I wouldn't measure old (no longer sold) devices and the devices that specced low. Life is too short. There are so many new devices on Aliexpress every month!
Review sites that rely on audio manufacturer and retailer advertising dollars, of course, would never test older, used audio components.
That said, Stereophile have unlocked many reviews of gear from yesteryear, which always makes for great reading.
I wouldn't measure old (no longer sold) devices
There are so many new devices on Aliexpress every month!
The cloned clones of cloned clones?
Some manufactures are very conservative with their specs.
HiFi News has had a page of re-reviews and/or new reviews of older kit for quite some time. Tim Jarman has a fairly regular column on vintage stuff, some of which he buys, refurbishes and tests.That said, Stereophile have unlocked many reviews of gear from yesteryear, which always makes for great reading.
HiFi News has had a page of re-reviews and/or new reviews of older kit for quite some time. Tim Jarman has a fairly regular column on vintage stuff, some of which he buys, refurbishes and tests.
He also has a room at their annual show where he is playing music on inexpensive vintage kit which shows how small the advancement in hifi has been in real audible terms (IMHO of course).
How does one determine if gear is mediocre without first testing it, unless the manufacturer is kind enough to post mediocre specs or it is so bad the flaws are audibly obvious?
Accuphase is one such brand.
There are a few companies who deliberately publish conservative specs and guarantee those specifications will be equaled or bettered.
Accuphase is one such brand. They don't cherry pick inputs or conditions for THD, they give a number which is well above the highest THD across the 20-20Khz bandwidth. When you peruse their actual test graphs (and the ones supplied with the gear in the box), you see they are terribly conservative in the numbers.
View attachment 38305
For many years, they misspelt guarantee as "guaranty".
View attachment 38306
Sometimes I do wonder about reactions to less than great measuring gear when it actually matches or betters the manufacturer advertised specification.
Those specs look perfectly adequate to me for that kind of unit. When I started this thread, I had in mind stuff like this: Massderp Airist Windpipe
THD+N of 0.08% means a SINAD of about 62dB, and when it was tested, it produced a SINAD of 63dB on one channel and 61dB on the other. I think most people on ASR would not consider that "adequate" performance for a DAC yet there it is, stated by the manufacturer clearly and accurately. Yes there's a lot of marketing fluff surrounding it, but the spec didn't lie.