BOULDER 866 INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER
INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER
Is Boulder’s new 866 the perfect amplifier? It may well be, but even if it isn’t, it’s an amplifier you will keep… and enjoy!… for the rest of your life.
The 866 shows generic icons to identify inputs, but you can replace these with an image of your own, loaded into the amp from your smart phone.
Boulder makes the bold claim that it builds everything it sells entirely in-house, indeed the company claims to be last manufacturer in the USA to be doing so. According to its website: ‘ Along with assembly and testing, every circuit board and piece of metalwork is produced in-house at Boulder’s dedicated facility for unparalleled quality assurance.’
It’s perhaps because of this ‘do it in-house’ build philosophy that Boulder does not update models very often, not least because it needs to recoup its research, engineering and tooling costs for each model. So the new 866 is a very exciting release. It replaces the Boulder 865 integrated amplifier which dates from back in 2007, but the 865 was in essence just a Boulder 810 preamp and 860 power amp coupled on a single chassis, which means that the original design was back beyond the turn of the century. The Boulder 866 is a brand new beast… and what a beast it is! My only slight disappointment about Boulder is that the company is no longer located in its original home in Boulder, Colorado, from whence it took its name. OK, so the company is still does all its design and manufacturing in good ‘ol Colorado, but now all Boulder products are built in Louisville, Colorado… and Louisville just doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.
I guess it’s just lucky the company didn’t start out in that city, otherwise this might have been a review of the Louisville 866 Integrated Amplifier.
THE EQUIPMENT
Boulder has certainly been bold with the front panel of the 866, because it slopes gently backwards. Very few audio equipment manufacturers have been brave enough to use sloping front panels, but it’s a great idea. It makes the controls on the front panel easier to see and easier to use. Not that the 866 has many controls on the front panel anyway—almost everything is done by using the huge (155 × 85mm) full-colour touchscreen display—but the slope still makes it easier to see and use this display.
You might wonder why sloping panels aren’t more common. Back in the day, the reason was that hi-fi components were always stacked one atop the other, so if you built a component with a sloping front panel it couldn’t be stacked, so you’d dramatically reduce the number of potential buyers. These days cost and complexity are the primary factors. It makes the metalwork more difficult, means you can’t put devices such as sockets or potentiometers low down on the panel (not enough room behind them) and so on. But since Boulder CNC routs all its own metalwork from solid blocks of aluminium, metalwork is simply not a problem for them.
That front-panel display can be used to select inputs (you can also do this via your phone, via Android or Apple app) and input selection is made by swiping the panel to the left or to the right over the input icons until the source you’d like to listen to is displayed, after which you just touch that input icon. Initially I did find that the screen was not entirely responsive to my touch, but I quickly got used to the technique I had to use to make it more reliable. By default, the 866 shows generic icons to identify inputs, but you can replace these with an image of your own, which can be loaded into the amp from your smart phone or tablet.
Boulder suggests that you could take a photo of, say, your CD player and load this as the identifier to use as the icon for the input to which you have that CD player connected. Me, I’d probably take a photo of the company’s logo and load this, but I can also see how you might also have fun using unusual photos (say, of your pets) to identify specific inputs. (No doubt fertile minds will think of other photographic subjects that could be used to identify inputs… your favourite performers perhaps?)
However, if you do choose to buy the base (analogue-only) version of the Boulder 866, you won’t have to do much swiping because it has only three inputs. They’re all balanced inputs (via XLR), but there are only three nonetheless, which is probably too few for most users. What were the designers thinking? The obvious thing to do is opt for the ‘digital’ version of the 866 (which was the version supplied to me for this review), which adds optical and AES/EBU digital inputs, USB inputs, and an Ethernet connection.
I say ‘obvious thing to do’ because while the analogue-only version has a recommended retail price of $20,500 you’ll pay only an additional four grand to get all the bells and whistles, so it’s a no-brainer, really. And if you add in the DAC/Streamer card, you’ll discover that the Boulder 866 also becomes a certified Roon endpoint, so you can use that huge full-colour front panel’s display for media browsing, displaying artwork, text and all the other relevant information for which Roon is justifiably famous. (You do, however, need a Roon subscription, currently priced at $120/ year or $700 for a lifetime. If you’re unfamiliar with this unique music management/listening solution, and if you’d like to try before you buy, 14-day free trials are available.)
INTERNAL DAC
Boulder doesn’t like to talk about the DACs it uses in its products because it says the way the DAC is implemented is as important—or even more important—than the DAC itself. Boulder’s Sales Manager, Steve Huntley, says that the DAC section inside the 866 is largely derived from Boulder’s flagship 2120 DAC which uses a fairly uncommon delta/sigma DAC that requires a lot of external circuitry support and is not one of the usual ‘plug and play’ DAC chips that most companies use. Boulder also uses an external digital filter of its own design, rather than one of the ‘off-the-shelf’ filters built into the DAC. ‘ We use this DAC chip because we wanted to create a truly optimised DAC section and are not afraid of the complexity required to implement it ourselves,’ he said. Accepted sample rates: 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4, 192, 352.8, and 384kHz. DSD 1× and 2×. MP3 up to 320kbs. File types include FLAC, WAV, Ogg, AC3, MP3, AIFF, Apple Lossless as well as DSD and network streamable DSD (DSF). All files are upsampled and oversampled to a data rate of 192kHz and data is moved asynchronously.
ROLL YOUR OWN REMOTE
As you can see from the photographs accompanying this review, the touch-screen isn’t the only way to control the Boulder 866. The four buttons to the right of the screen are for (from left to right): Volume Up, Volume Down, Muting, and Stand-By Power (the main power switch being at the rear of the unit). You can also control the 866 remotely, using an r.f.-to-USB remote control, but you have to, as they say, ‘bring your own’. Boulder recommends you purchase one of two remotes available on Amazon (www.tinyurl.com/866-Remote1 or tinyurl.com/866-Remote2) both of which sell for less than $15 (not including shipping). The USB r.f. receiver dongle will use up one of the USB inputs on the rear of the 866, but because there are four, you’ll still have three others available to you.
Boulder has built ‘smarts’ into the 866’s volume and muting circuitry, because you can preset a turn-on volume, as well as set a ‘maximum volume’ level so no-one can destroy your loudspeakers while you’re away. As for the muting circuitry, you can preset that so the output will be attenuated by any level you choose (so long as you choose a level between somewhere between –6dB and –80dB.) The default setting is –20dB. Boulder takes great pains to point out that the signal is attenuated by the level you specify relative to the level at which you’re listening so if, for example, you set the mute level to –40dB, the volume will be decreased by 40dB from that level when you press the ‘Mute’ button.
The DAC section inside the 866 is derived from Boulder’s flagship 2120 DAC which uses a fairly uncommon delta/sigma DAC.
Boulder also uses an external digital filter of its own design, rather than a filter built into the DAC.
I suspect most users will leave it at the default –20dB setting, which I found worked well for me.
The rear panel of the Boulder 866 is fairly sparse, not least because there are only three analogue inputs, as mentioned previously, and a single set of loudspeaker terminals. Boulder is using a terminal type that is popular with high-end amplifier manufacturers, but is actually not my favourite type of terminal because there are no holes at the end for banana plugs, no holes in the posts for stripped wire or pins, and the conductive area is relatively small. You also can’t remove the knobs to fit ring connectors, so spades are your only really sensible option for speaker wire termination.
The digital inputs are almost exactly in the centre, and from left to right are AES (XLR), Ethernet, four USB Type-A connectors and an SPDIF optical digital input (Toslink). The elephant in the digital input room is an RCA SPDIF input, because there isn’t one. I know you can get an RCA/XLR adaptor for the AES input (indeed Boulder makes one—called DABL—available as an accessory) but I think one should have been included as standard. Boulder’s Steve Huntley says of the missing RCA SPDIF input: “optical is common for consumer goods like set top boxes, etc… and AES is the performance preference for most people in places like Japan, China, and the USA who use a CD player as a source and want to go digital out of that to the 866.”
Looking from direct-on at the rear panel you’ll find that Boulder has engraved the lettering then added some black into the engraved section which is a pretty classy—and totally permanent—way of doing it. I was also pleased to see that Boulder has avoided one of my pet hates by mounting its mains power rocker switch sideways, rather than vertically. (When US amplifier manufacturers mount rocker switches vertically, they arrange the wiring so pressing the top of the switch turns the amplifier ‘On’ which is the opposite of the way power switches operate in Australia and the UK.)
IN USE AND LISTENING SESSIONS
The first hurdle for many audiophiles who purchase a Boulder 866 may very well be that the equipment they own doesn’t have balanced outputs. This will mean they will have to make up an ‘unbalanced to balanced cable’ using one of the two methods Boulder describes in its Owner’s Manual, or buy one (though most of the ones available for sale will use a wiring method that Boulder says is inferior). Possibly the best option would be to purchase an RCA to XLR adaptor (Cat PA3800 at Jaycar), though this also uses Boulder’s ‘second-choice’ wiring method. Frankly, given the price Boulder is asking for the 866, I think the company could afford to include either cables or adaptors in the box.
I found firing up the Boulder from cold to be a time-consuming business. When I first pressed the power switch, I thought my review unit was, as they say, ‘dead out of the box’, because nothing at all happened. Then, after six seconds, the screen sprang to life, with a small Boulder logo and a short line underneath displayed on it. But then nothing happened… for a long time. Well, 26 seconds actually, but it seemed longer, after which the screen flashed momentarily and the words ‘ Initializing System’ came on underneath the short line. Then nothing happened… for a long time. Well, 34 seconds actually, but it seemed longer, after which the 866 finally turned on. But then, rather than staying on, it then turned itself off! Whaat?
Initially I thought that I must have accidentally wired the speaker outputs wrongly (those + and – symbols are a little hard to see and there’s no colour coding), or that the amplifier had detected an internal fault and switched itself off for self-protection. But no, it turned out that the 866 had not turned itself off at all, but had just gone straight into Standby mode instead. So I pressed the power button on the front panel, rather expecting a
A hand-built amplifier with a great DAC onboard—and a Roon endpoint—that sounds absolutely superb and has more power than you’ll ever need.
long wait, but thankfully the screen immediately lit up, showed the words ‘ Resuming from Standby’ and six seconds later I was good to go. Phew!
Well… good to go after I’d warmed the amplifier up, which didn’t take too long, because it actually runs pretty hot. All those bars along the sides of the amplifier that look like they were designed by Frank Gehry (the famous architect) and are presumably intended to dissipate heat certainly look fantastic, but they don’t dissipate heat nearly so well as the ugly black finned stuff does! (By the time you read this, the start-up process may have been sped up by a software update (V0.85) released earlier this year, but this newest version was not available prior to my deadline).
The sound. What can I tell you about the sound? It’s not great. By which I mean that it’s excellent… extraordinarily good, in fact. So exceptionally good that you won’t have to spend hours in lengthy listening sessions, auditioning track after track after track in order to establish its quality: you’ll know in the first few instants that you’re listening to a remarkable amplifier. For starters, the 866’s control over bass is exceptional. If you thought your speakers delivered tight, taut and rhythmic bass, you won’t really have heard them until you’ve connected them to Boulder’s 866. The tonal quality, the depth of the bass, the perfect pacing of bass lines, the dynamism revealed by the sound from a close-miked drum kit… the Boulder 866 has it all in spades. No, it’s better than just spades, it’s a full lay-down misère.
To further check out the 866’s power reserves I switched albums and set the volume of Louisa Rose Allen’s ‘Glorious’ to ‘stun’ to check out whether the overblown kick drums and synth bass notes on it would push the 866 into clipping. No chance! Not only did I not hear any clipping, I could not hear any type of distortion at all… the sound remained as clean as a whistle, even though I was playing back so loudly I was essentially listening from the next room in order to protect my hearing. I can truly believe Boulder’s claim for 200-watts per channel into 8 and that it doubles to 400-watts into 4 .
To give my ears a break from the noise and to also try out the Boulder 866’s inbuilt DAC, I switched to a 192/24 recording of ‘Unfold’ where the Kreutzer Quartet plays works by Australian composers Don Banks, Nigel Butterley, Richard Meale and Felix Werder. All the compositions on it depend on perfect timing, yet timing that is mostly organic rather than dictated by the music… as evidenced by Butterley’s String Quartet (1965) where in the second movement, there are no bar lines, and the players are directed that ‘ the upper parts are independent of each other, but each player should relate his part fairly closely to the cello part.’ I found the reproduction to be perfect. The sound of all the instruments was sweet, pure and perfectly accurate, and when low-level sounds died away into the acoustic—such as on Meale’s String Quartet No 1— the silence at the end was absolute. There was absolutely no circuit noise whatsoever audible from the Boulder 866. It’s so noiseless that I’d venture to say that it’s the quietest amplifier I have ever auditioned.
I trialled the DAC section with Art Halperin’s ‘Winds of Change’ which, thanks to the good graces of Barry Diament, of Soundkeeper Recordings, I have in all available digital formats. The Boulder 866 treated each with equanimity. No matter what your preferred digital format, the 866’s DAC section will deliver exactly the musical information recorded, from MP3 through to high-res, after which the analogue amplification that follows will add the coup de grâce.
Zappa’s remastered ‘Apostrophe/Overnight Sensation’ proved to be yet another sonic tour de force from the Boulder 866, from the insane sound of the guitar on Fifty/Fifty, to the trumpet squawk in Zombie Woof and the joy of hearing Zappa’s perfect enunciation of such a perfect line as ‘ like a pink donation to the dragon in your dreams’ ( Dirty Love). Perfectionist that he was, all of Zappa’s recordings are superb for test tracks because he was as fanatical about recorded sound quality as he was about getting his—and everyone else’s— performances perfect.
Listening to Amarillo’s ‘Eyes Still Fixed’ the purity of the sound from Nick O’Mara’s lap steel guitar was true to life, but the sonic transparency with which the Boulder 866 rendered the wordless vocals by Jac Tonks on the title track was jaw-dropping. I listened to her perfect pitching and the way the layers built, both of her voice and the accompanying instruments, with increasing astonishment. Could an amp really sound this good?
Listening to a recording of one of the largest choirs I have heard, singing Handel’s Messiah at Sydney Opera House, the choral sound was just as I remembered from the night (the CD was recorded at the self-same concert I attended). The detailing of the individual voices amongst the full-bore choral onslaught was absolutely astonishing and there was none of the blurring that I’ve heard from other amplifiers. The sound-staging was such that I pinpointed the positions of the soloists instantly, and they were positioned on the reproduced stage exactly where they were standing on the real stage on the night. The sound from the massed sopranos was so beautiful it brought tears to my eyes on the night, and it did so again when I was auditioning the Boulder 866… and when an amplifier produces sound so unbelievably good that it evokes an actual physical emotional response, I can tell you that you don’t really need to continue auditioning. You know everything you need to know.
CONCLUSION
The new Boulder 866 is more powerful than the amplifier it replaces and it’s also electronically and sonically superior to that amplifier. It’s also much better-looking… or at least it is in the opinion of everyone that I asked. Because of this I was—quite frankly—expecting Boulder to be charging quite a lot more for it than it is. Indeed I was more than a little surprised to discover that a standard Model 866 costs less than the equivalent 865 did when it was available. Of course the price rises if you add the digital option (and you’d be mad not to add in the DAC!) but considering that you’re buying what is essentially a custom hand-built amplifier with a great DAC onboard—and a Roon endpoint—that sounds absolutely superb and has more power than you’ll ever need, you are most definitely getting top value for your hard-earned. This is an amplifier you will keep… and enjoy!… for the rest of your life. Jutta Grkinich
Readers interested in a full technical appraisal of the performance of the Boulder 866 Integrated Amplifier should continue on and read the LABORATORY REPORT published on the following pages. Readers should note that the results mentioned in the report, tabulated in performance charts and/or displayed using graphs and/or photographs should be construed as applying only to the specific sample tested.