Analog Obsession: Under the Hood Part 1: CineMag’s Tom Reichenbach
By Will Shanks

“Under the Hood” examines key components for UA products and allows you to meet the source face to face. We look at the nuances of what makes the parts special, and why they are specifically chosen to be under-the-hood ingredients in the making a UA product.

In our first installment, I interview Tom Reichenbach, President of Cinemag Transformers in Canoga Park, California. CineMag manufactures audio transformers for several Universal Audio products. CineMag has a long history with Universal Audio, and can be traced back to UA’s earliest manufacturing days when Bill Sr. and Tom’s father, Ed Reichenbach, worked together.

Will: Hi Tom. I originally became familiar with CineMag audio transformers from my days in UA’s manufacturing department. I believe we’ve been using your parts since we began shipping the 2-610. Lately I’ve been hearing the CineMag name in ever-expanding circles. Can you tell me a bit about the history of the company and about CineMag today?

Tom with his late father, Ed Reichenbach

Tom: Hi Will. Thank you for taking the time with me to discuss some of the history of CineMag and some of the reasons why we have been called many times one of the best-kept secrets in audio transformers.

The history of CineMag really goes back to the early 1940s when my father, Ed Reichenbach, was a transformer designer at Altec-Lansing. Starting when I was 10 years old, Dad had me working in his own shop building audio and aerospace transformers. Needless to say, audio transformers are my passion because I am still at it and doing ever more in the field.

Dad went on to work at Electrodyne for their in-house transformer division. He then left that company to form Reichenbach Engineering, Inc., along with his partner, Betty Lou Johnson. Of course, I worked for him for many years there. We developed and manufactured the vast majority of the line of transformers that Deane Jensen sold under the name of Jensen Transformers by Reichenbach Engineering.

While I was working at Reichenbach Engineering, I formed CineMag. That was in 1979. I manufactured analog tape heads and audio transformers.

Dad passed away in 1986, and a few years later I left the company. Betty continued it until she retired. By then, I had brought in a partner, David Geren, and incorporated CineMag. David was an old friend of my father’s from the Electrodyne days who had gone on to become a lawyer. Like me, he is a fanatic about audio transformers and hardly practices law anymore. David and I bought out Reichenbach Engineering and brought all of its intellectual property into CineMag.

CineMag’s story is one of slow but persistent growth. There is a bourgeoning demand placed on us to meet OEM needs as well as the requirements for the do-it-yourself people experimenting with audio transformers. We are no longer the best-kept secret in audio transformers, as many of our OEM customers have told us over the years.

Will: I understand that by extension, UA has had connections with the company for many years, and that when it was your father’s company, it was one of Bill Sr.’s sources for Universal Audio/UREI components. Is it also true that your father even helped Bill eventually set up UREI to make their own transformers?

Tom: Yes, it is true. Reichenbach Engineering designed and manufactured many of UREI’s transformers. My father eventually helped Bill Sr. set up his own in-house transformer capability and did the engineering on many of those designs. Dad was always generous with his time and expertise, to a fault.

Old UREI data sheets still under file!

Will: Most of UA’s products incorporate input and output transformers. Although technically unnecessary, clearly we have seen a major resurgence for use in pro audio products. What’s your take on the new transformer renaissance for audio?

Tom: Actually, Will, transformers do things for which there is no other good engineering solution. A lot of discerning engineers are disappointed with transformerless audio.

Transformers are an imperative because you cannot get galvanic isolation in an analog circuit without one, unless you are willing to kill the circuit’s performance. If you need to properly isolate a high-voltage circuit from where the user can come into contact with it and be injured, the only viable choice is a transformer. Capacitors are used in some circuits for coupling, but consider the fact that they are foils wrapped with a thin layer of dielectric material, which is prone to puncture failure when subjected to transient voltages. If you need stellar CMRR performance, which is a must for good circuit performance in the real world, you have to go to a lot of trouble to obtain it without a transformer. Transformers can be provided with Faraday shielding from the outside world, while active circuit topologies do not allow for that.

For the last eight years, we have put in a lot of time and effort defining what we think constitutes quality “transformer sound.” We believe that it is inadequate to have merely the lowest THD. We even went to the expense and trouble of setting up our own hydrogen furnace to determine how we want our laminations to be processed and annealed. We spent countless hours working on designs and lamination formulations. Then we listened to them with some of our OEM customers whom we consider to have highly qualified listening ability. Finally, we spent a lot of time with our lamination vendors scaling up to meet our proprietary specifications and production quantity needs.

What we have learned, Will, and as you certainly know from your own experience, is that the public is more aware than ever of the importance of high-quality analog equipment. Today’s audio engineers are very aware of the importance of high-quality transformers in making this happen.

Tom working up a transformer at the mill

Transformers do things for which there is no other good engineering solution.  A lot of discerning engineers are disappointed with transformerless audio.-- Tom Reichenbach

Will: Transformers are often seen as a key element to the signature sound of a product. In layman’s terms, how is it possible to tune a transformer to specific sonic characteristics?

Tom: Being engineers, it is difficult to give a layperson’s type of response, and it would take a lengthy dissertation to describe it. Typically, we first talk about a new design with the engineer, who almost always knows at most only a little about transformer engineering. What we get from him is what his general electrical requirements are and a good idea of his circuit topology. Often, there are physical size restraints that we have to design to. We then talk about how he wants it to sound. Typically, we only get subjective information such as degree of warmth, brightness (or lack thereof), transparency, et cetera. That is, terms that cannot be defined directly in engineering terms. We then take all of this and, having a good idea of how the circuit will behave, we work up the design.

The transformer winder is set up for preparation

Will: Is it then possible to use these techniques to tune the transformer to less-than-ideal but nonetheless "musical" specifications? Often UA runs across vendors who simply cannot understand our desire to cling to outdated items in their parts catalog. Do you find yourself looking to archaic techniques or materials to fill a customer’s parts needs?

Tom: We do not think in terms of what is “ideal” or “outdated.” This is the biggest fallacy in high-quality audio. Mozart, if asked about editing his work, would have said that it would suffer if even one note were removed or added. However, we are constantly subjected to abstractions of his compositions in advertising and movies and the audience generally likes the result.

The transformer industry is dramatically different than it was 50 years ago. Even the raw materials for the laminations are very different. We know that it is practically impossible at any cost to exactly duplicate the materials that were used then. Modern materials have very desirable performance enhancements. What we do is use the enhanced performance of modern material compositions, but process them to keep the advantages of the new while at the same time keeping--and even enhancing--the desirable sonic characteristics.

The winding techniques have not radically changed over the last half century. However, we do get more consistent results today because of computer-controlled winding machines. This helps our customers, such as Universal Audio, to get consistent results from unit to unit. Thus, we do not rely on archaic techniques. We keep up with the leading edge of transformer technology. We just pay strict attention to the disciplines involved in consistently delivering the sonics that our customers have come to expect. CineMag audio transformers, as a result, have the sonic characteristics specified by our customers, plus unit-to-unit uniformity.

Will: Often, UA must custom order parts to our design needs. Is this common? Or is it more common to buy off-the-shelf when it comes to transformers?

Tom: We have a library of designs that goes back to the early 1950s. Many of our OEM customers, just like UA, are interested in those designs for their new products. You might think that by now we have just about every possible design already worked out. However, we are often asked to design completely new transformers or to take old designs and add on other capabilities. It is limited only by the imagination of the circuit designers. This is one of the reasons why we are always excited to come into work. TGIM (Thank Goodness It’s Monday) is our motto.

The transformer punch press seals the final canister

Will: Has a customer’s suggested design ever become an off-the-shelf product?

Tom: It is quite unusual for a customer to come to us with a design that is ready for manufacture. Over the last half century we have only seen a few that were close to that point of development before we saw it. One was for the Audio Precision output transformer, which was originally manufactured by Reichenbach Engineering and distributed by Jensen.

We always retain ownership of transformer designs, and with that the right to eventually add them to our list of available products. For new designs, though, we do not make them available to the general public for a number of years. Some of today’s most popular standard products were originally designed for companies like QuadEight and Eelctrodyne and--of course--UREI/Universal Audio.

The lamination furnace prepares the anealment

Will: What sets CineMag apart from other transformer manufacturers?

Tom: There remain only a handful of audio transformer companies devoted to the highest-performance portion of the business. We are not in this business to make tens of thousands of transformers every month and cut every corner to maximize profit. We are devoted to the craftsmanship that goes into each and every transformer. We are passionate about pushing the envelope for the best sonics and delivering truly wonderful “transformer sound.” We push ourselves all of the time to figure out ways to improve the sonics. This is an incremental task, but over the long haul there are significant results.

Will: I was actually born in Canoga Park, where CineMag is based. In the '70s, my mom used to take me to a health food restaurant and market called “Follow Your Heart” in downtown. Is it still there?

Tom: It is still there selling only vegan food. Being a hunter, though, I still like my steaks medium-rare.

Will: Great talking with you, Tom! See you at the NAMM show!

Tom: David and I look forward to seeing you and all of the UA people there, too!

Universal Audio is proud to use all CineMag transformers in our recently announced LA-610 Signature Edition!

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