Herb Reichert

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.

In the room with the most beautiful speakers, they played Norah Jones…

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…

In the room shared by NAD and PSB, I got to meet the latter's Paul Barton and listen intimately to Francis Albert Sinatra…

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?

I flew to Denver in a tin can…