Joule-Electra LA-300ME and Cardas Clear Cables Debut at CES

Happy new year all an greetings from the Merlin, Joule, Cardas Suite at the 2009 CES! About no more than a couple hours ago from the time of this post we fired up the Marianne Barber Memorial edition LA-300 line stage preamp. The LA-300ME takes the design of the LA-150MK2 to it limits with very special parts, wiring and more. With a little more than a hour of play, we are already mightily impressed with the new preamp. We have slowly adding the new Cardas Clear interconnects and speaker cables to the system (after letting the preamp settle in for a bit) and this is also extremely impressive stuff!

Joule-Electra has just posted some details on the new LA-300ME line stage preamp on their website, so click the link to check it out! I don't have any further details on the new Cardas Clear cables, but will follow up as soon as I can with some more details on this new top of the line Cardas cable (no, it does not replace the Golden Reference). That's all for know... got to get back to work and finish dialing things in here with Bobby P of Merlin as the show starts tomorrow... will be back with more info later!

UPDATE (Sunday, January 11th) - Cardas has rushed assembly of some more Clear interconnects and rush shipped them to CES, so we now have more Cardas Clear and the system. The combination of the Clear cables and the new Joule-Electra LA-300ME is making for a stunning combination. Both Bobby Palkovic of Merlin and I agree that the preamp and the cables get our highest recommendation. Some interesting facts about Cardas Clear... pricing will be about double the Golden Reference cables. In addition to the Clear speaker cables there is also a Clear Beyond speaker cable (what we are using in the show system and which is about twice the price of the Clear speaker cables). Will these cables are expensive (not as crazily expensive as some other companies offerings I will add), the performance improvement over Golden Reference is NOT subtle (read on to my comments below on the performance of these cables in the Merlin/Joule/Cardas show system. Termination on these cables uses no solder!!! Very high pressure crimped connections (using custom connectors and tooling developed by George Cardas) make for a perfect copper to copper connect between wire and connector. I am also very proud that we (Signature Sound) have been asked by Cardas Audio to be one of the very few select retailers of the Cardas Clear cables! You current Cardas cable owners out there should keep in mind that we will gladly accept your current Cardas cables on trade towards any purchase of the new Cardas Clear cabling. Keep in mind that Cardas Clear cables are limited in availability.... there is a limited amount of cable available at this time and the process to terminate these cables takes longer (I think there is also a very limited number of staff at Cardas that is qualified to terminate these cables as well). Becuase of this and the special nature of this cable, we will be one of the less than a handful of dealers in the USA authorized to sell Cardas Clear cabling.

For many of your Joule-Eectra fans, I understand the $14,800 retail price for the LA-300 Marianne Barber Memorial preamp is a bit (well, maybe more than a bit :-) ) much. However, there is a initial offering special strictly limited to the first five LA-300ME preamps (not including our show demo unit of course which is destined for other use). Please call or e-mail if you are interested. We would also consider taking in your old Joule-Electra preamp on trade to make the total cost even more reasonable.

I have also posted some thoughts about the new Joule Preamp and the Cardas Clear cables here in our show suite on a discussion forum.... here are some excerpts from what I wrote:

Yes, we are using the Clear speaker cables and some of the Clear interconnects in the show system (we didn't have enough Clear interconnects to wire the whole system). It is as it names implies, very clear and pure sounding cable. Pretty amazing micro and macro dynamics. The Cardas Clear speaker cable is just downright goofy good. In comparison to the Cardas Golden Reference, its more dynamic, quieter, and more extended at the frequency extremes. With all this clarity, you would think the cable may be all "HiFi" and no music, but it's tone, pitch, decay, body are all there and very pure and naturual. With only one Clear (at this time) interconnect in the system (Cardas may get us more from them tomorrow), it is a bit harder to get the same beam on the interconnects, but I am hearing very similar things to what the speaker cable did when we swapped in the one interconnect.

BTW, yes $14.8K is ALLOT of green for the new Joule LA-300 preamp, but there are allot of very expensive parts in it.

. . .

As to value per dollar, that comparison is best left to others who can compare it with other $10K+ preamps. The best I can do right now is discuss it in comparison to the LA-150MK11. I have to keep this short given I need to get the room going here today.

- Much better bass... the bass has outstanding resolution, weight, definition.
- Dynamics.. Again better. The LA-300 does appear more quiet to me so macro and micro dynamics are very well represented
- Top end sounds more extended... a very natural, liquid and open extension.
- Tone - The quieter nature of this preamp means that midrange tonality is better developed in its bloom and decay. Most importantly the tone sounds right.. with the correct amount of body and texture with outstanding resolution (would not be a Joule - Electra preamp otherwise IMHO)
- Soundstage/imaging... always a strength of Joule preamps IMO and this preamp does it in a excellent manner. The blacker background does result in better ability to define the images in the stage.

Gotta run. Have a good day everyone