Recommendations and thoughts for end game speakers and amps

You will love the 866 and the Rockports….sounds like you were at Soundings in Denver. (The Nordost recommendation). Hopefully you got the digital version of the 866, its quite amazing for the miniscule cost to upgrade. Its the best $20,000 solid state integrated amp in my opinion and it only costs $15,000! I’ve purchased three 866’s from Soundings and Jeff is outstanding. They are a fantastic dealer IMO.

The Rockports are exceptional as well. Ignore those telling you its foolish to spend this much….it isnt if you have it and enjoy music. Its highly likely they havent heard anything of this caliber or they wouldnt have said anything. Reach out to Boulder and ask about speaker cables….its actually the amp that is more particular about cables than speakers but you dont have to go crazy. I found the Tellurium Q Black to be a nice power cable for the 866. Its not that fussy, even a Shunyata would be nice. Boulder and exceptional power supplies are synonomous. Its a dead quiet amp.  Might I suggest that you shop used/certified Gen 5 pre owned Transparent speaker cables. Thats probably what is inside your Rockports.

You will love your new setup.

@co93 plus 1,000!

It never ceases to amaze me how many suggestions are offered when the person suggesting has not heard: the amp nor the speakers nor the amp/speakers with their recommendation for cables. Someone suggests cable A and they have no clue how it will interact with the amp. They suggest its the best speaker cable for speaker B when its the amp/speaker cable interaction that matters most.

Then....then there is the occasional dealer who chimes in after the OP has clearly stated that they ordered a Boulder 866 and Rockport speakers and offer up something like this: "I took a Whatchmacallit version 23 over to a customer's home the other day and he and his wife both loved it more than anything they've ever heard and they have a 7 year old cat". Oh well...to the OP, stay your course, you heard what you heard and cables for the Boulder-Rockport combo won't be difficult or terribly expensive to sort. Also, the power supply in the 866 is so well designed and robust, you don't go crazy with a power cord...almost any wwell designed and decent cord will get the job done.