Premiere Design

If bigger is better, Boulder's new 3050 monoblock power amp is clearly among the best. This behemoth was unveiled at CES before being completely finished—the company is waiting for the transformers to arrive—but the specs are enough to make any audiophile drool.

Photo by Erick Lichte

Weighing in at about 400 pounds, the 3050 comes with a 75-pound cut-granite base. It can output up to 1500 watts of pure class-A power into 8Ω thanks to four toroidal transformers and 120 bipolar output devices. To achieve that kind of oomph, it requires a dedicated 240V AC circuit, ideally with a current capacity of 30 amps!

The 3050 will be made in mirror-image pairs, and Boulder has already received several orders, which, at about $180,000/pair, is a testament to the company's stellar reputation. In this case at least, it seems that bigger really is better!