This is the first in a series of FAQs for Audio Science Review.
1. Who created Audio Science Review?
The founder is Amir Majidimehr. You can find out more about me by clicking on my background link in my signature. Briefly, I have had a long career in computing, audio, video and imaging software and hardware. This enables me to assess performance of audio products at a deeper level.
2. What is the origin of Audio Science Review (ASR)?
Original aim was to bring published audio research to a more understandable level. With such research usually behind pay walls, it makes it hard for audiophiles to access and understand the decades of formal work in what makes good fidelity HiFi. A forum style website was considered to be more ideal as to allow deep exchange of ideas/discussions as opposed to say, blog format.
After a while, a request was made to test low-cost DACs to see what $99 can buy. Having owned an Audio Precision analyzer, I thought it wouldn’t be too expensive to buy those and test them. To my surprise, I found large difference in performance of these DACs, with some producing exemplary results while others, quite poor showing.
The above project proved popular, prompting me to spend thousands of dollars purchasing more DACs. Just when I started to worry if this was scalable, members started to offer their products for testing. This was then followed by manufacturers doing the same, helping accelerate large volume of products to be tested.
Today, almost all categories are products are being tested with multiple reviews coming out per week. The original name has less association with this work although picking the word “Review” was foreboding of what was to become.
Besides the reviews, the forum is a place for learning, asking questions and helping educate others on audio technology and science.
3. What is the mission of ASR?
In a nutshell, bringing more objective and provable data to the discussion of what makes the best audio equipment and playback environment. While other forums are free-form discussions where any direction goes, at ASR we are anchored by sound engineering and what research tells us. Reviews for example have as their cornerstone, extensive measurements that are not subject to bias and whim of a reviewer. Such data is interpreted as to audibility of impairments and contribution to listener preference.
I call this a compass: something that points to the north, keeping us from getting lost in the jungle marketing claims, folklore from audiophiles and reviewers alike. Just like a compass, it doesn’t have a precision of GPS, but it is far more reliable than just an opinion.
Related, another part of our mission is to guide the industry to better follow what makes the best equipment or at least, best engineered. The publishing industry has for the most part made this an appendix at best and shunned at worst. Anything seems to go regardless of it has any merit, goes against simple engineering or research in the field. We are fortunate that the industry is starting to take notice with more and more companies adopting this “closed loop” design process with measurements being part and parcel of the cycle.
4. How is ASR funded?
ASR is funded by me and generosity of membership which donates to the site and provides loaner equipment for reviews. I accept no form of commercialization. No ads, no sponsorships, no paywalls. I have no commercial relationships with any company. While some choose to send equipment for review (and don’t ask for them back), or donate to the forum outright, they don’t get preferential treatment. Every product is tested the same regardless.
The sister Youtube channel for ASR is likewise ad and sponsorship free.
While the core platform is not very costly to run, such things as shipping, insurance, investment in new testing gear, etc. are quite significant. So donations from the membership are accepted and much appreciated.
5. Why do you review so many Chinese Products? Do you have a money relationship with them?
It is not by intent or plan. It is simply the case that a number of Chinese companies have embraced the idea of best-in-class engineering with superb value so they seek out reviews from us. And because they are well engineered, they routinely get a recommendation and thumbs up.
I have never, ever accepted money to do a review and will not do so. With some minor exceptions, I have no idea who is behind these companies. They send me products and I test them like any other. If they perform well, I give them praise. If they don’t, then I say that as well.
6. Do you have a conflict of interest in other companies you own?
To some degree. I am the founder of Madrona Digital which while not in retail business, is a dealer for some products I review. Madrona is kept separate from ASR however, and I feel no obligation to say positive things about products it carries if it doesn’t perform well. Indeed, I have used harsh language in conclusion of some of those products due to lack of performance.
When there is appearance of conflict, a clear disclaimer is made at the start of the review so the reader is on full notice. Fortunately, since most of my review is objective and follows a template of tests, my ability to bias the review is highly limited.
7. Do I have to be technical to participate in ASR?
Not at all. We are very much used to new members coming and asking questions. There are lot of very kind and knowledgeable members ready to help answer questions.
But please be mindful of bringing ideas to ASR that are not grounded in proper audio science and engineering as it will be met with pushback. Nothing wrong with saying you like the sound of this and that gear. But insisting that such an experience overrides what we are about, is going to get you a lot of flak. You will be asked to provide sound evidence and if you can’t, you will get crunched in the gears of ASR.
Instead, lay low and take the opportunity to truly learn the technology and science behind it. Watch the many tutorials on data in the reviews and then express a contrarian view. We can then have a good discussion.
8. How popular is ASR?
Depending on when you look at the public statistics, we are in the top 3 audio sites in the world (about 2 million visitors a month). The other two have been around much longer than ASR yet we are able to keep up with them. Those other sites are pure forums with very little formal reviews. Since consumers are very interested in independent reviews of products before they buy, we have an upper hand over them when it comes to rankings within search engines.
9. What is the process of getting a product reviewed?
It is very simple. You start a conversation with me and tell me what you like to have reviewed. In general, the equipment needs to be in production and commercial. I unfortunately cannot test DIY projects as they don’t have value to membership that can’t buy them. If it is a DIY of a commercial offering, then it can be reviewed.
The typical wait time is 4 to 6 weeks from when equipment arrives. I don’t have a scheduling system so there is no way to send me something just in time. Please note that priorities change, often causing some equipment to take much longer. Sometimes members want to have the equipment tested during their return period so I have to give priority to it over other things.
The process is mostly practical for members in US. The shipping costs, and now tariffs, make it hard to get equipment from outside of US and then ship it back. Sometimes the same can be accomplished by contacting the company that made the gear and having them send it for review. That eliminated the need to pay for expensive shipping back and forth.
As you can imagine, there is always some risk of equipment getting lost or damaged during testing. Both are extremely rare but can happen. For the former, you could opt to pay for insurance. For the latter, I will do my best to figure out a solution but can’t make guarantees. In the past, members have been kind enough to chip in to pay for replacement gear for example. And I have sometimes sent substitute gear from my inventory. But again, these instances have been very rare.
When testing is finished, I usually mail equipment back at my expense although some members are kind enough to pay for that as well.
10. Who decides what to review?
For the most part, you all and companies that choose to send equipment in for review. With a constant backlog of gear to test, I usually don’t go and ask manufacturers to send me equipment. If you are unhappy why I test too many of these, and not enough of those, then send me what you are interested in for testing.
11. Why do you not test more expensive equipment?
Well, in some categories such as DACs and mostly, amplifiers, you can get state of the art at very reasonable prices. So while I have tested some expensive gear in these categories, we have a plethora of highly performant gear from many companies with different features/prices.
While I have tested expensive headphones and speakers, for the latter, there is room for testing more. Alas, those products tend to be too heavy, and too big for me to test even if they were offered. Most of those products fall in the luxury category where they are sold in different manners than relying on objective reviews. As a result, I am not offered many for testing. Hopefully this will change in the future.
12. How are you qualified to review products? Have you designed many yourself?
I have had an audio analyzer for some 40 years. I have now reviewed and published measurements for some 1500 devices. All of these reviews have been in public and rarely challenged on merits. This doesn’t mean they are all perfect, but they are more perfect than no data or pure marketing claims. Companies are encouraged to offer their own measurements to counter mine, should they think the results are not representative. They can do so by joining the forum and posting. Or start a conversation with me to discuss.
As to the second question, I don’t know any other audio reviewer who is also a designer. Don’t know that in other fields either. Still, I grew up with electronics as my hobby and then later during college, repaired hundreds of audio and radio frequency gear, usually with no schematic! I have also managed development of countess products from professional video products to advanced computer systems. I also have deep knowledge of related fields such as signal processing, operating systems, networking, etc. All of this gives me the tools to properly evaluate audio gear.
13. Why do you not run your measurements by companies before publishing?
I actually do, if the company sends me the product and I see issues with it. If however, they have not sent the review sample, then I test and publish the data. In a few cases that I have tried to contact companies when members have sent it, I have received no answer. My service and obligation is to the membership to test their products and not an obligation to manufacturer in these cases.
14. Are you measuring everything that needs measuring?
I am measuring enough to determine if a product is well engineered. This conclusion materializes pretty early on in test so in some sense, I am already testing too much.
Now, some people think because my measurements don’t show what they are perceiving, then something is wrong with the measurements. There is no logic in this as ad-hoc listening tests are inherently unreliable. Bring controlled listening tests and counter measurements and we will then look at it.
Note that the claim that measurements don’t resemble “how the brain works” is fallacious. Measurements tell us what the device is doing. We then apply psychoacoustics to the measurements to determine audibility. We don't need to know how the brain works. Only how it reacts to stimulous.
Furthermore, we don’t need to know “how” the brain works to determine something is good or bad. Noise for example, can be annoying. We don’t need to know “why.” However it is perceived, it is not good. And it is not like someone else knows how the brain works.
15. You all seem to only be interested in cheap devices!
Not really. I see value in luxury and premium audio products as long as they don’t leave proper engineering behind. Given me a well performing amplifier and I will happily pay multiples it for one that looks better, is better produced, is over designed, etc. But don’t give me a DAC that underperforms a $9 dongle and then ask thousands of dollars for it.
Now, if you are referring to the cost of products tested, I explained earlier that companies making expensive gear tend to want to sell products on other basis than pure performance. In those cases, I highly suggest that you ask them to provide their measurements, demonstrating sound engineering. If they refuse, then you know they have not properly evaluated performance of their products, or they have but are afraid to share.
16. You all seem to want to listen to graphs rather than music!
Not at all. We listen to as much music as the next audiophile. I am pretty sure there are millions of people who listen to a ton of music but don’t care about equipment. So by that metric, they are superior to all of us!
Measurement graphs, unlike spec numbers, are very information rich. They let us analyze performance of products at many levels. We use them to determine if a device is well built and capable of transparent reproduction of audio. We use this information both to learn how things work and as screening tools before buying gear. Others do the same by reading subjectivist reviews and word salads within.
17. Is listening important?
In some cases, yes. While I perform distortion measurements, often it is easier to find limits of such gears as headphones, speakers and (low wattage) amplifiers by listening. The conclusions can be somewhat unreliable but when backed by measurements, can be of high confidence. For these reasons, you routinely read about my listening tests in countless reviews.
In other cases, ad-hoc listening tests have such error rate that renders them useless in proper evaluation of the product at hand. Let’s take cables. If it does make a difference in sound, it would be incredibly small, necessitating controlled testing where bias is removed. Me doing sighted listening is of little value. Still, I have done this and provided null tests when people insist.
18. Maybe you don’t have good ears then!
Maybe. In my last corporate job, I led a strong team of researchers and engineers in development of audio (and video) algorithms. In the process of that, I went through a multi-month training that highly increased my listening acuity. I am therefore able to pass blind tests that others fail. Alas, I have gotten much older so likely, can’t hear all impairments especially if they occur at higher frequencies.
In contrast, I don’t see other reviewers with any formal or verifiable training of any sort. Reviewing a lot of gear or being an audiophile for so many decades is not a substitute for such training. Indeed such reviewers have done very poorly in formal studies of speakers, losing badly to trained listeners. Many of them are also in the same age bracket as me so have no advantage in high frequency hearing.
19. Why do you measure first, listen second?
Simply because I don’t take my job as a sign of manhood to be able to determine fidelity of a product without additional data. Measurements are highly useful in pointing to areas that need evaluation by ear. If an amp has 10 Hz to 100 kHz flat response, you don’t need to focus on tonality errors. But if it has fast rising distortion from a few watts, then you can gradually crank up the volume until you perceive distortion. If a speaker has narrow directivity, then you can move your head side to side to see what the perceptual effect is.
Importantly, when it comes to speakers and headphones, I use the measurements to develop filters that correct for them. Then, I can perform reliable AB tests to determine level of audibility.
Sitting there, performing single-speaker tests in a sighted situation for example, produces no useful data. It is very easy for example, to confuse boosted high frequencies as higher resolution. And miss a trough at 1 kHz because you played music that doesn’t emphasize that spectrum.
Also keep in mind that some reviewers who claim to listen without measurements may not be very truthful. Often I read/hear that that there is an issue at a precise frequency. I don’t see how that is a skill that these people have.
Ultimately, there is no science that shows sighted, single speaker/headphone testing as being something useful.
1. Who created Audio Science Review?
The founder is Amir Majidimehr. You can find out more about me by clicking on my background link in my signature. Briefly, I have had a long career in computing, audio, video and imaging software and hardware. This enables me to assess performance of audio products at a deeper level.
2. What is the origin of Audio Science Review (ASR)?
Original aim was to bring published audio research to a more understandable level. With such research usually behind pay walls, it makes it hard for audiophiles to access and understand the decades of formal work in what makes good fidelity HiFi. A forum style website was considered to be more ideal as to allow deep exchange of ideas/discussions as opposed to say, blog format.
After a while, a request was made to test low-cost DACs to see what $99 can buy. Having owned an Audio Precision analyzer, I thought it wouldn’t be too expensive to buy those and test them. To my surprise, I found large difference in performance of these DACs, with some producing exemplary results while others, quite poor showing.
The above project proved popular, prompting me to spend thousands of dollars purchasing more DACs. Just when I started to worry if this was scalable, members started to offer their products for testing. This was then followed by manufacturers doing the same, helping accelerate large volume of products to be tested.
Today, almost all categories are products are being tested with multiple reviews coming out per week. The original name has less association with this work although picking the word “Review” was foreboding of what was to become.
Besides the reviews, the forum is a place for learning, asking questions and helping educate others on audio technology and science.
3. What is the mission of ASR?
In a nutshell, bringing more objective and provable data to the discussion of what makes the best audio equipment and playback environment. While other forums are free-form discussions where any direction goes, at ASR we are anchored by sound engineering and what research tells us. Reviews for example have as their cornerstone, extensive measurements that are not subject to bias and whim of a reviewer. Such data is interpreted as to audibility of impairments and contribution to listener preference.
I call this a compass: something that points to the north, keeping us from getting lost in the jungle marketing claims, folklore from audiophiles and reviewers alike. Just like a compass, it doesn’t have a precision of GPS, but it is far more reliable than just an opinion.
Related, another part of our mission is to guide the industry to better follow what makes the best equipment or at least, best engineered. The publishing industry has for the most part made this an appendix at best and shunned at worst. Anything seems to go regardless of it has any merit, goes against simple engineering or research in the field. We are fortunate that the industry is starting to take notice with more and more companies adopting this “closed loop” design process with measurements being part and parcel of the cycle.
4. How is ASR funded?
ASR is funded by me and generosity of membership which donates to the site and provides loaner equipment for reviews. I accept no form of commercialization. No ads, no sponsorships, no paywalls. I have no commercial relationships with any company. While some choose to send equipment for review (and don’t ask for them back), or donate to the forum outright, they don’t get preferential treatment. Every product is tested the same regardless.
The sister Youtube channel for ASR is likewise ad and sponsorship free.
While the core platform is not very costly to run, such things as shipping, insurance, investment in new testing gear, etc. are quite significant. So donations from the membership are accepted and much appreciated.
5. Why do you review so many Chinese Products? Do you have a money relationship with them?
It is not by intent or plan. It is simply the case that a number of Chinese companies have embraced the idea of best-in-class engineering with superb value so they seek out reviews from us. And because they are well engineered, they routinely get a recommendation and thumbs up.
I have never, ever accepted money to do a review and will not do so. With some minor exceptions, I have no idea who is behind these companies. They send me products and I test them like any other. If they perform well, I give them praise. If they don’t, then I say that as well.
6. Do you have a conflict of interest in other companies you own?
To some degree. I am the founder of Madrona Digital which while not in retail business, is a dealer for some products I review. Madrona is kept separate from ASR however, and I feel no obligation to say positive things about products it carries if it doesn’t perform well. Indeed, I have used harsh language in conclusion of some of those products due to lack of performance.
When there is appearance of conflict, a clear disclaimer is made at the start of the review so the reader is on full notice. Fortunately, since most of my review is objective and follows a template of tests, my ability to bias the review is highly limited.
7. Do I have to be technical to participate in ASR?
Not at all. We are very much used to new members coming and asking questions. There are lot of very kind and knowledgeable members ready to help answer questions.
But please be mindful of bringing ideas to ASR that are not grounded in proper audio science and engineering as it will be met with pushback. Nothing wrong with saying you like the sound of this and that gear. But insisting that such an experience overrides what we are about, is going to get you a lot of flak. You will be asked to provide sound evidence and if you can’t, you will get crunched in the gears of ASR.
Instead, lay low and take the opportunity to truly learn the technology and science behind it. Watch the many tutorials on data in the reviews and then express a contrarian view. We can then have a good discussion.
8. How popular is ASR?
Depending on when you look at the public statistics, we are in the top 3 audio sites in the world (about 2 million visitors a month). The other two have been around much longer than ASR yet we are able to keep up with them. Those other sites are pure forums with very little formal reviews. Since consumers are very interested in independent reviews of products before they buy, we have an upper hand over them when it comes to rankings within search engines.
9. What is the process of getting a product reviewed?
It is very simple. You start a conversation with me and tell me what you like to have reviewed. In general, the equipment needs to be in production and commercial. I unfortunately cannot test DIY projects as they don’t have value to membership that can’t buy them. If it is a DIY of a commercial offering, then it can be reviewed.
The typical wait time is 4 to 6 weeks from when equipment arrives. I don’t have a scheduling system so there is no way to send me something just in time. Please note that priorities change, often causing some equipment to take much longer. Sometimes members want to have the equipment tested during their return period so I have to give priority to it over other things.
The process is mostly practical for members in US. The shipping costs, and now tariffs, make it hard to get equipment from outside of US and then ship it back. Sometimes the same can be accomplished by contacting the company that made the gear and having them send it for review. That eliminated the need to pay for expensive shipping back and forth.
As you can imagine, there is always some risk of equipment getting lost or damaged during testing. Both are extremely rare but can happen. For the former, you could opt to pay for insurance. For the latter, I will do my best to figure out a solution but can’t make guarantees. In the past, members have been kind enough to chip in to pay for replacement gear for example. And I have sometimes sent substitute gear from my inventory. But again, these instances have been very rare.
When testing is finished, I usually mail equipment back at my expense although some members are kind enough to pay for that as well.
10. Who decides what to review?
For the most part, you all and companies that choose to send equipment in for review. With a constant backlog of gear to test, I usually don’t go and ask manufacturers to send me equipment. If you are unhappy why I test too many of these, and not enough of those, then send me what you are interested in for testing.
11. Why do you not test more expensive equipment?
Well, in some categories such as DACs and mostly, amplifiers, you can get state of the art at very reasonable prices. So while I have tested some expensive gear in these categories, we have a plethora of highly performant gear from many companies with different features/prices.
While I have tested expensive headphones and speakers, for the latter, there is room for testing more. Alas, those products tend to be too heavy, and too big for me to test even if they were offered. Most of those products fall in the luxury category where they are sold in different manners than relying on objective reviews. As a result, I am not offered many for testing. Hopefully this will change in the future.
12. How are you qualified to review products? Have you designed many yourself?
I have had an audio analyzer for some 40 years. I have now reviewed and published measurements for some 1500 devices. All of these reviews have been in public and rarely challenged on merits. This doesn’t mean they are all perfect, but they are more perfect than no data or pure marketing claims. Companies are encouraged to offer their own measurements to counter mine, should they think the results are not representative. They can do so by joining the forum and posting. Or start a conversation with me to discuss.
As to the second question, I don’t know any other audio reviewer who is also a designer. Don’t know that in other fields either. Still, I grew up with electronics as my hobby and then later during college, repaired hundreds of audio and radio frequency gear, usually with no schematic! I have also managed development of countess products from professional video products to advanced computer systems. I also have deep knowledge of related fields such as signal processing, operating systems, networking, etc. All of this gives me the tools to properly evaluate audio gear.
13. Why do you not run your measurements by companies before publishing?
I actually do, if the company sends me the product and I see issues with it. If however, they have not sent the review sample, then I test and publish the data. In a few cases that I have tried to contact companies when members have sent it, I have received no answer. My service and obligation is to the membership to test their products and not an obligation to manufacturer in these cases.
14. Are you measuring everything that needs measuring?
I am measuring enough to determine if a product is well engineered. This conclusion materializes pretty early on in test so in some sense, I am already testing too much.
Now, some people think because my measurements don’t show what they are perceiving, then something is wrong with the measurements. There is no logic in this as ad-hoc listening tests are inherently unreliable. Bring controlled listening tests and counter measurements and we will then look at it.
Note that the claim that measurements don’t resemble “how the brain works” is fallacious. Measurements tell us what the device is doing. We then apply psychoacoustics to the measurements to determine audibility. We don't need to know how the brain works. Only how it reacts to stimulous.
Furthermore, we don’t need to know “how” the brain works to determine something is good or bad. Noise for example, can be annoying. We don’t need to know “why.” However it is perceived, it is not good. And it is not like someone else knows how the brain works.
15. You all seem to only be interested in cheap devices!
Not really. I see value in luxury and premium audio products as long as they don’t leave proper engineering behind. Given me a well performing amplifier and I will happily pay multiples it for one that looks better, is better produced, is over designed, etc. But don’t give me a DAC that underperforms a $9 dongle and then ask thousands of dollars for it.
Now, if you are referring to the cost of products tested, I explained earlier that companies making expensive gear tend to want to sell products on other basis than pure performance. In those cases, I highly suggest that you ask them to provide their measurements, demonstrating sound engineering. If they refuse, then you know they have not properly evaluated performance of their products, or they have but are afraid to share.
16. You all seem to want to listen to graphs rather than music!
Not at all. We listen to as much music as the next audiophile. I am pretty sure there are millions of people who listen to a ton of music but don’t care about equipment. So by that metric, they are superior to all of us!
Measurement graphs, unlike spec numbers, are very information rich. They let us analyze performance of products at many levels. We use them to determine if a device is well built and capable of transparent reproduction of audio. We use this information both to learn how things work and as screening tools before buying gear. Others do the same by reading subjectivist reviews and word salads within.
17. Is listening important?
In some cases, yes. While I perform distortion measurements, often it is easier to find limits of such gears as headphones, speakers and (low wattage) amplifiers by listening. The conclusions can be somewhat unreliable but when backed by measurements, can be of high confidence. For these reasons, you routinely read about my listening tests in countless reviews.
In other cases, ad-hoc listening tests have such error rate that renders them useless in proper evaluation of the product at hand. Let’s take cables. If it does make a difference in sound, it would be incredibly small, necessitating controlled testing where bias is removed. Me doing sighted listening is of little value. Still, I have done this and provided null tests when people insist.
18. Maybe you don’t have good ears then!
Maybe. In my last corporate job, I led a strong team of researchers and engineers in development of audio (and video) algorithms. In the process of that, I went through a multi-month training that highly increased my listening acuity. I am therefore able to pass blind tests that others fail. Alas, I have gotten much older so likely, can’t hear all impairments especially if they occur at higher frequencies.
In contrast, I don’t see other reviewers with any formal or verifiable training of any sort. Reviewing a lot of gear or being an audiophile for so many decades is not a substitute for such training. Indeed such reviewers have done very poorly in formal studies of speakers, losing badly to trained listeners. Many of them are also in the same age bracket as me so have no advantage in high frequency hearing.
19. Why do you measure first, listen second?
Simply because I don’t take my job as a sign of manhood to be able to determine fidelity of a product without additional data. Measurements are highly useful in pointing to areas that need evaluation by ear. If an amp has 10 Hz to 100 kHz flat response, you don’t need to focus on tonality errors. But if it has fast rising distortion from a few watts, then you can gradually crank up the volume until you perceive distortion. If a speaker has narrow directivity, then you can move your head side to side to see what the perceptual effect is.
Importantly, when it comes to speakers and headphones, I use the measurements to develop filters that correct for them. Then, I can perform reliable AB tests to determine level of audibility.
Sitting there, performing single-speaker tests in a sighted situation for example, produces no useful data. It is very easy for example, to confuse boosted high frequencies as higher resolution. And miss a trough at 1 kHz because you played music that doesn’t emphasize that spectrum.
Also keep in mind that some reviewers who claim to listen without measurements may not be very truthful. Often I read/hear that that there is an issue at a precise frequency. I don’t see how that is a skill that these people have.
Ultimately, there is no science that shows sighted, single speaker/headphone testing as being something useful.
