Canuck Audio Mart

If you are looking for a sweet redbook CD do yourself a favour and check out Mike Powell,s mods at [url]hotrodaudiomods.com[/url]. The stage 3 mod might well convert some vinyl lovers and will certainly encourage CD fans that they can possibly have the best of both worlds. His mods take a very good CD player to "giant killer status". Forget the CD tweaks to take the edge off. The following mod TRANSFORMS this inexpensive CD player and removes the fatigue factor associated with most-including many so called high-end units.

Change out the dull sounding stock Chinese tubes for ElectroHarmonix 12AX7A's of Russia. This greatly opens the top end and increases clarity and detail; directly relating to depth of image.

Replace a pair of the inexpensive stamped metal Gold RCA outputs with much higher build quality Rhodium over Silver plate Cardas Audio jacks for the ultimate in signal transfer. These are also built much more robust for a longer service life.

Rewire internally with teflon-insulated 99.999% pure solid core silver-covered copper wire. This replaces the very thin, tinned, stranded copper wire that is in the stock unit.

Rewire the set of gold plated stock output jacks (there are dual outputs on this player) with solid core Gold/Silver/Copper alloy output wire. This replaces the very thin, tinned, stranded wire that is in the stock unit, and gives this player 2 separate sonic signatures making it "tunable" for different sounding audio systems. The Gold side will have more of a warm mellow presentation, while the Silver side will have an open, airy, detailed presentation.

Replace the 4 diodes in the power supply with Fairchild Stealth ultrafast soft recovery diodes.

Damp the inside of the chassis, transformers, and transport with 9 StarrDamp CS damping sheets. This adds mass to the thin sheet metal used in the cover, and internal walls. It unlocks low level detail lost to resonation and vibration that reach the transport mechanism and ultimately the laser, which cause degradation of the signal. The Copper layer makes our damping material superior to all others since it acts as an RFI shield in addition to damping.

4 KTS Super ISO-Damp Discs for use under the player. This gives you the ultimate in chassis isolation, and vibration absorption.

Lastly, Mike is one hell of a guy to do business with. Simply an all around pleasure.

Hi B. An actual review of the unit would be nice. Please also advise what kind of cables you're using.

Hi Finski, I don't think a review by me would be informative, I don't have the experience or the vocabulary to wax about sound stage or bass tighter than Michelle Pfiffer's cheeks after her latest face lift. I do know that if someone owns a stock Jolida 100A and is disappointed with its performance, and so prefer to listen to FM or vinyl, that the mod posted would be money well spent. The mod also included replacing the stock clock and capacitors with a Tentlabs clock and Sonicap platinum teflon film and foil capacitors.

If I list my system, I know CAM members will just hop all over it-seems to be the CAM way. As for cables, OZ and Ultimate cables were the purveyors-to plug a couple of excellent local suppliers.

I listen to pretty much anything including NWA, Black Sabbath, Wet Wet Wet, Esther Phillips-really anything except country. Stan Getz turns my crank as well as Allan Parsons, The Cream, Led Zep-Patsy Cline (to me -NOT a country singer). Tom Petty, Emerson Lake & Palmer, BB King, Canned Heat to Buddy Guy ZZ Top and Steely Dan. Anything that approaches Achy Breaky heart makes me upchuck.

My problem was since the advent of CD's I felt the technology itself was flawed. Metallic comes to mind. Up sampling has helped.

I grew up on LIVE concerts-100's of them-and haunted the clubs in Frisco, Vancouver and New York. I don't think that can be recaptured and am not going to pursue the dream with $7000 a metre cables or bounce from SET, tubes to Planar ad-infinitum. At Fillmore East, the Winter Palace or Paradise Valley, at open air concerts. hockey rinks, or postage stamp holes in the wall in Berkley-- I was not thinking about the relative merits of VOX over Marshall amps or whether it would just be better if everyone played a Gibson or Fender. It was the music.

Soo, I found that the completly modded Ah Njoe Tjoeb with the up sampling board, to me, sounded like a step in the right direction. But, you can't stand on it to change a light bulb. Then I auditioned HRA's modded Jolida 100A and started listening to music again. Have I found Nirvana-nope-and I am not going to look for it, either.

But, if you own a Jolida 100A, the HRA mod in my most uninformed, humblest opinion, will entertain you. I am not going to unpack my LP's now. If you don't own one, I am sure experienced Cammers can suggest 30-100 better units, along with cables, speakers, pre-amps, amps and phono stages, cartridges and stylii. Someone might even plug AN

2B...,

Having owned and used for a good while a stock JD100 I'll bet your modded unit is something special, especially as you've now indicated it has had the critical caps upgraded *and* the clock upgrade as well.

However I would like to make a comment on your note of the upgrades removing the "fatigue factor". IMHO the stock JD100 had very little of that, true it was not the last word in resolution and detail but by the same token it didn't suffer from digital nasties.

The stock JD100 is a bit of a favorite with listeners whose main diet is vinyl and who are looking for something digital that fits right in sonically, and IMHO it does that rather well.

I agree and I guess I should have been more specific. I found with the stock unit some CD's in the Vinalla Fudge, Grand Funk RailRoad, Blue Cheer, Big Brother & the Holding Company category (mostly remastered and not the best recordings to begin with) had an edginess that I associated with the CD sound. The mods I listed complemented the replacement tubes etc. included in the mod. And yes, the clock and cap mod were essential, the ommission was my error.

I had friends with cableittis who tryed to convice me I could achieve the sound I would appreciate (live-then vinyl boomer) by simply spending more money on them. I found that the modestly priced, quality built, cables from the suppliers I mentioned did the job, once the Jolida was modified. For a lower end CDP it sonically shocked my wealthy friends who have spent more money on cables than I have on my entire system. Also, they stopped crapping on my choice of pre-amp, amp, and speakers. Of course, even live, Steely Dan had a voice that could curl toes at high volumne which only a gag could correct. When he shuts up, though-his composing and quality of recordings shine. My modded Jolida has only about 50 hrs on it and daily is impressing me more.

Well at the risk of declaring a case of cableittis myself (*) I did find that (cheap) FoculPod isolation squishies, damping sheets (applied myself), and an aftermarket power cord (that my cable designer friend makes) really did improve the performance of the stock JD100 for me and I considered them mandatory; I found the power cord had more impact than the interconnect actually.

Of course that's not to say those tweaks took it to the level where yours is, absolutely not. I moved from the JD100 specifically to obtain a major upgrade in CD performance and I did seriously consider taking the modification route with the JD100, in may case it was to be Underwood HiFi Mods, but ultimately went another direction. But hey, all roads lead to Rome as they say and getting there is more important than the route taken.

---

(*) That was strictly tongue in cheek I assure you since for the hardcore anti-cable/tweak crowd (what remains of them) I'm already the devil incarnate!