This may help. I recently auditioned a Boulder 865 integrated amp as well as the Boulder 850 monoblocks with my Wadia 381i CD player (not quite as good as the s7i but a great player nevertheless). I preferred by a slight margin the Wadia direct into the monoblocks as opposed to going through the integrated amp, but both were very good. Now the 850 is a better amp than the 865, but not overwhelmingly so. I thought the Wadia direct was purer, more transparent, perhaps lacking a little of the immediacy that the 865 brought to the table with its preamp. I think the new Wadias are just great minus the preamp, but I also think you can't go wrong using the Wadia with a really good, transparent preamp. The differences are just not that great and you'll get great sound both ways.
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- 66 posts total
- 66 posts total