Border Patrol S20 and Art Audio Jota

I've been listening to both of these superb amplifiers over the last few days.

I heard the Jota yesterday at Art Audio's demo facility, when I took the Nonsuch 4s and Little Awesomes up for a meeting with Tom Willis. The Jota is a single ended triode design which was fitted with 52BX valves, giving 20W. I only had a few hours listening but my first impression was that it was very pure sounding with a slight tendency towards sweetness in the sound but very, very nice for all that. I look forward to giving it a more extended trial.

The BP S20 is a 300B push-pull design with two of BP's separate power supplies. It also gives out 20W and drove the Nonsuch 4s at the Heathrow show last weekend. Since then, I've had the chance to listen to it for a few days in my own system (Gary of BP's on holiday ). I'm very impressed indeed - it's fast, neutral, crystal clear and quiet, with a superb soundstage. I'm loving it - all the old vinyl has come out in its honour.

I was also fortunate enough to get given some speaker cable to try on the Little Awesome bass speakers for a few days. Was it 40% of members who will find this hard to believe? The difference in bass compared to the bass I was getting with my original copper cable is enormous. The bass is much tighter and that allows the tune to emerge from the grunge.

Altogether, my music and I are having a good time these days. :MILD: . Of course the BP has to go back in a day or so. They'll have to prise the cable off me though.
:WMarrives

 

Bags more to come yet and I seem to remember a certain speaker designer, questioning my reasons for internal rearrangement of aformentioned products
And old addage can be appiled here 'You aint seen nothing yet'
Just got to sort out a good pre now

 

Steve,

must admit the BP20 has sounded glorious every time I've heard one. Dynamic, open and emotionally involving. I've had the Art Diablo at home and felt it a little on the smoothie nicey side for my tastes, but could certainly hear it's attaction, particularly if driving really efficient speakers.

Forget the cables! When can we expect to see a bright blue LED power indicator on each of the Little Awesomes? Just imagine the effect

 

I'm in no rush. My California-modified Audcom AP-110 preamp does the job well. I prefer it to the BP prototype pre that we used at the show.

 

You know of course that I had a blue LED power indicator put on the Seventh Veil ABE1 (active bass equalizer) - our only electronics offering to date.

I'm blue. :MILD:

 

I thought the BP sounded pretty good at heathrow and it also looks stunning! Needs a few more blue LEDs though to bring the sound up to scratch though.

 

Hi,

having been a happy user of a Border Patrol amp, I 'm not surprised that Steve likes what he hears. I prefer these amps to a lot of valve amps that I have heard over the years.

I put this down to some of the main features of the amps. Choke input power supplies (six in the P20), interstage transformers, good output transformers & the use of triode valves. All these help to give the amp it's strengths.

The big downside is the cost as to do all this is not cheap.

I have heard some Art Audio products which have been very good. I too didn't find the Diablo amp a match for the Border Patrol. I haven't heard the Jota which sounds interesting. There are a number of valves out there that should give you a better performance that the 300B. The downside is that some of these valves are rare, expensive &/ or require very high voltages. This makes them more costly to build.

SCIDB