What's inside these aluminum/metal cases?

Hey CFB

The circuit board on that Boulder is really nice.
Never seen an internal layout as clean as that one.
You own this amp?

For clarification, the Boulder link given by CFB is of a preamp.

The amps look like decent layouts to me. Large toroidal transformers coupled with some big-assed capacitors, and then a lot of discrete transistors, resistors, relays, coils, and capacitors. Depending on the quality of the discrete components these designs can be very very good. Many quality audio manufacturers use a curve tracer and select pretty closely matched transistors in their products (primarily Field Effect Transistors). A much neater approach is using integrated circuits rather than discrete components for some of the control functions (thermal sensing etc), far less clutter and solder joints. Trouble is they don't sound as good as the discrete designs do. Cooling is always an issue for these guys, unlike a 'puter you can't throw a fan in. The wire...well I suppose they feel they gotta skimp somewhere and for the most part, a DIY'er can change the internal wiring if he so chooses. FWIW my BATVK500 amp is neatly laid out and does give you the impression the behemoth was designed with quality in mind. I wonder what the Xilinx Field Programmable Gate Array is doing in the ML amp? Wonder what code they buried in there? Got my curiosity up for sure. Jeff

p.s. the Boulder product does look well laid out, but bear in mind it's MUCH easier to lay out a preamplifier than an amplifier, particularly if you use multiple chassis to isolate noise. Couple innovative/competent engineering and cost-is-no-object materials to achieve your design goals and you're bound to have a nicely built and (hopefully) great sounding product. Where are the tubes anyway?

Jeff - great post. What is a Xilinx Field Programmable Gate Array and where is it located?

brian's notation as to the boulder 2010's being a preamp is, of course, correct. here's a link showin' the innards of the amp i'll probably purchase to replace my modified jrdg 8ti:

http://www.boulderamp.com/bldramp.1060%20inside.html

-cfb