JOLIDA JD9 Shenda vs Maryland + Review

I just got my new JD9 from Shenda Jolida. After reading the story on www.jolida.net about 2 Jolida companies competing for the same market share I was curious about what quality I would expect to see from the cheaper priced Jolida Shenda JD9. I have long wanted to preview a JD9 and took this opportunity to try one.

I have a background in audio engineering as well as electronics and instrumentation, so I can appreciate excellent sound and build quality. I would like to ask the help of you fine people who have a Maryland JD9 to do a physical comparison of the Shenda JD9 vs the Maryland JD9. Here is a link that informs you how to tell what factory your Jolida came from:
http://www.jolida.net/jolida_inc_warning_part4.htm
IMO the Maryland JD9's look better, at least the black with gold lettering does in my eyes. My observation of the Maryland JD9 looking better is only based on very few photos I was able to find on line.

It was frustrating for me to choose which Jolida I wished to order from. I thought the Maryland JD9's looked like they were finished a little better on the outside but after reading the story on the Shenda web site I believed them and ordered form www.jolida.net in hopes of getting better internal build quality and parts. It was my belief that they had truly been the original designers of the JD9 and probably built many more of them than the outsourced company the Maryland Jolida was using to construct their JD9's.

The truth is, I don't care who is the real Jolida, I just want to know who's making the better product or are they the same with only minor cosmetic differences.

Here is a slew of photos of my Shenda built JD9:

Bomb proof packing anyone?







I have to say I was really surprised at the weight of the unit!



Here's some closeups of the finish on the front.




The rear of the unit is impressive as well at this price point!


I love the etched dip switch position indicator... so shiny!


Onwards to the internal components photos!



The first thing I noticed was the capacitors look like cheap Chinese ones but a little research revealed differently.


Now these Rubycon caps are used throughout my JD9 and they are by no means "High End" caps, but what I did find is they are at least as good as most mid fi equipment. You can compare the data sheets between the Rubycons XYA and the well regarded Panasonic FC series at these links and see they are the same specs.

http://www.rubycon.co.jp/cn/catalog/e_pdfs/old/aluminum/e_yxa.pdf
http://www.panasonic.com/industrial/components/pdf/aba0000ce22.pdf

The stock op amps on my unit look to be decent as well:


Here's the data sheet:
http://pdf1.alldatasheet.net/datasheet-pdf/view/27258/TI/OP37G.html
Notice the Op Amps are not directly soldiered to the board but inserted into sockets. For the purist, this is not fine craftsmanship as it adds a connection point but I look at it as a feature allowing the upgrade of the op amps by a novice without any soldiering equipment.

Continued....

The tubes are as expected, Jolida's own:




Many of the loading resistors are high tolerance 2% precision resistors. Only 2 were standard 5%. Again, not "High End" but well chosen to perform their function. I'm sure an upgrade to more exotic resistors and caps would alter the sound to ones own wishes but as it sits, I think the quality is acceptable especially when you consider the price of the JD9. If this were a cheap Chinese copy, I would have expected to find all 10% standard resistors.



Oh yes, I remember reading about the trim pots on the low output RCA's.

To me, this is not all that bad. True, it could provide a place for a channel unbalance to develop if the pots were jarred, but if your handy with electronics and have access to a scope and signal generator, this is a potentially useful feature. You can custom tailor your gain to your system and calibrate your phono levels to match your CD player exactly no matter what cartridge, SUT combination your using.

For those who subscribe that the trim pots will adversely effect the sonics of the signal in some magical way, I can't agree. When using the highest precision measuring equipment, ohms law doesn't change. The AC signal frequency in a circuit will be the same throughout the entire resistive circuit, in this case only the amplitude (volume) would change as there is a voltage drop across the pots. Frequency response would not be different between the High Outputs and the Low Outputs. (*Edit- more info on this later in the thread) This is a case of the audio engineers vs the golden ear audiophiles who say they can still hear a difference.

Finally I looked at all the soldier connections. I had to take a 2 day training course on proper soldiering techniques to be certified to soldier on Nuclear Reactor Safety Shutdown Systems. There is no room for any kind of error in that environment. I could tell all the joints were indeed hand soldiered and they were a little sloppy. I thought a couple of the joints could look like they may cause trouble down the road.

There was too much soldier on one of the input RCA's and it caused some of the insulation to burn and discolour. Also, one of these joints didn't look like it was hot enough when it was made. This is where the price of this unit is reflected. I have purchased USA hand wired equipment for the music industry at a much higher cost than the JD9 and was impressed with the quality of the soldiering. I don't think there is an excuse for these minor soldiering mistakes as it should be just a simple matter of training the assemblers and quality control for when they have a bad day.

As for the sound of my JD9, I think it is pretty good. I have not had any real high end phono pre's in my system to compare it to. I have had the Hagerman Bugle and my reference is a Project Phono Box II. The Jolida is IMO a head above both of them so I'm currently excited to hear some more.

When I was shopping for this unit I was upset with the lack of info on either of these units to do a comparison. I would like to reach out to the AK community to help in photographing their Maryland JD9 both outside and in to determine if they are of the same quality or if there are any differences either way. As always, I welcome any discussion or comments as well.

Thanks for such an awesome and informative post! I'm looking forward to seeing and hearing how this comparison develops.

OK here are some profoundly bad pictures of sorta similar spots on mine, don't have the time to get more serious about the photos today. Mine is the one with the glued on logo as opposed to your silkscreen













I don't really know anything about soldering so I just snapped some pictures.

Wow bsujeep! Thank you so much for taking the time to snap some photos and upload them for us. From what I can see, it looks like the quality of the components are all the same. The soldier work on your unit looks a little better to me but that could just be quality control at work. The important thing to note here is that both factories appear to be building the same units and the only difference is the cosmetics as minor as they are. (*edit- It looks like more and more differences have been noted further along this thread, please read on) I appreciate this online community for this kind of participation and it's members like bsujeep that make it so fun! Thanks again for helping.

Any more photos to add by anyone would be welcomed!

The only real difference I saw is the one brown capacitor on the dip switches as opposed the all orange ones on mine. Oh and the profound coloration that must be apparent with the blue resistors VS the orange capacitors (said with sarcasm of course) on the phono board.

This is interesting. And all very new to me. I bought mine a year or two ago from my local shop (an authorized jolida dealer) and it has a screened logo that includes a glued-on piece. What could that mean?

I'll snap some photos of the internals of mine when I get the time. But one obvious difference is that mine came stock with a pair of Electro-Harmonix tubes.

:scratch2:

bsujeep said:

The only real difference I saw is the one brown capacitor on the dip switches as opposed the all orange ones on mine. Oh and the profound coloration that must be apparent with the blue resistors VS the orange resistors (said with sarcasm of course) on the phono board.

Click to expand...

Yes I saw that one cap is different but the truth is they are both the same type of capacitor (ceramic) with the same tolerance. The blue resistors vs the orange resistors are in fact capacitors. Again, they are the same type and tolerance between both units.

Brett, your JD9 is indeed a conundrum however I suspect it is a Maryland unit based on the logo being plastic. I'd love to see more pictures of the components used. I find it interesting they included EH tubes. I read somewhere that Jolida has their own tubes made in China, I'm guessing when things went sour between Jolida.net and Jolida.com and the Chinese court ruled in favor of Jolida.net the Maryland Jolida.com couldn't use the Jolida tubes in addition to the logo. They may have shipped the units to the US without logos or tubes. = Free upgraded tubes for you!

I think it's still a little too early to judge but so far it looks like the jolida.com (Maryland) units may have better quality control as seen by the soldier work and also potentially upgraded tubes to Elecro Harmonix, if you could consider them an upgrade. I've read on line that some didn't like the EH's either when rolling out the original Jolida tubes. (*Edit- Also, the orange drop capacitors on the Maryland op-amp board are phillips brand as opposed to no name on the Shenda.) Good eye Mr. Lin!

MuthaFunk said:

Yes I saw that one cap is different but the truth is they are both the same type of capacitor (ceramic) with the same tolerance. The blue resistors vs the orange resistors are in fact capacitors. Again, they are the same type and tolerance between both units.

Click to expand...

Ya I wasn't even thinking when I wrote that post, in a too much of a hurry I guess. I doubt that there is much if any sonic differences between the two, but it would be interesting to set them side by side.

I only mentioned the differences as cosmetic, there are a few others. I don't know if they are quality differences or just supply differences, my guess is the latter.

bsujeep said:

...I only mentioned the differences as cosmetic, there are a few others. I don't know if they are quality differences or just supply differences, my guess is the latter.

Click to expand...

If you can pin them down and post any differences you see, that's what this thread is all about. :thmbsp:

Holy Cow there exists an actual difference

Finally took the cover off of the output RCA's and there is a difference between our two JD9's!

I am very curious if Brett's is like yours or mine.



Your output PCB board has ceramic capacitors and mine does not.

I have not idea what this might mean to the sound out of the low output RCA's, but it is a real difference. It also appears consistent with the other photo's to have better soldering.

The only other cosmetic difference I saw was that my RCA's have color coded plastic instead of white on yours.

I will be very curious to hear what you think about this, but I will be out of contact until Sunday evening.

Have a great weekend

Bill

bsujeep said:

I am very curious if Brett's is like yours or mine.

Bill

Click to expand...

Have a look:

It seems as though mine is also a Maryland unit, even though the logo is screened and not glued.






These op amps have the same primary number, but the nubers below that are different than MuthaFunk's unit. Can anyone tell me what this indicates? \/ \/


Seem to be the same caps as Mutha's Shenda unit: \/ \/


The soldering looks pretty neat \/ \/

As I had posted earlier, the logo is a composite of printing and a glue-on.

An interestingly low serial number considering a just bought it about a year ago.


And the serial is on the underbelly, not inside like MuthaFunk's

This is a very interesting thread. Unfortunately I don't have a JD9, but I have a "Maryland" 100 CD player, and the parts and soldering in that are excellent. It looks like the Maryland built JD9 uses the modern "orange drop" capacitors, so that's good.

But you're right Muthafunk, some of the soldering in the Chinese built unit is sloppy, especially on the critical (IMO) RCA socket connections. Aside from that it looks good though, there's probably not a huge difference between the two.

The tubes: I wonder where the Chinese Jolida is getting a triple-mica 12AX7? There you might have one advantage - at least IME the EH tubes are lackluster in all forms and circuits I've tried them.

If I were a JD9 owner, I'd definitely play around with the tubes, and since the op-amps are socketed, they're just begging to be rolled as well.

Cool thread. This unit is on my list to get down the road since my Rotel's phono stage leaves a lot to be desired.

Awesome!

bsujeep said:

Finally took the cover off of the output RCA's and there is a difference between our two JD9's!

I am very curious if Brett's is like yours or mine.

Your output PCB board has ceramic capacitors and mine does not.

I have not idea what this might mean to the sound out of the low output RCA's, but it is a real difference. It also appears consistent with the other photo's to have better soldering.

The only other cosmetic difference I saw was that my RCA's have color coded plastic instead of white on yours.

I will be very curious to hear what you think about this, but I will be out of contact until Sunday evening.

Have a great weekend

Bill

Click to expand...

Well now were getting somewhere! I'd only had my unit for 1/2 Hr when I took those pictures. Upon quick glance at that board I saw the trim pots and 4 capacitors. I just assumed the 4 caps were applied to all 4 outputs individually to filter some high frequency noise. If my assumptions are correct, given the small size of the caps and the fact they are on the "amped" output and not the delecite input signal, it should roll off some very high frequencies that I imagine are beyond what we could hear.....

Now you have me wondering what is going on that board exactly....:scratch2: I'm going to have to remove it to get a good view and I'll report back. I'll let you guys know what I find when I backward engineer that output board tonight!

Perhaps I should spend some time listening to my JD9 instead of ripping it apart..... Naaa forget it. I bought this thing to play as much as listen to it. Right now I'm going to get to the bottom of this, then I'll enjoy how it sounds.

Brett a said:

Have a look:

....These op amps have the same primary number, but the nubers below that are different than MuthaFunk's unit. Can anyone tell me what this indicates?

Click to expand...

Usually they are the manufactures batch #'s or date codes. They'll most likely be different on all of our units.

For those interested, heres a few more photos.

this is a Shenda / Jolida, with black face plate, ordered directly from china.

From looking at your pictures, I've noticed another little cosmetic difference between the Shenda/Maryland versions. The Shenda has the words "JD9 TUBE PHONO STAGE" printed in a serif font; the Maryland has them in a sans-serif font. One more little clue for visually distinguishing them from the outside.

also the wiring in the shenda units is all twisted, where the maryland wiring is not.

and the transformer in the maryland unit is labeled jolida, shenda unit is not.