OK Arnold, you asked for it and you got it!!! You'll have to excuse me folks for teasing one of my customers a little bit, but when you ask me to post your picture on my web site (especially when you're sitting next to your new purchase from yours truly)... I'm not going to be able to resist, especially on this occasion when I traveled down to New Jersey to set-up one of the first pairs of Joule-Electra's new statement product.... The VZN-220 "Rite Of Passage" OTL Monoblock Power Amplifiers. Yes folks, this is Jud Barber's answer to folks who wanted an OTL that would take on just about any loudspeaker out there and make in sing like it never had before. Arnold, the proud new owner of these new amps (see picture below), was as excited as I was to get these new amps up in going. With twelve(!) 6C33 dual triode tubes per monoblock, it took a little while to get all the tubes installed!

Arnold and one of his Joule-Electra VZN-220 amps

Along with the new amps, this was a new listening room which Arnold just finished in his basement. Like any smart audiophile who was building a new home, Arnold made sure his basement was dug extra deep so that he was able to get a 10ft ceiling height in the listening room he would eventually build down there. The room was built using ASC's Z strip system for mounting the dry-wall (to appropriately de-couple the wall and minimize wall resonances if I recall correctly) and has its own electrical sub-panel for the many dedicated 15A and 20A circuits that the room has. To take care of the rather substantial heat load that twenty four 6C33 output tubes can generate (more than 1,500 watts), Arnold had a separate dedicated air conditioning system installed for the listening room. As you can see, Arnold doesn't mess around. The picture below shows part of the rest of his system which consists of the Altis digital front end, CJ ART preamp, Nordost cabling, Verity Audio Parsifal speaker system, and ASC room treatment.

A look at part of Arnold's new listening room.

OK, by now you must be thinking "Enough with the system stuff! How does it sound Rich???" Jeez, guys. Keep your shorts on! I'm getting to that.... Now lets see, where was I.... Oh yeah.... So after getting all the tubes installed, we fired up the amps and verified all was working properly. By that time it was time for lunch, so we let the amps warm up while Arnold took me to a great lunch at his favorite Sushi bar. After lunch, we spent a little while optimizing speaker and room treatment positioning. With that done we settled down for some serious listening. Even though these amps were not fully broken in, there is no doubt about it that these are some pretty special amps. The combination of control and dynamics with incredible finesse is really amazing. The rest of Arnold's system is obviously top notch because the presentation was always natural with loads of resolution and plenty of depth and layering. As some of you well know, it is not easy to get big amps to sound this good and it sure sounds like Jud Barber has been able to capture all the wonderful qualities that are present in his smaller OTL amps into these big bad boys. In fact, I'm beginning to think that when it comes to speed and dynamics that the VZN-220s may set some new landmarks for tube amplifiers.

A close up look at one of the VZN-220 amps!

To sum up here, I thought I'd give you some basic specs/info on these amps. Retail price is $18,000 per pair. Output power is 220W into a 8 ohm load which only drops to 160W into a 5 ohm load. Unlike previous Joule-Electra OTLs, these guys have the power supply for the amps fully inboard. Each monoblock amp requires two power cords (detachable 15A IEC types), one is used for the filament power supply and the other powers the rest of the amp. A feedback control allows continuos adjustment of feedback on each amp. Bias adjustment for each tube is easily adjustable from the top of each amplifier.