Sounds confusing? Whatever it is, it’s certainly important enough for people to spend decades arguing about it (digital vs analog debate). Not aware if anybody really have a firm grim of what this “noise” actually is, but whatever the artefact, for me it is less noticable with the modified JS-2.

The sound stage has a much “darker background” because of this, almost as if the “noise” has blended more into nothingness. And if I want to stir the hornet’s nest, almost analog like!

All this from a super expensive power supply and a super expensive Hashimotos, who knew?

This dark background to me is key to what makes this modified JS-2 such a pleasure to listen to. A certain aspect often described with the stock JS-2 is how fast the music is. For me the perception of speed and dynamics is even better after modification.

One example of speed would be Valentina Lisitsa (Live at the Royal Albert Hall). With Lisita, the third track (Liszt. La Campanella, S.141 No.3) is a stand out.

The 4+ minute track is a real pleasure to listen to. The fast pace of this piece of music really gives the whole experience a complex multi-layer effect (like there is another piece of music hidden within the music you’re actually listening to). Especially love how the modified JS-2 deal with the final parts of the recording, a good test of dynamics. Not just about how loud it is, it’s the beauty of a crescendo.

The piano is rich and often times hypnotic, the occasional background noise from the audience (e.g. there are heaps of people coughing) distracts you and pulls you away from the music, and then you’re drawn back in to the music again And the modified JS-2 did not disappoint here. The occasional harshness I can get from HDPlex is no longer apparent, from the loudest notes to the softest ones, from fastest to slowest, everything just feels right. A master performance from Ms Lisitsa. A big deal for me as I’m not a fan of classical music at all. 

Adam Raffety (Gratitude) is another highlight. Not entirly confident I can reliably discern the timbre of the guitar from the HDPlex versus the JS-2, but I’m thinking there is a difference, and the JS-2 has the better timbre of the two.

Sadly, my system may have lost a tad in clarity. Unfortunately at this stage I can’t really tell if this lack of clarity is caused by JS-2 or not because I did have the KillerDAC fixed recently. This album is probably mic’ed up close, Adam’s enthusiasm shows up often when he plays. And with this album I suddenly lost the connection with him, his breathings while still audible at time sounds so distant.

And this made me second guess myself, Lisitsa live at the Royal Albert Hall, were the background noise less noticeable compared to what I remembered before? I think it did, something is different, I can’t pin point what it is.

Switching between the two PSUs are inconclusive, changing the rectifier and output valves didn’t matter much either. The same disconnect is still there. While not really noticable with Lisitsa, Adam’s appeared to be alot fuzzier now. Perhaps the much rawer and closer recording of the Gratitude album perhaps makes the difference here. But I don’t really know.

So the question is, did the system loose the ability to highlight micro details? Is there a difference between clarity and resolution? While I do reckon my system is a tad more fuzzy compared to before, resolving ability did not seem to be impacted as much.

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