New Joule-Electra Preamp In The Works!

I had a nice chat with Jud Barber of Joule-Electra yesterday about preamps. Jud mentioned that he is working on a ball-out version of the current LA-150MK2 line stage preamp. After experimenting with many different tube line stage topologies over the years, Jud could not find anything that he felt sounded better than the basic design which he has been using and refining for many years. With some urging from customers and friends in the trade, he is seeing what can be done to offer a better preamp based on the current design using various exotic parts, wiring, etc. Based on some prototypes built so far, he feels that will be able to offer some significant improvements over what the LA-150MK2 offers. Unfortunately that will come at a price that will be significantly greater than the LA-150MK2... Jud tells me approximately twice as much (i.e. around $10K retail) the way things are looking. The new preamp (which probably will be called the LA-150 Speical Edition) will hopefully debut in January 2009 at the Las Vegas CES trade show. PLEASE NOTE that this does not mean the current LA-150MK2 will be discontinued... its performance is still (we feel) exceptional for a $5,00o line stage preamp and it will remain in production for many more years.

Speaking of the LA-150MK2 Line Stage, we are still offering with Joule-Electra, our $4,100 VERY special sale on (US only) LA-150MK2 Line Stage Preamps. Less than a hand full of the excess stock sale units remain and after that we return to our normal pricing on LA-150MK2 Line Stage preamps.