artnoiSep 2, 2025
This article is part of my audiophiles series of articles
Consumer audio products are audio hardware or software marketed towards normal people, and could be mobile, desktop, or floorstanding.
Audiophile products are also consumer audio hardware or software, but marketed towards audiophiles instead. They are usually made and sold by companies exclusively focusing in catering to the audiophile market.
Some, like Sony or Sennheiser, sell both consumer audio, pro audio, and audiophile products. This means that we can’t just say that a particular Sony products are all snake oil because they once sold or still sell audiophile products.
But do note that the biggest determinator of product differences is usually the product manufacturers. Reputable pro audio companies make generally good audio products, while pseudoscience-first boutique audio “designers” also generally sell crap.
In this article I’ll be writing how I detect audiophile products, how to handle or ignore their marketing materials and claims, and how sometimes it’s ok to buy one.
Since audiophiles are very diverse and could be anyone from any social group, we can assume that there’re a ton of product options out there for everyone. Audiophile diversity is reflected in their product diversity.
These products all differ greatly, in many aspects. For example:
Prices
There’re many segments of audiophile products, from a cheap $99 Chinese DAC/AMP (tube), to overpriced golden-clad, hand-sanded preamplifier selling for over $20,000.
Some of these products might have attained godhood status and are highly sought after, and may fetch a fortune to own, like those vintage McIntosh amplifiers that sell for more than a new car.
When I say a product is overpriced, it means that the product is priced too high relative to its audio performance. Expensive but exceptionally good products do not count as overpriced.
Physical appearances
While some audiophiles products look like they’re from the year 2112, like B&W and Wilson speakers.
Some look and feel very solid, like real pro audio equipment, like Topping devices.
Some retain the retro looks, like McIntosh products.
Some look like they’re being put together by children with no QC process (Usually these products will be perceived by audiophiles as good investment - look shitty but sound heavenly), like AudioGD and obscure Chinese tube amps.
Some look contemporary, like FiiO and JDS Labs products.
Some are very beautifully sculpted, with gold inlays and piano black finish and hand turned engravings, or beautifully braided as with Kimber cables.
Marketing
Most of the time, if the company only targets hi-end audiophiles, then the marketing material will be full of bullshit. Like with MIT Audio These hi-fi bullshit companies will use heavy pseudoscience vocabulary in their marketing materials, and will use some elusive and ambiguous words to describe the device performance (sound). Their products will some how get 10 awards from audiophile magazines.
Some hi-fi companies attempt to appear more scientific by providing some form of measurements in their marketing materials, or even feature legit audio engineering. However, they can’t resist the urge to make $$$ with overpriced cables and 32-bit audio players. Example of this group might be FiiO and Schiit. Usually, these companies are ok to buy from if you stay away from the snake oil products and verify the product’s performance beforehand.
Some companies focus on proper measurements as their main marketing material. Usually, the products from these companies are ok to buy from if verified independently by 3rd party measurements. These products will perform well, but may or may not justify the price. This is because some companies design and engineer products with flawed methodology, like Yulong and Chord, whose products perform and measure quite well but are designed with overengineered legacy tech (and as a result overpriced), like discrete class A amplifier or custom FPGA DAC package.
Some makers are truly superb - they just engineer and measure their thing properly, make smart tradeoff decisions, and their selling points are objective audio performance. Examples of these respectable companies might be JDS Labs and Topping.
Please do buy and support the good guys
Engineering
I’d like to think there’re 3 types of engineering in audio products:
Superb engineering
These companies are just pumping out really good audio products that perform really, really well. The engineers are properly trained and educated, and their main focus is purely audio. Most of the time, the stuff they sell sits between pro and consumer space.
Examples include Etymotic, Topping, JH Audio, JDS Labs
Proper engineering
This usually comes from well established non-audiophile companies, like THX, Apple, and other house names. These products are designed by normal engineers who know what they’re doing, except the case when the products are designed by OEM firms like the Google USB-C to 3.5mm dongle from 2010s.
Their products are generally transparent, and will outperform most AudioGD products.
If their products don’t perform as well as audiophile companies, it’s because the engineers made a trade-off, or that the performance is good enough for the price point and intended use cases, like how the Apple USB-C to 3.5 adapter won’t support 32-bit audio but performs well enough for 16-bit (>100dB SINAD).
Pseudo-engineering
Companies that focus solely on hi-fi audio tend to fall within this category.
This even includes FiiO, whose DAP I own because back then it was the best in its price range. This DAP is transparent when you’re normally using it, but will emit background noise/hiss when being charged. Now, FiiO engineers would argue that “our products are not meant to be used charged, because that’s non-audiophilic!”, although Apple and most other makers of proper audio gear with battery disagree.
Some products are designed with the wrong or misguided understanding of audio. Sometimes, they measure ok, and that’s fine. But sometimes, it’s just outright bad engineering, as with AudioGD products or all those tube amplifiers.
Expensive cable-first companies like Cardas, Kimber, and MIT all fit in this group. Normal cable-first companies like Canare do not fall in this group.
Japanese audio companies usually fall into this group, even giant like Sony, with their stupid audiophile SD cards, and top-of-the-line unobtanium clad audio players.
The worst thing about these products is how the engineers went to great lengths to overengineer the products only for them to perform worse than an Apple audio adapter dongle.
No engineering
Some products are not the fruits of engineering. I mean, yay some engineers probably designed it, but they did not apply engineering best practices or even principles when designing the thing. Or they don’t even have engineers in the first place.
Examples include all those nonsense shit like the quantum rock or hi-fi cable stands, and all those handmade artisanal braided cable makers.
Because they differ in so many aspects, including actual technical features, determining which products to avoid or buy can get difficult.
With my purchase experience, I’d say the best steps to determine if you should buy an audio product is to follow this guide, step-by-step.
Manufacturer
Shitty products are made by shitty companies. Likewise, good products come from competent companies.
If you have know or have a list of all the shitty companies, then you can very easily just use the list as blacklist. Now you just don’t buy from blacklisted companies.
Marketing
If the marketing materials look really good, with all the relevant specs and measurements, then you can happily buy the products if the numbers are acceptable.
If the product’s marketing materials show some amount of stupid audio claims, but the claim’s not outragously bad, then you may still buy the products if further steps are ok with it.
For example, FiiO has a lot of nonsense marketing claims. But its products are decent. Those marketing claims are only meant the mislead the gullible audiophiles in order for the products to sell.
Now, if during browsing you come across really, really bad pseudoscience engineering claims (like quantum physics), then you don’t buy the product even if the product performs good. This is because it might be overpriced, but worst of all is that now you financially support those scammers.
Technical features
Now that we know the makers are qualified and they are not scamming us or selling us overpriced piece of equipment, we can now focus on the product’s features.
Examples of features include balanced connections, lo-hi gains, DSD, max power, etc.
Objective performance
If a product has reached this decision node, then we’ll have almost bought it. The next thing to do is to find out about its performance for the use case you’re doing.
Manufacturer-provided measurements are good, but it would be much better if we can get independent measurements too, e.g. from AudioScienceReview.
Now, the hard part is, how “good” you really need. You can go to [/blog/etc/audio-fidelity] for more details. As a rule of thumb, use 16-bit audio and your listening SPL as reference. Your system’ll need around 100-120dB of SINAD for the gear to sound truly transparent in quiet room.
Once you verified its performance, then you can justify it by yourself if the price is ok for what you’re getting. You can compare the product’s price to its competitors with equivalent performance.
With this guide, you can now go and shop audio products with better attitude.