How to support SoundExpert

Let's be honest – there are no "free ratings" in the real-world, because quality control is funded either by the equipment manufacturer, or the consumer. SoundExpert is made for, and by, audio consumers and is not affiliated with any audio manufacturers or developers. It works only thanks to audio enthusiasts who contribute their attention, time and effort. Fortunately, distributed projects over the internet can utilize collective efforts to efficiently achieve these goals. The goal of SoundExpert is to create a publicly-available mechanism for objective measurements of perceived sound quality of various audio equipment and technologies.

If you like the idea of consumer control over audio quality measurements and how this idea is implemented on the site, you can make your contribution to further this project's research and development.

Any assistance will be gratefully received, whether it is time and effort contributing to research, or simply donating a few bucks. Here are some options:

  • Make a donation
  • Grant equipment
  • Download and grade a test file

Other ideas might still be in your head. Your proposals are accepted. Feel free to contact us.

Make a donation

We will do our best to maintain the project alive and up-to-date as we did it since 2001. Wherever it is possible we try to use free and open source products in our work. All other expenses, including testing equipment and web hosting, are covered by SE authors privately. If you like to share some of these expenses with us you can donate any amount using the options below. Thank you!

 

Bitcoin
QR code for Bitcoin donations to SE
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Measurement equipment

Grant equipment

As SoundExpert is non-commercial independent research project we can´t afford buying expensive laboratory equipment. At the moment we need high-precision D/A and A/D converters which will allow to start objective measurements and listening tests of high quality audio equipment both digital and analog.

Basic features and specifications required:

  • Simultaneous input and output conversions with synchronized clock
  • Standard balanced and unbalanced analogue inputs/outputs
  • USB or FireWire digital input/output
  • Sampling frequency (fs) up to 192 kHz
  • Total (D+A) accuracy of both conversions:
    • THD+Noise: < -100 dB
    • Frequency response: ± 0.1 db within 0….1/2fs
    • Amplitude accuracy: ± 1% within 0….1/2fs
    • Phase accuracy: ± 1.0 degree within 0….1/2fs

We will receive such laboratory instrument with gratitude and this fact will be mentioned on SoundExpert site specially. Please, contact us for details.

 

Download and grade a test file

Downloading and grading a test file in SE listening tests is still a valuable contribution. We'll be thankful for a single test file. Five or ten files will be a serious contribution to the project. Regardless of the fact that each rating needs minimum 300 returned grades in order to be reliable, we don't recommend grading more than 10 files at a time because of possible listening fatigue. Please, visit our "Listening Tests" page and follow three easy steps to participate.

 Participate in Listening Tests