Herb Reichert

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.

If I told you that Pass Laboratories' INT-60 integrated amplifier ($9000) was engineered by meth-lab trolls, its faceplate was wonky, its transformers buzzed, and it made every instrument sound like a tambourine, you'd think I was a crackpot with some kind of axe to grind, right? Because I suspect that, like me, you've never experienced or even read about a Pass Labs amp that didn't sound good.

Let us pretend . . . you have a pair of loudspeakers that have proven themselves to sound articulate and musically responsive in your room, without excess boom, bloom, or frail leanness. They mate with your décor and impress your friends. But maybe you're bored, and feel certain that your speakers would sound better with a better amplifier than the one you have now. Maybe you feel an urge to spend money? Perhaps a new amp will make your records sound the way you imagine they should sound?

I have had these thoughts many times.

On the day before RMAF 2016 began, German audio manufacturer Elac announced that they have entered an agreement to acquire Peter Madnick's American company, Audio Alchemy…

I used to be a DIY guy, but now that I work for Stereophile, I'm living like Jay Z &#151and there's no time for sawing wood or screwing raw drivers into boxes…

The inside of the Brinkmann Nyquist is beautiful, like a jet fighter…

My brain began to spin, wondering how the thing actually works. What keeps the record on the platter? What keeps the tonearm on the record?