Editorial standards: no paid placement, just listening

The Audio Stuff is an independent audio-equipment review publication and YouTube channel, founded in 2023 in Poland by Jakub Charkiewicz. Every review is one writer's verdict after weeks of listening on a fixed chain, scored out of 10 against the other gear in its category, and published as written whoever supplied the unit, including when a brand lent it.

Who writes The Audio Stuff

Each writer's page lists everything they have written here, who they are, and every correction made to their reviews.

What The Audio Stuff publishes

Everything here is free to read, with no account and no paywall. The written review is the system of record: it carries the canonical score and verdict, and the video says the same thing on camera.

  • Reviews

    Reviews published
    71

    Long-form reviews of headphones, speakers, DACs, headphone amps, speaker amps and preamps, digital sources, microphones and recording gear, and accessories. Each is scored on the rubric below and signed by the writer who did the listening.

    Gear categories covered
    8
    Highest score on record
    9.3/10

  • Buying guides

    Buying guides
    12

    Rankings of the reviewed field in one class by score and price, with the rule behind each award printed on the guide.

  • Comparisons

    Head-to-head comparisons
    35

    Two reviewed products side by side, each comparison written from its two reviews and from the reviewer's own words where a review takes on the other product directly.

  • Free audio tools

    Free audio tools
    23

    Calculators, test signals, file checkers and buying quizzes, all of them running in the browser with no account.

  • Glossary

    Glossary terms
    312

    Audio terms defined in plain English, and a longer explainer page for some of them.

    Explainer pages
    42

  • YouTube channel (opens in new tab)

    The reviews on video: the same gear and the same verdict. Each video review has a written review here, and the written one carries the canonical score.

Figures as of , the day the latest review or guide was published.

Open data

The whole catalogue as data: every score, verdict, price and date in /ratings.json and /ratings.csv, new reviews by RSS and JSON Feed, and /llms.txt, an index of the site for language models. Every indexable page is also published as Markdown at its own address with .md appended.

How the publication grew

  1. The Audio Stuff is founded in Poland, as a review site and a YouTube channel that publish the same verdicts.

  2. The first review is published: HIFIMAN Edition XS review.

  3. The 10th review: HIFIMAN EF400 review.

  4. The 25th review: Melodika Brown Sugar BSSC95xx review.

  5. The 50th review: Tonewinner AD-1PA+ review.

  6. The buying guides launch, ranking the reviewed field in each class by score and price.

  7. The most recent review: AIYIMA A80 review.

How reviews are made

  1. Long listening

    Minimum two weeks of daily use, multiple genres, multiple sources. No first-impressions reviews. No demo-room verdicts.

  2. Reference comparisons

    Every piece is compared head-to-head against a maintained list of reference units in its category, sighted and with levels set by ear. The list is published: the reference chain, category by category.

  3. How a score is built

    A score is the writer's overall judgment of a product, set against the reference unit at the same price tier. These five weighted axes are what that judgment weighs, in every category; what an axis covers changes by category (tonal balance on a headphone, noise on a DAC, an audible effect on an accessory), and each category hub lists its criteria against the axis they feed. Scores compare within a category. Two products with the same score in different categories each hold that standing in their own class, and nothing tests whether they are equally good, perform alike or offer equal value.

    • Sound 30% Frequency balance, evenness across the band, treble behavior, bass extension and control.
    • Technical performance 25% Detail retrieval, soundstage, imaging precision, dynamics, transient speed, and decay.
    • Build & comfort 15% Materials, fit and finish, comfort over multi-hour sessions, cable hardware, daily-use reliability.
    • System fit 15% How forgiving the unit is in real systems: drive requirements, room behavior, and source pairing.
    • Value 15% Performance relative to the price tier, against the published reference list for that bracket.

    The weights guide the judgment; the score is not computed from them, and no review records a separate score per axis. Where a review's pros and cons cover enough of the axes, its At-a-glance card breaks the score down on these axes, derived from those pros and cons so that it adds back up to the published score. The weights have not changed since they were first published, on .

  4. Score and verdict

    A single 0 to 10 score with a one-word verdict. The five bands do not overlap, so the score names the tier, and the rule is enforced: our publishing system will not let a review go live with a verdict its score does not allow. The bands are this site's own; no industry standard defines them.

    • Reference 9.2 - 10.0 Sets the standard in its class. Rare by design.
    • Highly Recommended 8.2 - 9.1 Clearly worth the money, with reservations you can live with.
    • Recommended 7.0 - 8.1 Worth buying for the listener it suits, once the trade-offs are read.
    • Mixed 5.5 - 6.9 Real strengths against real costs. Which side wins is your call.
    • Pass 0.0 - 5.4 Not one we would spend our own money on at this price.

    The bands do not overlap, so a score names one tier. The single exception is a score exactly on a tier's floor (9.2, 8.2, 7.0 or 5.5): that makes a product eligible for the tier, and the verdict may hold it one tier lower where price, competition or reliability argue against the higher one.

The listening room, the reference chain in every category and the protocol a session follows are set out in full on how we test, with how far a score can be trusted.

Ethics

  • Wholly owned by its founder and registered in Poland: no parent company, no outside investor. The imprint has the details, and the press kit the logos and boilerplate.
  • No sponsored verdicts.
  • Most flagship review units are lent by their maker or distributor and returned after the review. A loan never buys a verdict, and a negative review still ships.
  • No advertising, no affiliate links, no sponsored placements. Nothing here is for sale.
  • Brands have no editorial input. Pre-publication review is never granted.
  • Corrections ship in the open: the fix lands on the affected review with the date it shipped.
  • A changed score never replaces the old one silently: the review keeps it, dated, with the reason.
  • Every review states when it was Published, last Updated and last Checked, and a check is not an update: what each date means.

Report a correction

Standards we cite, and what each one is for

The published standards and research behind the figures the reviews quote, the explanations they give, and the limits of how they are made. The listening here is sighted and nothing is bench-measured in-house, so none of these is a protocol the reviews follow; each note says what the document is to this site.

  1. Listening tests

  2. Measurement terms

    • AES17: Measurement of digital audio equipment

      Standard Audio Engineering Society Paid full text

      Definitions of the SNR, THD+N and IMD figures that DAC and amplifier makers publish and those reviews quote. Nothing is bench-measured in-house.

  3. Headphones

  4. Speakers

  5. Microphones

    • IEC 60268-4: Microphones

      Standard International Electrotechnical Commission Paid full text

      How a microphone's sensitivity, self-noise, dynamic range and directional pattern are measured and specified: the figures the recording-gear reviews quote from the makers.

  6. Room acoustics

Spotted a methodology error or want a source corrected? Email the editorial team. A correction is published on the page it corrects, with the date it shipped.

Questions about The Audio Stuff

Who owns the site, how its reviews differ from the rest of the audio press, and how a review is made in practice.

  1. Who owns The Audio Stuff?

    The Audio Stuff is wholly owned by its founder, Jakub Charkiewicz, who is also the registrant of the domain, and it is registered in Poland. There is no parent company, no outside investor and no shareholder. The full imprint, with the registered address, is on the legal page.

  2. How are reviews different from typical audio sites?

    Three differences. (1) Every score is set against a published reference list in its category, under a rubric whose weights are public, and a score that changes keeps the earlier one on the review with the date and the reason. (2) Listening windows are weeks long, and there are no demo-room verdicts. (3) Negative reviews ship even when the brand sent the unit for free. The method has limits too: the listening is sighted, nothing is bench-measured in-house, and the how-we-test page says what that means for a score.

  3. Do you accept advertising or affiliate revenue?

    No. The Audio Stuff carries no display advertising, no affiliate links, and no sponsored placements. Nothing on the site can be bought, and no link here earns a commission. Everything is free to read, with no accounts and no paywall. Most flagship units are lent and go back, budget gear is usually bought, and where a review records how its unit came in, the header says so; a brand can neither pay to influence a score nor withdraw anything to retract one.

  4. What gear and listening environment is used for reviews?

    A stereo room treated with absorption panels and bass towers, plus a desktop headphone chain built on one fixed DAC and amp pair. The gear every new review is compared on is published per category on the how-we-test page, and it is there because it stays the same from one review to the next, not because of its verdict: the Reference verdict is a separate thing, for scores of 9.2 and up. The same chain, the same room, the same playlist set: review-to-review consistency is the whole point.

  5. Do you buy gear yourself or accept manufacturer loaners?

    Both. Most flagship gear is loaned by manufacturers or distributors and goes back when the loan window closes. Mid-tier and budget pieces are usually purchased outright, often used. Either way the review still gets written and the piece still earns the score it deserves, and where a review records how the unit came in, its header says so beside the byline.

  6. How long does each audio review take to complete?

    Two weeks minimum on the chain in real daily use, typically four to eight weeks for flagship gear, sometimes longer. Each product is compared against the gear its category is tested on, across multiple sources and multiple genres, before a score is committed. There are no first-impressions reviews and no demo-room verdicts.

  7. Where are the YouTube reviews?

    On the YouTube channel @TheAudioStuff. Each video review on YouTube has a corresponding long-form written review here, and the written version always carries the canonical score and verdict. Video adds visual demonstration; the written piece is the system of record.

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