Boulder 850 monoblock amplifiers

Happy owner of these monoblocks for a while that supported a pair of speakers that demanded the kind of grunt that they provided.  The 800-series of Boulder gear is the entry level, and hoo-boy it costs a bit to get in the door.

Do your research in advance to discover why Boulder gear is priced accordingly.  Top quality innards, highly original circuit design, and one of the precious few component manufacturers that actually makes the chassis for their pieces in-house!  Trust me, that is very rare (especially here in the USA).  Almost every single high-end component company buys their chassis parts either OEM or sub-contracts a shop to manufacture them.  Not so with Boulder.  Dont know what is in the water up there in Boulder, Colorado.  Between Ayre, Jeff Rowland Design Group, and Boulder, there is some no-compromise solid state audio gear coming out of that town.

Anyway, these amps will come with the original manual and box (there is no remote made for these amps).  Like all Boulder gear, this is an XLR-only ride.  You can get clever with those little converter thingees, but similar to working with Naim gear, why bother?  Boulder designs rest on the idea that balanced (aka XLR) is the only way to roll.  I disagree with them on that front, but their methodology certainly is a way to send any noise in your system packing.

As for the sound, you dont get much better when it comes to solid state.  Hmmmm.....I'd say it is somewhere between Gryphon and the Class A Pass Labs stuff, maybe a certain era of Mark Levinson would be comparable.  Hard to say, really.  Definitely not clinical, but certainly not playing around with any tubby tube-like sound that I've heard some other solid-scrape try to play at in order to avoid the edginess that comes with a lot of solid state stuff out there.  Pretty organic, actually, considering the amount of silicon inside. 

Bulletproof in their construction and reliability, you cant really go wrong with these little guys.  Part of the reason I bought them was also because they're Boulder amps that are actually fairly easy to move around.  The mega-high-end  Boulder amps need a friggin' forklift to move them, and you can only use outlets that are reserved for washing machines and the like.  These 850 amps plug into your conventional wall outlet and wont give you a hernia when setting them up.  But they will give you a nice delivery of 'Boulder' sound at a reasonable (by audiophile standards) price.

I cant even think of a speaker smaller than a refrigerator that would make them break a sweat (maybe one of the bigger Apogees?).

Ok - now why I've graded them a 7 and priced them accordingly.  In the lower righthand corner of one of the faceplates, there is a tiny chip / dent.  It is about half the size of the head of a matchstick.  My fault!  I did it at some point (probably being a knucklehead with the vacuum) one day.  I'm going to include a close-up picture at some point.  You cant see it from a few feet away, and as you get closer and stare at the spot it does not even really become apparent until you are a foot or two away.  If it were not for this tiny chip / dent, they would be graded a 9 all day long.

When shipped (together, in one box), it is a heavy package so the flat rate here in the continental US that I'm charging is $65. Canada will be $75.  Hawaii or Alaska will be $85.  They will be insured for the full price that you pay (I'll cover insurance), and there will be no hanky-panky on the value that I put on the customs form if they're going up to Canada, so please dont ask me to fib to your government.

I cover both PayPal and Audiogon listing fees, so that is built into the price too.  Lowballers will be completely and utterly ignored.  Not only will you hurt my feelings, but you'll just confirm my suspicion that both your wife and your kids already hate you and that you're just looking for more attention.

Happy Listening!