Herb Reichert

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.

How does that saying go? What stays in Vegas…never gets back to Brooklyn? What happens in Vegas…gets blabbered in Stereophile?

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!

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…