Which tubed pre to "flesh out" my mids???


Hello all...It is finally time to insert a linestage between my Wadia 302 and ASL 1009's. Ultimate priorities are a rich, lush midrange, and a tight bottom end. My preference leans toward the euphonic side, but I can't sacrifice much detail or dynamics to get it. I won't get a chance to audition much stuff prior to purchasing since I'll be buying used off the net...so if anyone has a clue how some linestages will work within my system and to my stated taste, any help would be appreciated...TIA.

Some contenders are the Joule LA-150mk11, Cat Ultimate, Supratek (forgot the model), Hovland (forget the model again), basically anything under $3k used thought that may rule out the Cat.

System

Wadia 302
ASL 1009DT
Sonus Faber Guarneri
TG Audio ic & speaker cables
jman
Joule-Electra bass is not tight? Perhaps if you put your preamp on Aurious or similar vibration control device, use tube dumpers (as NOS have some small tendency to have microphonic noise) it should tighten and clean things out for you substantially
All The Best
Rafael
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The Joule's bass is "fleshed out"... not super loose, not tight or damped down. It works for me! BUT in relation, the Blue Circle's bass/midbass is more neutral. I have ALL SORTS of isolation here, TG cones, Aurios, Neuance platforms, ...

But that goosing of the midbass/Bass of the Joule is why Bobby P loves the Joule with his speakers... Its fully fleshed out, yet clean, detailed, layered, blah,blah,... I like things that soundstage bass correctly, and both the Blue Circle and Joule do that, it's just that the BC bass is more "damped", thus sounding tighter... the Joule's bass is less damped, more fleshed out... (the Blue Circle had more hall info and air too, but that is another story...). BUT I like big bottoms! Thats why I have a Joule preamp! I also like the way the Joule soundstages the back corners of the stage, the way the Joule does voices, and the width/depth/height/layering/cohesiveness and separation at the same time, of a big symphonic work building to a full cresendo! Never looses its cool! (Same as the BC pre before it, just a bigger bottom end). The Joule does the "they are in your room" thing a bit more than BC, where the Blue Circle is more "you are at the recording" than the Joule. Very similar, but that hall info and bass info is where to 2 part ways... I went to Joule from Blue Circle preamps, wanting to keep eveything the BC did, but with a less damped bottom end - and that's what the Joule did here. I gave up some hall info and maybe some depth of stage of the BC going to the Joule, but things like isolation, how you run your cables, room treatments can help bring some of that back...
Hey Tvad, I hear you on impedance mismastches... but not the case here, as my BC amp has a 100k input impedance.

The one thing with the BC preamps is the amount of gain too, as I do prefer the lesser gain of the Joule. Still dynamic!, quiet,... but more play with the volume pot with the Joule. And remote too!

I am just calling it as I heard it here, over a long honeymoon with both for an extended period of time head to head... really working hard to get the best of both in terms of setup/synergy... but neither is perfect...
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