Herb Reichert

Up and down the CES hallways, in line for coffee, and at every dinner, people kept asking, "Did you go to the MoFi room?…"

Rogue now introduces their first headphone amp/preamplifier, the RH-5 ($2495), which not only looks sleek and timeless in that oval-windowed Rogue way, it features three line-level RCA inputs and one pair of balanced XLR inputs.

Last year I liked these HRT (High Resolution Technologies) Stage loudspeakers ($500/pair, plus $800 for companion Sound Anchor stands), and this year I love them…

The NAD room was populated by a lot of tall men in suits—all of whom seemed dedicated to preserving and enhancing NAD's tradition of offering exceptionally high-value amplification, à la the legendary NAD 3020 integrated amp…

Today's audio world is beginning to be populated by innovative integrated amplifiers that fit into our homes and lives in new ways: products that are not only practical and user-friendly but can make us happy when we walk in the door and see the thing sitting on a desk or shelf—waiting for its master to touch and appreciate it.

When I applied for this fabulist audio-preacher gig, John Atkinson protested, "But Herb, aren't you a triode-horn guy?"

"No, that was decades ago! Today I'm still a bit of a Brit-fi guy, but my mind remains wide open."

However: As a professional reviewer, I am biased toward affordable, lovingly engineered audio creations made by family businesses with traditional artisanal values. I enjoy solid-state as much as tubes—often more!

My passion for listening to music through headphones is fueled by the enhanced sense of intimacy and extra feeling of connectedness I experience in rediscovering recordings I already love. You know the old audiophile cliché: It's like hearing my record collection for the first time. High-quality headphones provide a sharper-than-box-speaker lens that lets me experience lyrics, melodies, and instrumental textures more close-up and magnified.