At NerdyHiFi, product reviews are the result of a thorough evaluation. We carefully break down each product from the unboxing experience, product build, to listening experience. If this is an IEMs that means examining tonality, technical performance, timbre, and more. This contextual assessment culminates in a final score, which is then mapped to our Ranking System, from Stone at the bottom to Ruby at the very top.

Time and Process

We typically spend a few weeks with a product before publishing a review. Sometimes longer, depending on backlog and availability. We believe that rushing leads to shallow results, so each product gets enough time to reveal its strengths and weaknesses in different setups and listening sessions.

How Our Score Works

The final score you see in each review is a summary of several category-specific aspects. It's built from a breakdown that covers things like:

Each product type weighs these categories differently. For instance, DACs emphasize synergy and technicalities, while accessories like cables lean toward build and value.

Why the Subjective Take Matters?

Audio is inherently subjective. What we hear matters just as much as what can be measured. As one writer put it, “if something is objective, it’s based on facts and measurable data; if subjective, it relies on opinions, feelings, or perception.” We aim to balance both. Measurements and technical data are valuable for understanding tonality, but they can’t capture technical, timbre, texture, dynamics, much less the musical aspects. Two IEMs can share nearly identical frequency-response curves yet still sound entirely different in practice. That’s why listening remains at the core of every review, with graphs serving as a reference rather than the conclusion.

I believe no review is ever fully unbiased; we all have our own preferred sound signatures, and that affects how we hear things. But we stay true to what we hear and transparent about our process, without any third-party influence. That commitment to honesty is what keeps our reviews credible.

Ranking System

Each score reflects the overall performance and perception of the product and is associated with a gemstone-inspired rank.

Note: Our scale runs from 1 to 10, but in practice a score around 5 already represents the lower boundary of what we consider acceptable performance. I believe modern products rarely fall below that mark, simply because baseline quality today is much higher than it used to be. If a product ever performs worse, the score will still be shown honestly

Revisions and Updates

Audio impressions can evolve with longer listening or firmware changes. When needed, we revise scores, but never due to outside pressure. Scores may change, but our independence does not.