Look what Ups brought

Bob packed this puppy to the hilt. This pre is also in like new condition.

Mr. Bob Wagner , can't give the man enough accolades. A true gentleman and audiophile. He obviously went to extremes to clean this unit and pack accordingly. Much good karma is coming your way Bob. Thank you so very much and Merry Christmas to you and yours. Before anyone asks.....she's warming up right now.

I'm not above being the enablee. lol

Listened for about 6 hours last night with the wife so here are some initial thoughts. Recent memory taken into consideration, I'll compare to the Rhumba.

First off, The Joule LA-100 is replacing a mid level Pioneer receiver as the pre amp function. I don't think I need to dive too deeply into the sound improvements over that. Every aspect of the musical spectrum improved. There were somethings I was expecting, and some things I wasn't.

Considering the Joule has some age on it, and life of the tubes unknown, I was expecting a somewhat subdued sound with laid back highs and good mid bass. What I wasn't expecting was....the bass. Holy smokes was it good, mids all the way down into the lower registers. The Rhumba also had good bass, some of the better I've heard in tubed pre's but this just had another dimension of realism to it without being over blown or drawing attention to itself.

Matter of fact, none of the frequency ranges drew attention to itself, everything played in harmony from top down and the music just flowed. Not laid back, not too forward, just right. Lots of detail too, more than I was expecting, but I think the Rhumba had a bit more. I thought the Rhumba had a bit more separation of the instruments too but you'd never notice because everything just sounded so darn good.

The Rhumba also had good Prat, but so does the Joule. It has a boogie factor that simply surprised me from an older tubed pre. Given the years these were produced, I could now see how Joule made a name for themselves against the competition of the times. It just made you want to get off the couch and dance. I just didn't want to stop listening. There was no comparison to my old Sonic Frontiers, it was better all around. The SF had a bloom to it that could play well with certain songs and sound like mush on others. None of that here in the Joule, everything sounded great.

Not as good as the LA-150, but I'll be darn if it didn't carry many of the attributes. The rhythm and pace of this thing was stupid good, Bruno Mars sounded phenomenal . Never any strain in the upper registers, made some bad recordings actually sound better....but we all know bad recordings are bad recordings and you can only spit shine a t u r d so much.

Part of the problem I had with the receiver in the mix, was I thought somewhere in the chain I had a bad impedance mismatch, or just some not so good synergy. It wasn't hugely noticeable, but still bugged me. The Joule slid right in and made itself at home with it's new friends. So much so, my Butler amp seemed to have new life. It has this musical tension, like a lot of horsepower waiting to be used. The Joule let it breath more and showed the amp could do more than low level Barry Manillow crap.

I put the gain at about the 3 o'clock position and used the digital volume control on the Sonos. Only when pushed did I start to notice a bit of hash from that crappy volume control when the volume went way up. Lower volume details also improved. Before it seemed I had to turn it up to get the detailed presentation I wanted, not anymore. I had no lack of headroom to get to ear busting levels.

The manual states, this is a phase inverting pre amp. I however left things as is without switching the positive and negative cables on the speakers and it sounded just peachy. Also, I was expecting some hum issues given the age, dead arse quiet, and I mean not a peep. Someone along the line must have done work on this, all the caps and inside looked squeaky clean and almost like new.

Soundstage was wide enough but not as much so on the upper Joule products, then again much wider than the Pioneer. Needless to say, Tony is a happy camper with this piece. It has a sound that can please anyone, musical, fits right in with it's playmates, doesn't draw attention to itself, quiet as a church mouse and puts a smile on your face as soon as you hit play. Sure, I could ask for a little more of this or that in the musical spectrum, but your too busy just boogying to even notice. I've always liked the Joule sound, just never thought I would have one in my system.

Thanks again to Mr. Bob Wagner for thinking of me when he acquired it. The Joule isn't going anywhere anytime soon.