Joule Electra LA 150 from 2005.

I have a lot of Tube Amps before, my tweenydream was allways a Joule Electra, in the german "Röhrenbuch" was a nice pitcure and a legend strory around this amp. Now with 41 i found one in spain, a LA 150, no MKII - mhh buy or not buy...? Ok for 1.175 Euro yes sir, buy it. The first half year i miss something, i think it was about the absolutly neutral way she makes music, makes me kind of thick. She just show whats wrong in the rest of your equipment. Than i was think about to buy a Hovland HP200 - on ebay 3.200 Euro, but in the last sekond somebody else buy it. Ok a sign! We work with Tuning Quantum things on schallwand dot com. I opened after reading a lot of reviews about how fine is the diference between a Joule and Hovland. I tuned up every pices in the amp, our Chips on all cables, with the goal to make this pre fly. After many hours and finaly Ebony Wood pieces on a lot of points i think it is now finished and works amazing, an on the end of the spectrum comes now what i was missing, a type of a fairy dust ;) The Joule Electra 150 will stay now, until i have the money for a Kondo M77. Sorry for my english - good old germany is greeting.

Wonderful Organic rich tonally perfect Bass, Midrange, and Highs

Living full "you are there" sound with indredible texture in the midrange and detailed extended highs without fatigue, some of the best bass I have heard from a tubed preamp (not over bearing or bloated, just right)

No difference between the sound produced by this preamp and a live performance.

Great customer service. Soon to be a much sought after famous collectors item. Guaranteed.

Damned expensive, but man do you get what you pay for! Don't shop around. Just buy this amp. Its worth the extra $200 per year!

This review is for the LA-150 MKII preamp.

After a long long search of buying and selling used preamps I came upon this jewel with made it all worth while. I was wondering if anyone anywhere was doing it right until I heard this phenomenally wonderful sounding preamp.

Whats good about it? Everything. Its hallmark I would say is wonderful liquid warm natural organic fully textured midrange and extended but non harsh highs and full tight bass. It has the sound "just right". Live "your are there" music is what you hear with this preamp. The tonation is perfect. You just know that this is what the performance and the singers, and instruments are supposed to sound like. No digital glare, no syrupy dullness, just full lilving real textured sound as it was meant to be.

I had a BAT preamp which was harsh (I found the BAT amps aren't though). I also went through Cary, Conrad Johnson VT-10b, Rogue Magnum99, and other preamps before finding this this. My search is over. Earlier I had a Joule LA-100 which had the incredible midrange to which the Conrad Johnson paled in comparison. However, with the LA-100 the highs were a bit muted. With the LA-100 MKII the sound in the upper midrange and treble opened up and remarkably the midrange was preserved. The bass also had more presence.

I eventually found my perfect acoustic match running the Joule LA-150 MKII into a wonderful Blue Circle BC24 power amp. A match made in heaven. I am using this to power my Spendor S8e speakers and am in audiphile heaven with this setup and am no longer looker for and changing out my gear. As a sidenote, I heard the Joule LA150 MKI was a little over analytical, and Joule corrected that with the "just right" vivid and wonderful sounding LA-150 MKII version.

No cost was spared making this incredible sounding preamp. The best I have ever heard is not an overstatement.

Customer Service

Great.

Similar Products Used:

Rogue Mangum 99 Tubed Preamp

BAT VK-31 Tubed Preamp

Conrad Johnson 10b Tubed Pramp

Plinius 9200 Integrated

Musical Fidelity NU Vista M3 Integrated

McIntosh 6200 Integrated

Everything

Remote Control

What can I say ? It is just one of the best preamp I ever listened to. Me and my friends we have done heavy comparisons. We have no doubts - this Preamp gives you the soul of the music.

Similar Products Used:

Joule 100 MK III, ML 32, Hovland 100, Convergent Signature, dCS Elgar plus (without Preamp), Krell KPS?, Accuphase C-275, McIntosh ??, Graaf GM 13.5, AR LS25, Octave HP500, Burmester 808

Sounds more "real" than any other per-amp I have ever heard. Will even make a high-quality solid state power amp virtually indistinguishable from a high quality tube power amp with very good speakers. Has a remote control which is very handy.

Quite expensive - until you see the power supplies and build quality.

This review is for the LAP 150, which is the LA 150 pre-amp with the OPS 1 tube phone pre-amp built in. In order to accomodate the extra phono circuitry of the OPS 1(also available as a separate stand-alone unit), the LAP 150 has a large and heavy separate tube power supply unit that connects to the LAP 150 via a umbilical cord. I listen to a lot of vinyl, and the LAP 150 replaced a Hovland HP100 with phono which I had used for 3 years. The dealer was nice enough to let me demo the Joule with the Hovland for two weeks, so I could do detailed comparisons before springing for the hefty purchase price of the Joule. To begin, the Hovland HP100 was -and is - a wonderful pre-amp - but - the Joule LAP 150 is a very significant step better. How? (See my review of the Joule Electra VSN 100 Marquis OTL power amps). The Joule will do "what you are listening to is real" and "you are there in the room with the performers" better than the Hovland. As I indicated in my VSN 100 amp review, I use a set of Bryston 7B SST solid state power amps as a back up, and the Joule LAP 150 even makes the Bryston solid state amps sound as "liquid and detailed" as the Hovland HP 100 pre-amp did driving a set of Cary CAD 300SE LX20 tube amps through the same (Merlin VSM/M) speakers. An amazing accomplishment for folks who want the tube "you are there" sense of reality, but want to go with a solid state power amp! (Note, the Bryston 7B's do not sound as "real" as the Joule LAP 150 driving a pair of Joule VSN 100 Marquis OTL tube amps - that combination seems to be in a league of its own). How does Joule do it? I am not entirely sure, but two guesses are (1) power supplies and (2) build quality. The Joule LAP 150 has a power supply with separate feeds to specific parts of the pre-amp and phone sections that puts many power amps to shame, and tube regulated to boot. This seems to give the sound an effortless dynamic "jump" or startle factor while remaining extremely low in perceived distortion. Second, if you take a peek inside, Jud Barber does build quality that has to be seen to be believed - like double sets of contacts for each switching contact in the source selector to reduce contact distortions, battery DC supply voltage for the pre-amp tube bias current, etc. He also uses exotic Russian tubes (now more widely available) that can greatly outperform the classic AU7X and 12AX7,s that most other tube per-amps use.

Similar Products Used:

Hovland HP100-MC pre-amp, various VTL tube pre-amps, ARC tube pre-amps.