excellent,
easily taking out the Benz Micro Lukaschek PP1.
Cheers,
Jurek
www.sdaudio.com.au
JLTi Phono:
Phono Stage.
In a word 'FANTASTIC'. Absolutely leaves
CD for dead.
Wayne
Image Developments,
NZ
JLTi Phono:
"My continued listening has been most
pleasurable... I find the JLTi [Phono] resolves an amazing amount of
detail. It also captures an extended bass response and a large hall
ambience. My favorite test for these last two characteristics is found on
side two of "The Mission", a soundtrack recording. A concert bass drum is
played on a couple of the tracks. With the JLTi, one hears not only the
deep note of this very large drum, but the attack and decay as the mallet
strikes the drum skin, then the sense of space from the recording studio
as each note fades away are fully revealed...most tracks are interesting
and fun to listen to."
Tim Price, California USA
JLTi Phono:
Hi Joe
The phono stage arrive
today. I soldered on the *wall wart. Soldering is not my thing. I didn't
burn the house down, but I came close. The unit works fine, despite my
efforts to do it in.
I played about 3 hours of music thru it. My initial
impressions are that it is very quiet, very smooth. It does not sound like
solid state. It has lots of bass slam. Heavy metal is loads of fun.
Your unit has a wide soundstage, though not terribly deep. The major
drawback is that the instruments and vocalists are not three dimensional.
They are more two dimensional in a three dimensional soundstage. I know,
if I want three dimensional instruments I have to pay
more and use tubes, which is why I have my Herron tube phono
stage. Now if you could put your bass slam and blackness into the Herron,
then you would have a world contender.
It is a very good unit for the price. I am quite happy with it.
Best Regards,
Roger S. Gordon, USA
* The
external wall wart needs to be 115V AC, widely available within the U.S.
The connector was supplied and only two wires needed soldering.
Second view from
Roger:
I lent the phono stage
to a [colleague]. He preferred the JLTI to the Sutherland. Thought your
unit sounds less like solid state and had a warmer, more expansive
midrange than the Sutherland... My friend still prefers the Steelhead [US
$7,300]. However, he thought your unit was a bargain at the price,
particularly since he thought it better than the US $3,000 Sutherland.
Third view from Roger:
Buying the JLTI phono stage from
you was the one of the best audio purchases I
ever made.
JLTi Phono:
I’ve now had time to burn in the JLTi phono pre,
and I like it a LOT. Very quiet, tonally right with a very musical
presentation without being soft. Very low listener fatigue. Nice job!
Bill Thalmann,
Music Technologies, formerly
with Conrad-Johnson
Read the complete review on TNT Audio
website:www.tnt-audio.com/ampli/jlti_mk2_e.html
Geoff Husband of TNT-Audio on JLTi
35W versus Sonic T Amp
6W:
One way of looking at the JLTi would be as a good
value, full-function valve pre with a power amp thrown in for free.
:-)
OK for those with speakers of less than 94 dBL
efficiency you can skip this bit because the JLTi will trample the T-amp
simply because it will happily drive speakers of 90dbl efficiency and the
T-amp won't. For the rest of us (and that's a growing number) the JLTi has
several possible ways of justifying its existence in a post T-amp world.
Firstly the T-amp isn't perfect. In my experience
it's weaknesses are a tendency to a certain hardness or thinness to the
sound. This is something the JLTi as an integrated has no problems with.
The JLTi doesn't have such a wide soundstage but has
more depth and texture, a more natural
presentation if you
like. I'd give detail to the T-amp by a small margin, but here remember
the T-amp is frighteningly good.
So in overall sound quality the JLTi isn't going to
be a pushover for the T-amp by any means. Of course the JLTi is also a
full integrated with switching - few people are going to to use the T-amp
with just one source so they need something that switches.
Here we get to the second reason for buying a
JLTi... As a pre-amp alone it represents good value.
In a post T-amp world the idea of 'value-for-money'
has been turned on its head. But even in this world the JLTi is a fine
piece of kit. I'll be sorry to see it go because it gave me a lot of
pleasure and allowed me to play swaps - it'll do the same for you...
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