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https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/reviews/review-boulder-866-integrated-amp-r968/

 The analog and digital version certainly isn’t inexpensive at $14,450, but it’s a game-set-match component, just add speakers. The 866 Integrated looks really nice on my desk sitting next to my iMac and my headphone stand. The metal chassis is 100% Boulder, making it impossible to misidentify this amp as that from another company. The fit and finish are second to none. When it comes to sound quality, the main reason we are all into this wonderful hobby, the 866 Integrated is fantastic. 

I wrote at the start of this review that an amp must be fantastic or else I’d hear its flaws through the SR1a headphones. The Boulder 866 delivers the goods flawlessly at all volume levels. I played everything from test tracks (not really fun, but necessary for evaluation) to tracks that grip me emotionally, and the 866 handle them all with ease. Reproducing incredibly wide dynamic range on bombastic symphonic pieces and the very fine details in Jewel Kilcher’s voice that bring out the emotion of an 18 year old busker from Homer, Alaska, the Boulder 866 is an all-in-one that can do it all.

Suffice it to say that, as with every Benchmark product I’ve used or reviewed, everything works smoothly, precisely, flawlessly. I must single out for special mention the volume control. While the whole unit is completely relay controlled, with a total of forty “precision relays switching high-precision metal-film resistors,” each channel has its own gain control with 256 steps in 0.5dB increments. An accelerator facilitates rapid movement up and down the range while preserving the 0.5 steps, while exact channel-to-channel balance is maintained regardless of changes in level (if you’ve altered the balance to favor one channel, the imbalance is preserved through any level changes until you alter it again). The volume control is designed to generate a light “ticking” or “clicking” sound when used, which I liked. For one thing, it sounds cool; for another, the steps are so fine that without it you might not know you’ve made a change. By far, without question this is the best volume control I have ever encountered, capable of finer resolution of level increments than any in my experience (hard to imagine a set of conditions in audio usage where finer gradations would be required)