How to recognise good and bad manufacturers

[superphool]

Different manufacturers of equipment have different approached to selling equipment.

Some give full technical information and allow people to decide for themselves how good it is - that's usually good and worth considering carefully, if the price is reasonable.

Some use made-up or meaningless figures to try and make non technical people think a product is better than it really is; possibly OK if it's so cheap you would not mind throwing it away after using it (though that's not a requirement).

Other do not give any real specifications, they rely on pushing their name or logo so strongly that people recognise it and just assume it must be good.
We at Audiophools class that as "techno-bling", things sold to be looked at rather than used.
Stay well clear of these makes if you want good quality equipment!


The golden rule is to only buy products where the manufacturer publishes genuine technical specifications.

At a minimum for most equipment, other than loudspeakers & headphones, they should give the frequency response and noise level.
For power amplifiers, they should also give the output power in watts - or possibly milliwatts, for headphone amps. Power should be stated as Watts RMS.

For speakers or headphones, the frequency response and power rating (again in watts or milliwatts RMS) should be given; definitely for speakers and generally for good headphones.

Any figures mentioning "peak", PMP or PMPO power should be disregarded - if there is no RMS value, there is no actual power rating.

I've seen some amplified speakers claiming 100W PMP that had a real, RMS power rating of about one watt. Peak & PMP figures are advertising fantasies and have no real meaning.