Initially, I ran the 2108 into the Ypsilon PST 100 silver preamplifier. From the start, the 2108 possessed excellent dynamic authority and bass. It also established a wide and deep soundstage. But I found it sounded best, as you would expect, with the 3010. There the match was very efficacious indeed.

Drums proved in many ways to be the most revealing. On the album Special Requests (And Other Favorites) on HighNote Records by the great jazz guitarist Kenny Burrell, I relished the wide and open soundstage that the Boulder provided. But what particularly struck was the union of control and relaxation that was so palpably clear in the drumming on the LP. As with the CDs I auditioned via the 3010, there was that spooky union of effortlessness and command. My sense is that audiophiles are accustomed to thinking that too much control can impinge upon the natural flow of music. Somehow the extreme grip of the Boulder actually allows the music to breathe even more freely. Indeed, it was spooky to listen to the rhythmic steadiness of Clayton Cameron’s drums cruising along in the background on the Burrell LP. Here was accuracy in service of musicality.

Drums come to the fore on an old favorite album of mine, Victor Feldman’s The Artful Dodger on the Concord label. The tonal accuracy of the 2108 allows it to present the urgently expressive drumming of Colin Bailey with a real sense of verisimilitude. It sounded like depth charges were going off in my room as he pounded the drums on “Agitation,” a fiendishly complex bebop number that features Asian chords and pentatonic scales. Then there is that pellucid sound that the Boulder 2108 and 3010 bring to the table. On an Erato recording of Maurice André playing a sonata in G major by Jean-Baptiste Loeillet, I was struck by the cavernous amount of air that the 2108 pulled off the LP. You could almost feel the damp cathedral walls as André’s trumpet, canvassing the highest reaches of its register, resounded through the St. Pierre church in Strasbourg. Rarified territory.

As always, there are some caveats. If you’re wedded to tubes, the Boulder is not going to give you a sumptuous tonal balance or the kind of holographic soundstage that is often associated with glowing bulbs. The Boulder is after different game, which is to say that it’s seeking fidelity to the source. Its incredible rhythmic accuracy and clarity are pretty much bound to exert a spellbinding effect. At times, I was left looking rather like a goggle-eyed Bertie Wooster contemplating an acute observation from Jeeves. If you have a chance to listen to the Boulder gear, let it fly, as it were. I suspect that you, too, will find it a highly addictive experience.

Link do recenzji: Boulder 2108 – The Absolute Sound

The Lyra Atlas Lambda playing back the "Bach Suites for Unaccompanied Cello" (Mercury/Analogue Productions SR3-9016), the production and mastering of which was supervised by Wilma Cozart Fine and Robert Fine's son Tom, created a believable, well-textured, 3D picture of a musician seated before me playing the instrument that no digits have ever produced in my listening experience: no unnaturally hard edges nor unnaturally soft and "romantic" ones. The picture of the cello was tightly focused, the surrounding space precisely delineated against a black background. When Starker tugs that bow across the strings, if it doesn't tug your midsection, what's the point? The 2108 produces both a sense of soaring exultation in the upper registers and gritty drama in the lowest one.

Playing the same Suite ("#2 In D Minor") through the Ypsilon VPS-100 produced a different picture: somewhat warmer, more diffuse, with more midband presence. The cello's image was less precise and more expansive, with less definition between the instrument and the space. However, the instrument's bass register produced a thrilling, majestic swell through the Ypsilon that the Boulder either suppressed or delivered with less added coloration, depending on your sonic perspective and tastes. Though clearly different, I found both appealing. The Ypsilon avoids bulbous bloom and the Boulder steers clear of sounding timbrally drab. Each one, though, veered in one direction or the other.

Afrobeat inventor and longtime Fela Kuti drummer Tony Allen passed away April 30 at 79 years old. In 2017, he co-composed and arranged all of the tracks on The Source (Blue Note France 5778336—also reissued by Blue Note America from the same pressing). This is a fascinating jazz–Afrobeat fusion album produced with no digital intervention. ("AAA Triple Analog" is on the front cover.) It's infused with brass and reeds and features Blur's Damon Albarn on piano. It's a perfect test of the 2108's rendering of space, dynamics, timbre, transient precision—everything (but string tone. No strings attached.). This recording produced a warm sound through both the Ypsilon and the Boulder. You'd enjoy it both ways. There was more slam in the drums and a greater sense of stick-on-metal cymbals through the Boulder, plus more expansive front-to-back instrumental delineation, but I didn't favor one over the other.

Still, the 2108 will not please bloom-fanciers. In navel terms, sonically, the Boulder is an innie, the Ypsilon more of an outie. The Audio Research Ref 3 I reviewed a few years ago was a way-outie. All are far out as far as I'm concerned. Boulder detractors who think their products are too analytical, sounding dry and bleached, ought to give the 2108 a listen, just as Lyra detractors ought to give the Atlas Lambda a listen before returning to their Koetsu silo. The 2108 is none of those things. It is very musical, plus, like the original 2008, it is granite-like in the best possible sense. 

Link do recenzji: Boulder 2108 – Stereophile

Link: Boulder 2108 – The Absolute Sound – Editors' Choice 2023

Link: Boulder 2108 – Stereophile – Recommended Components 2024

Link: Boulder 2108 – Stereophile – Recommended Components 2023

Link: Boulder 2108 – Stereophile – Recommended Components 2023

Link: Boulder 2108 – Stereophile – Recommended Components 2022

Link: Boulder 2108 – Stereophile – Recommended Components 2022

Link: Boulder 2108 – Stereophile – Recommended Components 2021

Link: Boulder 2108 – Stereophile – Recommended Components 2021

Link: Boulder 2108 – Stereophile – Recommended Components 2020