I haven't heard the 1000-watt, sixtysomething grand Boulders, but I do prefer the mid-priced thirtysomething grand Boulders to the Halcros.
I recently heard an amplifier that, to my ears, significantly outclasses all other large solid state amps. That is the 400-pound, thirty-grand GamuT stereo amp. I would imagine the monoblocks would be even better.
When I heard the big GamuT amp at CES 2002, it was driving a pair of Wisdom Audio speakers, which I'd previously heard being driven by several large amplifiers, including a comparably-priced pair of very well respected monoblocks. I had been so far unimpressed with the Wisdoms. But with the big GamuT amp, the Wisdoms were full of life and impact with absolutely no harshness. In fact, the volume level was so loud I had to shout to my girlfriend to communicate with her, but the music sounded utterly natural and didn't hurt our ears! In my experience only unamplified live music sounds so good at such high volumes.
The thing that really struck me about the big GamuT was the coherence - it was like what you get from a single-ended triode amp. I think it's because the GamuT uses just a SINGLE ultra high quality MOSFET per side, so instead of hearing a chorus of closely-matched transistors you're hearing a single voice. And I'm sure the behemoth power supply didn't hurt.
I heard the amps MikeLavigne mentioned, and the Boulders weren't driving speakers in the same league as the Lumenwhites that the Edge amps had. Those are both superb amps, and so is the Boulder, but the big GamuT just does things I've never heard an amplifier do before. And since I've heard the Wisdoms on several occasions and never liked them before, the GamuT gets extra credit in my book for bringing them to life.
Well I'm starting to sound too much like a salesman here, and frankly I don't even have the big GamuT on display yet. But if I had to choose my last solid state amplifier today, that would be it.
