Anyone else use rtings as part of researching headphones?

[paulraphael]

I used any and all data I could find including rtings, crinacle, oratory1990, diy audio heaven, r/headphones, and even head-fi.

Yeah, I think for headphones it's especially helpful to have many sources, because you see different looking measurements of the same thing.

I bought my headphones based partly on Rtings' review, and I love them. Amir got much worse results, and didn't recommend them. So who knows? In this case maybe I'm luck that rtings got to me first. I doubt there's this much ambiguity with other products.

 

[3125b]

I'm not a big fan of rtings rating system, display style and measurement visualization, I think it's pretty misleading for newcomers.
However the data itself is of course helpful, especially because they have a good number of main stream consumer product reviews, that other reviewers don't cover.

If I want to look up a random headphone, I usually go to AutoEq first. They have measurements of a huge number of headphones from different sites all in one place - however I think they should mark the sources of the individual measurements more clearly because they differ quite substantially in gear and compensation.

 

[threni]

I went there when I didn't know any better (we're talking reddit/head-fi levels of ignorance here). Having said that, I still think it has its uses. Like they say about newspapers: if you don't read them, you're uninformed; if you do, then you're misinformed. I don't understand their ratings, especially where you can slide a control around and make the numbers change but at least they're not just making stuff up randomly and I ended up buying a pair of HD 660S which are the best headphones I've ever used.

 

[Sean Olive]

I went there when I didn't know any better (we're talking reddit/head-fi levels of ignorance here). Having said that, I still think it has its uses. Like they say about newspapers: if you don't read them, you're uninformed; if you do, then you're misinformed. I don't understand their ratings, especially where you can slide a control around and make the numbers change but at least they're not just making stuff up randomly and I ended up buying a pair of HD 660S which are the best headphones I've ever used.

There is definitely correlation between Rtings FR measurements and mine done on a GRAS 45-CA-10, so I frequently use this site to compare mine -There are some differences due to:

1. They use a Head Acoustics HMC. but they claim to have modified the Harman Target so its compatible with their manikin
2. They make measurements of AE/OE headphones on 4-8 employees which are averaged and spliced onto the HMC measurements below 500 Hz. These human measurements are intended to give more realistic leakage measurements as well as mechanical coupling to a human head. Most of these mechanical effects are between 80-200 Hz.

I have also started to compare our ANC measurements to their measurements.

I

 

[devopsprodude]

I went there when I didn't know any better (we're talking reddit/head-fi levels of ignorance here). Having said that, I still think it has its uses. Like they say about newspapers: if you don't read them, you're uninformed; if you do, then you're misinformed. I don't understand their ratings, especially where you can slide a control around and make the numbers change but at least they're not just making stuff up randomly and I ended up buying a pair of HD 660S which are the best headphones I've ever used.

The sliders are for filtering results based on preferences and don't change the ratings of particular headphones, IMO. It's nice to be able to say I only want headphones with a comfort rating of 6, bass 6, cost between $100 and $600, soundstage at least 7 and get a list of the few that meet the criteria.

 

[Deleted member 27694]

I like rtings very much and enjoy their content. But for me eg the AKG K371 (7,4) is a far more neutral sounding hp than the DT 770 (7,8) and the Etymotic ER4XR is a lot better for neutral sound than the 6,6 indicates.

 

[devopsprodude]

I like rtings very much and enjoy their content. But for me eg the AKG K371 (7,4) is a far more neutral sounding hp than the DT 770 (7,8) and the Etymotic ER4XR is a lot better for neutral sound than the 6,6 indicates.

Yep, their ratings definitely aren't perfect.