Regular readers will know that in general, What Hi-Fi?’s reviews are judged on a 'performance per pound' (or dollar) basis.
In simple terms, that means the better a product performs relative to its price, be it in terms of picture or sound quality, the more highly we rate it.
It’s a straightforward philosophy that has served us well over the best part of the last five decades and we don’t plan to change our priorities any time soon.
But while we are wedded to such thinking, there is still a good degree of wiggle room. Sometimes a product performs well, but we still mark it down for other reasons.
What Hi-Fi? is a buying guide. Our job is to survey the market over the range of AV product categories we cover and highlight the best performers.
What does ‘best’ mean? Certainly, that product has to perform its primary task well enough to stand out from its rivals.
For example, a speaker or amplifier has to sound better than most of the competition to be recommended, just as a TV has to do the same when judged on picture quality.
But, we prefer to take a broader view of the product than just that before we deem it worthy of recommendation.
For starters, it needs to be available at a reasonable number of retailers. Or if the number of sellers is limited, say as it would be if bought directly from the manufacturer or possibly Amazon, then the returns policy should be solid and fair.
If things go wrong, the buyer should be protected. If we have doubts about any of these things, we won’t even review the product in the first place. Where appropriate, we consider the service and repair side of things too.
Reliability matters too. No matter how well something performs, we simply won’t recommend the product if it doesn’t work properly, or if we suspect that it will have durability issues.
Our time with a review sample varies from around a week to a month. We are only provided with a single sample, so it is possible that if a product fails we have just been unlucky.
In such a situation, we will always get a second sample to see if we can replicate the issue. If we can, then there is no way the product would be recommended regardless of how well it performs. If the second sample works well, we will still state in the review that we had to obtain it.
If the product proves reliable but we think its build or finish is poor, we still won’t give it a good review.
We understand that for most people buying a piece of hi-fi or home cinema equipment is a huge investment and usually something they plan on keeping for years.
If a piece of equipment isn't nicely made, that joy of ownership is diluted and may well put people off using the product. Does What Hi-Fi? want to recommend anything that puts people off watching films or listening to music. What do you think?
Connected to this is whether a product is nice to use. Do the controls feel precise and solid? Is the software buggy, slow to respond or unintuitive in use?
We recognise that it is naive to expect total perfection in all these regards, but we still have high expectations. We don’t think it is too much to ask that a properly developed commercial product be slick and easy to use.
The product should be unfussy about partnering too. This probably applies more in the world of two-channel hi-fi than any other product category, but if the piece of kit we are testing is unduly fussy about its system partners, then it will get penalised.
It might sound odd, but we are more forgiving of this aspect at higher price points, as we would expect both the buyer and selling dealer to put more effort into system matching properly.
A budget speaker, on the other hand, would be expected to work with everything from the most basic micro system to proper mid-priced components.
So, while performance will always remain central to whether something gets a good review or not, there are plenty of other things to consider.
We want people to be happy with what they buy. It has to be reliable and good to use before we consider the picture or sound attributes.
Sure, performance is the priority in our eyes, but that doesn't mean everything else isn't important to consider and test too.
MORE:
Find out more about our test process: how we test and review products on What Hi-Fi?
The ultimate music tracks to test your hi-fi system
Bylines and star ratings: how things have changed in What Hi-Fi? reviews over the decades
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