If boulder is tops what is second tier?

Albert,

Wow, I have never seen you come out and blast someone like that!! If true, which I have no doubt that it is, it is very disheartning to know one of the higher profile manufacturers holds this view. Makes you wonder what he voices his gear with, Lamp cord??

Johnny

I spent some time with the Boulder phono as well as amps. They are really well built and have an abundance of really nice aluminum. They sound really nice too, but so do a lot of other things that cost a lot less. I think that there are more than a few phono stages that might match the boulder very well. If I had unlimited funds the boulder would probably not be on my short list but I can see why it would be on some peoples.

I always knew there was a reason I liked the moving force behind Boulder. How refreshing to find a SOA mfg. decrying the cable & pwr. cord cant populating the industry, it`s mags, E zines & attendant forums.

Interesting remark by the Boulder guy, about how all cables sound the same. Maybe, with a Boulder (or some other amp) they do. After all, the cables do something to the electrical load which the amp sees, and some amps handle loading anomalies better than others.

I guess my amps are not ideal, because Goertz cables do sound better than zip cord. Just a bit.

I haven't heard the Boulder but I certainly agree with Albert, Drjoe and Mike. A front cover spash in Stereophile or TAS means nothing, or at least nothing about the sound. A high price correlates to large profits, but not necessarily to anything else.

I've A/B'd the Lamm LP2/LL2 with my much less expensive Nick Doshi Alaap, in the Lamm owner's system. The Lamm owner immediately put them up for sale and placed an order with Nick. Sonically, there really was no comparison.

During an A/B in my system the Aesthetix Rhea/Calypso performed better than the higher priced Lamms, but they still couldn't match Nick's preamp. The Aesthetix owner sold them and ordered an Alaap, just as the Lamm owner did.

The same thing has happened with the Aesthetix Io/Callisto Sig. (I didn't hear that comparison but the outcome was the same.)

Of the commercial preamps I've heard, the VAC Renaissance came closest to matching the Alaap. It didn't have quite the frequency extension for MC and the line stage wasn't quite as natural sounding with digital sources. But the differences were subtle. If I had to own a name brand with an expensive look, I'd be happiest with a VAC based my experiences so far. I presume VAC's top of the line model outplays the Renaissance, it's visually spectacular and it's a lot less money than a Boulder.