Thoughts from Joule preamp owners?

I am considering the purchase of an LA-150SE, which is apparently in the same ballpark sonically with the 300ME. I owned the LA-150 MkII at one time. While I thought it was ok, the unit I owned seemed to sound a bit dry and even the bass was not as rich or full as the Tom Evans I owned at the same time, or nearly as dynamic as the CAT SL-1 Ultimate MkII that I also owned at that time. I noticed on the Joule website their goals for the SE included trying for "a more fleshed out and musical sonic signature of (the) LA-300ME." There are so many positive responses to this preamp I am considering giving the line another try. I would be comparing this directly to the Tom Evans because I like the idea of having tubes in the preamp and also of having an American made preamp. Have any of you (Pubul57?)compared the Joule directly with Tom Evans?

One sticking point for me is the Alps volume pot and the shunt to ground configuration. I hate Alps pots because they can be noisy, they track horribly at low volumes and they simply feel cheap and insubstantial to me. I understand the Alps has become the de facto standard for manufacturers who want to implement remote volume control economically, but the volume control is certainly key to the performance of any preamp and pot type controls IMO do not measure up to discrete resistor controls. Do any of you feel the Alps has a negative sonic impact on the Joule preamps? Is the Alps also used in the ME edition Joule preamps? Have any of you heard of someone replacing the Alps with a stepped attenuator in the Joule preamps? Is the pot really "out of the signal path" in the shunt to ground design? I have a hard time believing there is not a sonic contribution from using the Alps that couldn't be bettered by using a discrete resistor attenuator. Maybe I am being overly sensitive based on my experience with several "high-end" preamps that I thought were sonically handicapped by using the Alps pot. Any feedback, or is this a non-issue in the way the pots are implemented in the Joule preamps?

Gregfisk, I am glad to hear you are happy with the improvements from MkII to SE. I was very close to making a deal on a new SE earlier this year, especially because of some great specials available through Joule, but ultimately decided to stay away from tubes for reasons of simplicity and because I am stuck with a pair of great amps that only support balanced signals.
I continue to believe the Tom Evans (in the Lithos 7 iteration with the Pulse II power supply) is one of the best sounding preamps available in the $10K and under price range. The used prices are stupid low relative to the sound quality. I finally moved on from mine solely because of the balanced issue.
I am now happily using a very custom SMc Audio preamp that supports balanced inputs and outputs. And it is every bit as good as the Tom Evans, and better in some ways.
I would still jump at a chance to try a LA-450ME!