"Since two weeks I own a Boulder 1160 Amp. It replaced a pair of Nuprime Reference 20. The Nuprimes were heavily modified. Duelund silver Bypass Caps, Neotech UP OCC silver internal wiring, pure silver power wiring, WBT nextgen silver binding posts and rca, synergistic orange fuses...
I also heard the new Nuprime Evos in my system. Nuprime are great amps but - the Boulder destroys them. It is so much more revealing, has tons more resolution, is as musical but less coloring, has better Control. The Boulder is my last amp. Main negative point is that it produces a lot of heat but I have to live with that."
I don’t see the relevance here. You have a discontinued modded $7600 amp and you are comparing to a brand new $27,000 amp. I would hope the more expensive amp is better. What if you had done the same mods to the $8000 Nuprime Reference? I bet it would be better but still not in the league with the Boulder. Nuprime, I believe, uses two ferrite core inductors in series with the output signal. One is bad enough....but two? I asked Nuprime a couple of years ago if they were working on a GaN based amp and they said they were and that they were ahead of the curve......well, not a peep from them since. Meanwhile, you have a ton of GaN based amps due to arrive any minute, including the $20K 500 watt mono blocks from Mytek.....(suppose to be shipping in July). Now that would be a good A/B with the Boulder. What if Boulder took its super input stages and combined it with a GaN based class D output stage. Then their amps would be far cheaper (way less heavy) and I bet would still sound just as good. Of course, they are not going to do this because it would piss off all the old customers who paid more for back breaking boxes (but someone else will). Class D is more complicated than class A/B so EVERYTHING has to be done right. You cannot just throw a bunch of cheap op amp inside and think you have something good.
The class D revolution is just starting.....within a few years those 100lb class A/B amps will all be boat anchors....he he.
