Thoughts from Joule preamp owners?

The mark 1 seems to lack the typical joule magic unfortunately. When I took the beautiful la 100 out of the upstairs system and replaced it with the la 150 mark 1, I thought what happened? I guess I need to take the cash I made selling the la 100 and put it into upgrading the la 150, which I just haven't yet done.

RGS92, I love the old Joni. Blue, Ladies of the Canyon, Clouds, the list goes on. I love Court and Spark too, I have a DCC, very nice and a true test for a system.

Back to Joule, they are very good deals used. The 300 is astonishing. I picked mine up used a year or so ago and it brought my system up a notch. I also was considering a 150 SE but the deal came together on the 300 first and Simon told me I should go for the 300 if possible.

My brother, who introduced me to Joule and who has lived on Kauai for the last 5 years or so, was out to Oregon a few months back. He has an lap 150 and a vzn 80, quintessence stealths, and my old aries mark 1 with clearaudio harmony wood. He hadn't heard my system since he moved away. He was very impressed and went away scheming about upgrades.

Insidious hobby isn't it, especially given that the limiting factor typically is the quality of the source material.

Thanks Carl for all that; somehow the right equipment can coax some magic out of the worst recording I have found. Thanks for the Joule story!

I am considering the purchase of an LA-150SE, which is apparently in the same ballpark sonically with the 300ME. I owned the LA-150 MkII at one time. While I thought it was ok, the unit I owned seemed to sound a bit dry and even the bass was not as rich or full as the Tom Evans I owned at the same time, or nearly as dynamic as the CAT SL-1 Ultimate MkII that I also owned at that time. I noticed on the Joule website their goals for the SE included trying for "a more fleshed out and musical sonic signature of (the) LA-300ME." There are so many positive responses to this preamp I am considering giving the line another try. I would be comparing this directly to the Tom Evans because I like the idea of having tubes in the preamp and also of having an American made preamp. Have any of you (Pubul57?)compared the Joule directly with Tom Evans?

One sticking point for me is the Alps volume pot and the shunt to ground configuration. I hate Alps pots because they can be noisy, they track horribly at low volumes and they simply feel cheap and insubstantial to me. I understand the Alps has become the de facto standard for manufacturers who want to implement remote volume control economically, but the volume control is certainly key to the performance of any preamp and pot type controls IMO do not measure up to discrete resistor controls. Do any of you feel the Alps has a negative sonic impact on the Joule preamps? Is the Alps also used in the ME edition Joule preamps? Have any of you heard of someone replacing the Alps with a stepped attenuator in the Joule preamps? Is the pot really "out of the signal path" in the shunt to ground design? I have a hard time believing there is not a sonic contribution from using the Alps that couldn't be bettered by using a discrete resistor attenuator. Maybe I am being overly sensitive based on my experience with several "high-end" preamps that I thought were sonically handicapped by using the Alps pot. Any feedback, or is this a non-issue in the way the pots are implemented in the Joule preamps?

I have 2 LA-100s in different systems and they are both wonderful. Soundstage depth, warmth, detail, etc. very very good. Old school and delightful.

Never heard the Tom Evans, though I would like too. I do wonder if the MKII left you wanting, if the SE will make the difference for you. I think if you really loved the MKII, you would love the SE even more, but I'm not sure it will bridge the gap from dissatified to love - and nothing is more dynamince than the CAT!