2. amps-preamps
  3. 126082-371

Joule Electra preamps and amps. What is your impression?

Never auditioned them. Thinking about replacing my SS integrated. Lamm, VAC etc. are out of reach.  Also, how would Joule preamp work with some SS amp, say, Rowland # 2 or older Pass or something like that ?
My Redgum integrated is very dynamic with excellent drive and bass so I won't sacrifice that even for a more natural and sophisticated.
inna
sbank's avatar
sbank
2,038 posts
 
I've owned two Joule preamps and Joule phono stages. I agree with the characterizations above. The preamps are rich tonally, and work great with a variety of amps both ss & tube. These days they are a nice value used. Rich Brkich at Signature Sound is great resource for everything Joule Electra (sales & service). He's worked w/Judd for decades.
The phono stages are more sensitive to RFI interference than many others I tried. Granted, I gave them a torture test, living about 1500ft from a radio tower, but after many calls with Judd and experiments with tinfoil, etc. we concluded that only turning my home into a Faraday cage would get it totally quiet. Then out the door it went. 
The amps are OTL and wonderful sounding with the right speakers, and only the right speakers. I don't buy the argument that Speltz autoformer makes any speaker compatible, etc. To me they degrade sound quality. The noise from variac and voltage fluctuations do make the amps a bit of a labor of love, but for the right mindset owner, really awesome. FWIW, I put the Atma-Sphere amps in the same conversations but with the benefits of Ralph & team. Cheers,
Spencer
ebm
5,165 posts
 
Wonderful musical great after market service.
inna OP
5,245 posts
 
This is an interesting situation. It appears that preamps would be an excellent choice, as for phono amd amps, there may be too many compatibility issues and noise problems.Hmm..
larryi
1,972 posts
 

I like the LAP150 linestage for its warmish tonality without sounding murky or slow.  I also have heard and liked very much their OTL amps.  These too are on the warm side, particularly for OTL amps, which still manage to retain much of the genre's advantages in terms of liveliness and dynamics.

The big issue with their gear is longevity and reliability.  Both the linestage and the various OTL amps had some issues with build quality and reliability.  I happen to be listening to one of their OTL amps at a dealership when the amp delivered a HUGE pop.  It turned out that the tube sockets were going bad on the amp and had to be replaced.  I found out later that this was somewhat of a common problem with this particular model.  While socket replacement in most amps would be time consuming but not extremely so, in an OTL amp such as this particular model, it was not easy to do because it had MANY tube sockets and a whole lot of point to point wiring.

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
7,068 posts
 
^^Any amplifier using 6C33 power tubes will need the power tube sockets replaced on a regular basis. When the tube was used by the Soviet military, the recommended service life included replacement of the socket along with the tube.

The socket was originally designed in the US for a Sylvania tube called the 3C33 which was an RF transmitting dual triode. In that service it ran fine for decades. The Soviet design doubled the filament current and the result is that the connections fail. The best sockets we have seen were made by EF Johnson in the US, and there are some vintage Russian sockets that hold up fairly well too.
More to discover