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[closed] Electronics Review index (v2): updates and feedback

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RickSanchez

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[This thread is now closed as the Tableau dashboards are no longer in service. Please refer to the Master Review Index to see the latest information regarding ASR data + dashboards.]

Hi everyone. I wanted to let folks know about the new version of the Electronics Review Index. Some new features but it can be found in the same location:


There was a huge amount of work that went on behind the scenes to overhaul the database structure for capturing device info, reviews, and measurements. Then all of the existing data had to be converted over to this new database structure. And finally an entirely new set of dashboards had to be built. I know many ASR members have been wondering about the delays, and I apologize that things took so long. But I'm really happy with what was accomplished. Some nice feature built into the dashboards and data entry is much quicker / easier.

The new index page has the following dashboards which are tabs on the top:

  • Electronics Index
  • Electronics Rankings (SINAD, SNR, + many other metrics)
  • Electronics Attribute Comparison Tool
  • Notes
  • Definitions


Electronics Review Index
This dashboard is similar to the previous version. (Again, the rebuild was based mostly on having to work off of a new data structure.) However, I'd like to highlight a few new features:

  1. There are now a number of new filters you can use, including Parent Company and Tags.
  2. The Tooltip (which you can see if you hover over the Price field on the right) has been updated with a new layout. This includes being able to view a device's manufacturer product webpage.
  3. You can now search for electronics entries by using the Search box on the upper left.
    • Tip: clear all filters -- set them to "(All)" -- before using Search if you want to explore the entire database.

Electronics Rankings
This is a more simplified, visual view of the electronics based on metrics.

  1. First, choose which metric you want to rank on. The control is on the top middle.
  2. Second (optional), choose any of the filters to narrow down the list.
  3. You can chose the color scheme for the bars in the bar chart. You can turn the color coding off, color code by quartiles, or color code by Amir's recommendation.

Electronics Attribute Comparison Tool
Users can compare two numerical device attributes in a scatter plot, one on the X axis and one on the Y axis.
  • The device info appears in the tooltip when you hover over a mark.
  • Green marks = recommended by Amir; Red marks = not recommended by Amir; Grey marks = no recommendation given. (The color-blind friendly version replaces green with blue and red with orange.)
    • You can also turn off the recommendation colors.
  • Each mark represents a measurement. Therefore you may find the same device multiple times in the scatter plot if there are multiple measurements.
  • The quickest way to narrow the universe of values is to modify the ranges for the X and Y axes. For precision you do not have to use the slider function; you can simply click on the min or max number and then type in your desired value.



---------------------
Going forward I'll be maintaining these electronics dashboards. Please PM me (or post on this thread) with:
  • feature suggestions. (Keep in mind that we are limited by what the visualization platform -- Tableau Public -- can do.)
  • issues you find with the data.
  • issues with the dashboards.
Your feedback is welcome!
---------------------

[edit: 2020.11.18] Added the Speaker Attribute Comparison Tool info.
 
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RickSanchez

RickSanchez

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A huge thanks to @pozz for all of the work he put into this v2. Taking the many hundreds of device entries (device info, posts, measurements, etc.) and porting them to the new database was an incredibly arduous and thankless task. On top of that he was heavily involved in the design of the new dashboards and provided a ton of hours of testing and feedback. I most certainly could not have built these dashboards without his help, and I'm incredibly grateful for the time and effort he put in.

Going forward I'll be using this post to track major changes to the Electronics dashboards. (Minor changes will be released but not tracked here.)

Changelog
  • [2020.11.17] GA release of the Attribute Comparison Tool dashboard.
  • [2021.01.27] Fixed bug where the sort (Brand + Model) of the Electronics Index dashboard was not working correctly.
  • [2021.02.24] Performance improvements: removed certain filters to speed up page load times and reduce the time needed to apply filters.
  • [2021.02.26] Review Type filter default changed to: Review & Measurements, Review & Teardown, Updated Review, and Video Review.
 
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RickSanchez

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Yes, thank you and @pozz. I use this all the time, and the tableau output is great, works well on all devices, although better on a larger screen.

Perhaps a ways off but it is on our list to see what optimizations -- if any -- can be made for viewing via tablets. The tricky part there is that the dashboards (built on Tableau Public) are embedded into the ASR site, so optimizing the dashboards may not achieve the desired results given that they'll still be inside of the ASR website.
 

pozz

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Short history: This used to be all text-based. A long list of links in a central post. It took close to a year to initially gather all of the references and posted measurement data, and figure out the necessary organization. A further six months of refinement (read: starting from scratch, with the benefit of hindsight) to get to today.

Many helped along the way. Thanks everyone, but especially @RickSanchez, who does not mess around!

Rick-Morty-Rick-Five-Arms small.png
 

m8o

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Say, wondering... how does one now apply a filter to only compare bare-board DACs (pi HATs or standalone bare-boards)? That category selection seems to have disappeared.
 

pozz

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Say, wondering... how does one now apply a filter to only compare bare-board DACs (pi HATs or standalone bare-boards)? That category selection seems to have disappeared.
It's in the Tags filter which should be to used with the other filters to narrow down the devices you want to appear.

Edit: Some explanation to clarify. The idea is to select a particular device type, like a DAC, and then select the subsystem or other function you want in the Tags filter, like Room EQ. That way you get all DACs with Room EQ, and other kinds are filtered out. Given the way Tableau works, Tags work effectively only as a single-select option, unfortunately.
 
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RickSanchez

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Letting folks know that the Attribute Comparison Tool has been released. There are still a few enhancements yet to come but it is ready for prime time.

The dashboard allows users to select two attributes to compare: one on the X axis, one on the Y axis. (Use the controls on the upper left.) You can then narrow down the number of devices included by using the relevant filters. Keep in mind that this kind of scatter plot only works with numerical values for the X and Y axes.

Regarding usage a couple notes:
  • if a user selects "Price (USD)" for either the X or Y axis, that control becomes redundant with the Price (USD) filter. The Price (USD) filter is there to use when both the X and Y axes do not include the price of a device.
  • to see information about the device just hover over the mark with your mouse and the Tooltip will appear. (See the example -- the Gustard X16 -- in the screenshot below.)

I hope folks find this visualization interesting / useful. As always, your feedback is welcome.





1605736679883.png
 

bobbooo

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Great work, thanks. Just an error I've spotted though - the Qudelix 5K's SINAD over USB is incorrectly recorded as 83 dB, but it should be 87 dB, as seen in the corrected measurements on page 3 of the review. Can this be corrected on the electronics ranking table? (The first measurement of the review was made with the Qudelix 5K incorrectly set to 96 kHz sample rate, which likely resulted in the source device feeding the 5K resampling the 44.1 kHz test file to 96 kHz and so reducing SINAD).
 
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Great work, thanks. Just an error I've spotted though - the Qudelix 5K's SINAD over USB is incorrectly recorded as 83 dB, but it should be 87 dB, as seen in the corrected measurements on page 3 of the review. Can this be corrected on the electronics ranking table? (The first measurement of the review was made with the Qudelix 5K incorrectly set to 96 kHz sample rate, which likely resulted in the source device feeding the 5K resampling the 44.1 kHz test file to 96 kHz and so reducing SINAD).

Thanks for catching that. @pozz manages the data for DACs, amps, etc. so he will be able to take a look at the Qudelix info and make corrections as needed.
 

pozz

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Great work, thanks. Just an error I've spotted though - the Qudelix 5K's SINAD over USB is incorrectly recorded as 83 dB, but it should be 87 dB, as seen in the corrected measurements on page 3 of the review. Can this be corrected on the electronics ranking table? (The first measurement of the review was made with the Qudelix 5K incorrectly set to 96 kHz sample rate, which likely resulted in the source device feeding the 5K resampling the 44.1 kHz test file to 96 kHz and so reducing SINAD).
Thanks. This was fixed and will appear in the live sheet as part of the next update cycle.
 

pozz

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Small update: the electronics dataset is up to date with all of @amirm's reviews.

I've slowly started tagging devices which have a 12V or IR trigger.

Edit: This has been done. I've also included tags for Bluetooth .
 
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RickSanchez

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In order to address certain performance issues -- specifically, the slow page load times and the slow refreshes after applying filters -- some updates have been made to the Electronics dashboards.

Electronics Index
The following filters have been removed from the dashboard:
  • Parent Company
  • Model
  • Speaker Amp Class
  • Speaker Amp Module
  • DAC Chip
  • ADC Chip

Electronics Rankings
The following filters have been removed from the dashboard:
  • Parent Company
  • Model
  • Tested Input
  • Tested Output
  • Tags


Electronics Attr Comparison
The following filters have been removed from the dashboard:
  • Parent Company


Please note that finding reviews based on these fields can still be done via the Search box. (For the Index and Rankings dashboards.) For example, if you wanted to find devices with the ES9038PRO (DAC chip) you would:
  1. Type "ES9038PRO" into the Search box.
  2. Click "Enter" on your keyboard.
  3. [optional] Apply any additional filter criteria by using the existing filters.
The Search box is not a perfect replacement for filters but it hopefully provides enough functionality to find specific devices.


Note: there is additional investigation and testing being done to hopefully implement additional performance improvements.
 
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pozz

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Long OT post.

I was adding the latest entries to the database and got to reminiscing. Hard to do that in any meaningful way other than by counting.

Doing a quick count of the number of measurements browsable in the electronics Rankings and Attribute Comparison dashboards shows around 4,400 values across 562 audio devices. The number of devices captured is higher, 850 accessible in the Reviews dashboard. Many of those have measurements which I can't capture or which were made by members other than Amir.

The whole database is about 5k line items and 86 columns. There are of course a lot of empty cells and some are just reference/ID values unrelated to device-specific data as such. Taking out the empties works out to 56k values. Taking out the reference values is a bit too much work, but I'd say the final figure would be about 30% lower.

Then then are all the speaker/headphone/stats dashes and the uncountable lines of code @RickSanchez wrote. And then the previous versions of this database consigned to the junkyard. All of this is a bit like asking how long is the coast of Britain: do you cover all the the seashore's wiggles or cut across?

1614554883232.png


Nearly a straight power line there. Any significance there is probably similar to asking how many joules of work are in a lifetime. Reminds me of an interesting passage on human biology in a book on sound system design:
1614555520371.png

(2013) Don Davis. "Digital Theory". Sound System Engineering. 4th edition. Published by Focal Press. Pg. 41.

/diary
 
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RickSanchez

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I was adding the latest entries to the database and got to reminiscing. Hard to do that in any meaningful way other than by counting.

It has been quite an undertaking. Obviously an absolutely massive effort by Amir (and others) to do the measurements and reviews. Then everything behind the scenes to catalog that data and build the tools. More good things yet to come but a really incredible amount of information that has been delivered so far.
 

pozz

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It has been quite an undertaking. Obviously an absolutely massive effort by Amir (and others) to do the measurements and reviews. Then everything behind the scenes to catalog that data and build the tools. More good things yet to come but a really incredible amount of information that has been delivered so far.
Definitely. It's also interesting to think about from a distance. Sort of an anthropological perspective on what we're doing and why. Data-gathering is a such a fixture of current life. Everywhere you look databases are going up and are in demand. I don't know if anyone has written much about it.
 

Adahn

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In order to address certain performance issues -- specifically, the slow page load times and the slow refreshes after applying filters -- some updates have been made to the Electronics dashboards.

Electronics Index
The following filters have been removed from the dashboard:
  • Parent Company
  • Model
  • Speaker Amp Class
  • Speaker Amp Module
  • DAC Chip
  • ADC Chip

Electronics Rankings
The following filters have been removed from the dashboard:
  • Parent Company
  • Model
  • Tested Input
  • Tested Output
  • Tags

I really miss the tested input/output filters. Made it easy to distinguish between balanced/unbalanced amps. Haven't found a way to use it with the new format. If there is one, please do share.

And as a further suggestion, it would be great if value limiting filters like the one used for price, were also available for other parameters like sinad or max power.
 

Adahn

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And one last thing that always bugged me.

Jumping to a review from the rankings is needlessly convoluted. You have to hover at the appropriate spot to get the view measurements tooltip. And then you have to left click it to open in a new tab; ctrl/middle clicking doesn't work. And all reviews you click from there open in the same tab, so opening a second review replaces the previous one.

For the simple task of opening a couple reviews in different tabs, you have to click them one by one, go to the new tab, copy the address, manually create another tab and paste the address, then go back to the list, click a second review which replaces the previous one on the first tab, repeat the process and so forth.

This is just a ridiculous amount of gymnastics for a very straightforward task, plus unnecessary load on the server, requesting each page twice. Would be nice if the links behaved more reasonably.
 
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