JDS Element 2 Thoughts?

Recon the EL AMP II is worth buying if I have the the first gen EL AMP?

If you feel your current amp is lacking, yes. If not, no

Thatā€™s one way of looking at it I supposeā€¦

Well I mean the original El amp is pretty dang good, and the new one is a bit better, but you are still getting like most of the performance from the original el amp. It is a step up from the new one, but I donā€™t know if it would warrant an upgrade for everyone

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I have a feeling you wouldnā€™t hear an audible difference

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I would say it would depend on the headphones if there would be a big benefit

is this worth upgrade from element 1?

Hmmm personally I think itā€™s higher preforming but I would actually say no, I think if you wanted to upgrade, you could get the El ii stack but realistically I would just stick with your element until you get a headphone that would benefit more from a higher tier amp

so its not worth it if im just gonna use my 660s?

IMO no. I think if you wanted to try something different though, you could pick up a tube amp to try on the 660s

gotcha thnx ! the used element 2 is like 300$sh everywhere and i get this element 1 for 160$ LOL

I kind of want that

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I could see myself having a simple desk with that stack and being perfectly happy too.

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Zeos: ā€œeveryoneā€™s talking about the Atom but remember, the EL 2 dac/amp stack is their top of the lineā€.

Also said he could have chosen any DAC, like the 1000$+ VMV D1, to power all the speakers he reviews, but he chose these JDS Dacs.

Also, huh, are the EL and Element 2 different things? Damn. And I thought Topping E30s Eigital to Analog Converter was weird :stuck_out_tongue:

Question to other owners of Element II: does it get hot after like 1 hour playing? Itā€™s not like impossible to touch, specially since the knob is fine. But the sides are pretty toastie, I wonder if itā€™s like that or there is something wrong with mine.

I have no experience with the EL2 - but my Atoms (DAC & AMP) get pretty warm. I read they get warm, but they are much warmer than I expected. I was sort of counting it up to the Atoms being in a sealed plastic case. I always assumed the metal chassis of the EL2ā€™s would be better.

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I would say warm but definitely not hot. What is annoying though is that the power supply is warm even when the unit is off, which seems to imply itā€™s drawing power for no good reason. I emailed in and apparently this is normalā€¦

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Also, against conventional wisdom, I turned on my speakers before turning on the Element II and got a loud pop/thump. Isnā€™t the muting relay supposed to safeguard against this?

Havenā€™t experienced that, but I will say using the pre-outs of the Element seems noticeable noisier than the line out from my FX audio. Which really gives me pause for a second.

As for temperature, I think that running it at low gain is generating more heat than at high gain. Itā€™s possible the circuit dumps current somewhere else when you lower the gain. This with the fact I live in a very hot country can be the reason I was seeing temperatures a lot higher. And yeah, youā€™re right about the power supply being warm all the time. Itā€™s really wasteful, JDS labs should think about a way to correct thatā€¦ Now Iā€™m thinking about a way to turn it off when Iā€™m not using it.

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