About Speaker Decision
Speaker Decision is an independent speaker, subwoofer and amplifier database, built and
run by one person. Everything here exists because I wanted it to exist and could not
find it anywhere else: one place where you can put two speakers side by side and see
the actual numbers, rather than two browser tabs of marketing copy.
Who is behind it
I am Mel Adali, based in North Carolina. I am an engineer by training, with a B.S. in
Mechanical Engineering and an M.S. in Industrial Engineering, and more than 20 years
across industry and academia.
Hi-fi is my biggest hobby alongside cameras and lenses. I have been a stereo and music
listener for as long as I can remember, and most of what gets built here starts as a
question I had about my own system: whether an amplifier can really drive a particular
speaker, whether a pair will fit the stands I own, whether that second subwoofer is
worth it. I also run
Camera Decision,
the camera and lens database, which is where the approach behind this site came from.
I am not writing about this equipment from a distance, and I am not writing as a
reviewer with a listening room full of loaners. What I can offer is the specifications,
compiled carefully and presented so they can be compared honestly.
What is in the database
Right now the database holds 1,346 speakers,
277 subwoofers and
378 amplifiers and receivers, from 101 manufacturers.
Passive and powered bookshelf speakers, floor-standers, center channels, surrounds,
in-wall and on-wall models, subwoofers, integrated amplifiers, power amplifiers,
streaming amplifiers and stereo receivers. Every entry is compiled by hand from the
manufacturer's own specifications and rechecked when they change.
There are also 8,275 product photographs
behind the reviews and comparisons, each processed into several sizes.
Alongside the database there are 144 published
articles on new releases, what the specifications actually mean, and the
patterns that only show up once you have the whole catalogue in one table.
How the comparisons work
A comparison page is generated from the same data as the two review pages behind it, so
the numbers cannot disagree from one page to the next. Where a specification is missing
for one of the two, the page says so rather than quietly leaving the row out, and where
a difference is too small to hear, it says that too. Nothing is weighted by hand to move
a particular model up or down.
Some care goes into the units, because this is where hi-fi specifications are at their
worst. Amplifier power is quoted by manufacturers into different loads, sometimes at
full bandwidth and sometimes not; sensitivity is measured at one meter in ways that are
not always comparable; a "40Hz" speaker and a "40Hz" subwoofer are rarely measured the
same way. Where the site can normalize a figure it does. Where it cannot, it tries to
say what the number actually means instead of pretending the two are equivalent.
The tools section is the practical half:
an amplifier and speaker matcher, speaker wire gauge, impedance and SPL calculators,
room modes, placement, subwoofer crossover, and a will-it-fit check. The maths behind
each one is stated on its own page, including where a result is a rule of thumb rather
than a calculation.
Corrections
Specifications change, manufacturers quietly edit their own pages, and I get things
wrong too. Every review and comparison page carries a feedback box at the bottom, and
that is the fastest way to reach me. You can also use the
feedback page or email
admin@speakerdecision.com. Corrections go in as soon as I can verify them against the
manufacturer, and readers have already caught mistakes here that I would not have found
on my own.
Speaker Decision is independent. Nobody pays for a listing, a placement or a
recommendation. The site earns through affiliate links and advertising, which are
disclosed on the pages that carry them, and neither has any bearing on how a product is
presented or ranked.
How to contact us
Send anything to admin@speakerdecision.com, or use the
feedback page. Your feedback is
always welcome, and a good deal of what is on this site started as somebody's
suggestion.