Joule Rite Of Passage 220 Watt OTL

Excellent pair of powerful amps with the OTL clarity and magic. Incredible deep, full body bass; near single-ended mid-range; extended upper range; huge sound-stage and life-like imaging.
In very good condition, except for one top plate, which was slightly scarred from a blown tube.
Please, contact directly through [email protected] or 414-355-6400

Harry Pearson's Super Component List from HP's Workshop in Issue 142 (May 2003)

[Jud Barber] amplifiers are some of the most reliable design that dispense with the output transformer - thought to be the most significant source of coloration and distortion in tubed circuitry design... And what a gorgeous sounding amplifier this, his latest work, is...it ought to drive anything you can think of other then Hummer. With plenty of headroom to spare and dynamic swing that will catch you by surprise... equal ease it shows at every dynamic level and the continuous way it slides between both the mini and the maxi changes. Wonderful bottom-octave response, the kind that sounds like bottom octaves sound in the hall...Natural as can be sonically.
Could be that the best transistor designs...making for a narrower window of tonal "neutrality", while with tubed units that window of neutrality is much wider...So, we have an amplifier, like the new Koetsu cartridge, that has character, but not colorations

Read more from TAS

The Higher End: Robinson Brutus Awards for 2005
Rite of Passage monoblock on its matching Critical Mass Systems isolation platform

Jud Barber and Joule Electra for their stellar achievement in OTL amplification, the VZN-220 Rite of Passage Monoblock OTLs. A smashing 220 Watts of mono power, a pair of Rites can handle any speaker load that you're likely to encounter, and do it with ease. Quick, clear, detailed, and light on its feet, the Rites take all the qualities that I enjoyed in their little brother, the VZN-100 Marquis Mk. III monos, but ups the ante something fierce. More dynamics; greater ease of presentation; greater three-dimensionality, as compared with the Marquis Mk. III's. OTLs have a theoretical edge by losing their output transformers and the problems thereof, but getting OTLs right is a dickens of a task. Jud Barber and company have done so, and have been doing so for years. If your listening room can handle the thermal dissipation requirements of 24 6C-33CB tubes and you're looking for tube amplification that is both richly musical and transparent, then the Rites may well be your ticket to heaven.

Read more from Positive Feedback

Harry Pearson Golden Ear Award (Jan 2002)

[Rite of Passage.] sounds...tonally neutral, quick as a tick in getting to percussive note and without the gentle slurring we often associate with better tube deign Its 12 Russian 6C33CB triode tubes can run hot...there is a feedback control knob that you"ll have to adjust to get the maximum transient accuracy. Let your ear be the guide...The most obvious difference between it and Edge that we could determine in early listening sessions was in the matter of texture with the Rite sounding more wetter or liquid or slightly richer of its harmonic renditions

Outside of few classic Audio Research designs... I have never heard this pure or anywhere like this from a tubed design..

Read more from TAS

Positive Feedback (2005) notes Joule Electra Rite of Passage
by David W. Robinson

....Jud Barber's marvelous Joule Electra Rite of Passage monos (220 Watts per of pure OTL delight!) were in action. God's half acre of 6C33's on parade! ... the sound was marvelous… authoritative, clean, and detailed. I love the sound that Jud gets from OTLs, a devilishly difficult topology to do well; I really enjoyed the Joule Electra VZN-100 Marquis Mark III's that I reviewed for PFO back in issue 6. Hearing Jud's big boys has been a long-term goal of mine.....

Read more from Positive Feedback