Audiophilepure

https://www.stereophile.com/content/boulder-866-integrated-amplifi

I ate up the beautiful midrange on Rickie Lee Jones’s subversive take on “Sympathy for the Devil” from The Devil You Know (16/44.1 FLAC file, Concord); hers is a devil you want to pal around with, come what may. I was enamored of the natural sweetness, radiance, and warmth of soprano Elly Ameling singing about the stars of heaven in Schubert’s “Die Sterne,” with Dalton Baldwin on piano, on the indispensable four-CD anthology The Artistry of Elly Ameling (16/44.1 FLAC, Philips/Qobuz). Jones and Ameling’s very different voices sounded just as I expected them to sound. Next, lured back to the devil’s territory by the final “Sacrificial Dance” from Ludovic Morlot and the Seattle Symphony’s take on Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (24/96 WAV file, Seattle Symphony Media), I again found colors spot-on. I may not have heard shake-the-floorboards bass (footnote 4), but the piccolo had realistic bite, the rhythms were firm, and the music was thrilling.

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