"the boulder 2060 just sounds lifeless, clinical, analytical and it is probably in need of either its matching preamp or just
a pair of Rockport speakers"
Whitecamaross, you just about nailed it... Except for things markedly improving when 2060 is fed through a boulder pre!
A few years ago, at RMAF, I had the opportunity of listening to a system consisting of Boulder CDp, Boulder 2010, and Boulder 2060 feeding into a pair of Vienna Die Muzik. The audience was about 10 people... The session lasted some 3 hours.
We switched back and forth between the Boulder 2060 and the Rowland M312 stereo amp. System remained invariant throughout, except for the amps.
We listen from a large selection of classical, jazz, rock, and modern.
Unfortunately for the boulder, just about everyone concurred that the Boulder sounded blanched, sterile, cold uninvolving, lacking harmonic exposure, authority, transient linearity, not to talk about staging, imaging, and overall macro/micro detail compared to the ROwland M312... Which at that time costed some 25% of the 2060.
Couple years after that we tried the same using the Boulder 3000 series amp contrasted by M312.. Unfortunately, results were very similar... A "lunch" was "eaten"... but it was the M312 doing the feeding, not the Boulder amps.
Thus, I am not faintly surprised that SimAudio and Luxman are outperforming the Boulder behemoth.
Regards, G.