home entertainment 2007

amplifier as I’ve ever heard, regardless
of parts or circuit design. Malcolm
Arnold’s recording of his own Symphony
5 (LP, EMI ASD 2878) is filled
with lots of delicious-sounding instruments—celeste,
glockenspiel, saxophone,
and some vivid writing for
trumpet and clarinet—and the VZN-80
did a much-better-than-average job of
letting those sounds sound like themselves.
In a similar sense, it was a faithful,
believable re-creator of vocal
sounds from classical and popular
recordings alike. Choral music, such as
John Adams’ moving On the Transmigration
of Souls (CD, Nonesuch 79816-2),
benefited from the Joule Electra’s good
sense of scale, and clearly delineated
soundfield depth as well.
The VZN-80 was also a remarkably
textured amp. Acoustic guitars and
mandolins sounded as if they were made
of deeply grained wood and strung with
steel-and-bronze strings. At the other
end of the spectrum, the plucked violins
toward the end of the first movement of
Brahms’ Symphony 2, with Pierre Monteux
conducting the London Symphony
(LP, Philips/Speakers Corner 0835
167), popped out of the soundfield in a
manner that escapes even my sweet little
Quad IIs.
At times I thought the Joule Electra
had a little too much texture, as in
Leonard Bernstein’s emotionally rich
recording of Barber’s Adagio for Strings
(in this instance, from a preciously but
not inappropriately titled Bernstein
CD collection, A Total Embrace: The
Conductor, Sony/Legacy S3K 90578).
The highest notes of the violins were a
little overcooked—too much rosin, too
much vibrato—but I suppose that may
have been the truth, and in any event
I’d prefer that to the comparative sterility
and exaggerated smoothness of
other amplifiers.
The VZN-80’s only other notable
shortcoming was its lack of tightness
and timing accuracy in the bass—especially
on uptempo pop records, which
sounded more sluggish and less exciting
than through my Naim 110 or
even my Fi 2A3 Stereo amplifier. But
the former lacks the Joule Electra’s
believably fleshed-out midrange—Jud
Barber calls it timbral bouquet, which is
a better way of describing it than anything
else I’ve heard lately—and the
latter doesn’t have the same combination
of musical immediacy and
reasonably high power. Using the
VZN-80’s top-mounted pots to dial in
some negative feedback helped tight-
LISTENING
en the bass, of course, but I found that
even small amounts of feedback
detracted from the amplifier’s other
charms. I enjoyed doing most of my
listening without it.
In all, my Joule Electra experience
was a heavenly one—as one would
expect from a thoroughly handmade
amplifier of this caliber. The basic
VZN-80 retails for $12,000, with a
number of extra-cost options available,
including a chassis made of solid,
instrument-grade tonewood (as
opposed to the marine plywood used
as standard), which is actually tuned
like the soundboard of a guitar and finished
in the color of one’s choice.
Other Joule Electra models offer
increasing levels of output power, all
the way up to the 350Wpc VZN-350
monoblocks, which sell for a notunreasonable
$30,000/pair. Warm
wishes, indeed.
Long-term Receptacle Failure
In my column in the November 2003
Stereophile, I described the advantages,
theoretical and real, of replacing an
audio room’s AC receptacles with the
premium-quality replacements offered
by PS Audio. It seemed to me at the
time that the Power Port ($49.95), a
hospital-grade dual receptacle made to
PSA specs by the Hubbell Corporation,
offered easier installation, better
sound, and a tighter grip on my equipment’s
AC plugs than any of the other
sockets I’d tried.
Those first two qualities remain
unfazed, but the third has gone to hell
in a handbasket. While I hesitated to
mention this the first time it happened,
I must now report that the
ground-lug contacts on two of the
three Power Ports I installed in my hifi
room have failed: The opposing contact
surfaces appear to have become
bent or dislodged just enough that
they now converge toward one another
near the opening, resisting entry by
all but the most compact, pointyended
plugs. Maturity and good taste
have prevented me from reaching for
any of a number of cheap, obvious
sexual metaphors.
Granted, as someone who swaps
components in and out of my system
with crazy regularity, I put a higherthan-usual
strain on my Power Ports.
Still, for a product that costs several times
the price of even the good Hubbell
products available from other sources,
this receptacle ain’t acceptable. I encourage
PS Audio to find a cure. ■■
www.Stereophile.com, May 2007 35
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