Glad to hear you're pleased with the Joule LA300 (Marianne). I've had the Joule LA-150 Mk2 for a couple years and have never thought about changing preamps until your post. Simon emailed me the other day saying that the SE upgrade is definitely worth pursuing, which adds some of the trickle down changes that were put into the Marianne version. I will have to go that route considering the price of a new Marianne.
Best preamp for my system.
I am looking to upgrade my preamp, and am looking for advice from experienced audio people. I am currently running an Emm Labs CD player into a Levinson 380S and then the Levinson 33H's and on to the Genesis 4 tower speakers. All signals running through Gabriel Gold Rapture IC's. What I like is a real lush sound, vocals being most important with respect to accuracy. Some preamps that I am considering are the ARC reference and Lamm Reference.......but am open to suggestions if a serious upgrade from my 380S can be had for less than those two expensive units.