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Editorial method

Where we measure, what we measure, and what we refuse to publish without.

Last updated · May 10, 2026  ·  Reading time · ~7 min

The plain-English version

Every recommendation on Burton Acoustix traces back to a measurement or a controlled comparison. Opinion never stands alone. When something can’t be measured cleanly — perceived warmth, “musicality,” vibe — we say so out loud and rank on what can.

What we test against

Every category gets a small set of objective metrics it has to clear before any subjective listening goes on the page. The bench — the same one used for every category — is built around four instruments and one piece of free software.

The bench

  • Calibrated mic A miniDSP UMIK-1 with its individual calibration file loaded. Flat to ±1 dB across the audible band; that’s tight enough for absorption, RT60, and frequency-response work.
  • Interface Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 (Gen 4). Used for sweep playback into a known monitor, and for any test that needs phase-coherent two-channel capture.
  • SPL meter Class-2 sound-level meter, A and C-weighted, ±1.5 dB. Used for transmission-loss work and for verifying the mic chain agrees with a second instrument.
  • Software Room EQ Wizard (REW), the same tool used by acoustic engineers and studio designers. Free, open methodology, reproducible by anyone with the same mic.
  • Reference monitor A nearfield with a published anechoic response. Used as the source for all room-side measurements so the source variable is constant across tests.

The metrics

  • RT60 Reverberation time — how long a sound takes to decay by 60 dB. The single most useful number for treatment decisions.
  • Frequency response Pressure response of the room at the listening position, smoothed to 1/6 octave. Tells us where bass nulls live and whether treatment moved them.
  • STC / TL Sound Transmission Class and broadband transmission loss for soundproofing categories. Measured at the wall/door/window with two-room A/B setups.
  • Dialogue clarity For soundbars: speech-band SNR vs. background-rated content, with subjective intelligibility tested against a control bar at matched SPL.

If the category has no clean metric — e.g., the “feel” of a MIDI keybed — we test what we can (key travel, latency, build), then describe the rest in plain language and rank by tested factors.

The reference rooms

A single test bench would lie. A bass trap that wins in a perfectly-treated 30 m² studio is wrong for a 12 m² apartment with bare walls. So everything is measured in three rooms with different problems:

Room A — treated studio

Roughly 22 m², low ceiling, broadband absorption on the rear wall, corner bass traps, RT60 around 0.32 s at 500 Hz. This is the “ideal” room. Used as the control for every test — if a product can’t move the needle here, it can’t move it anywhere.

Room B — untreated apartment bedroom

Roughly 14 m², hardwood floor, drywall, single double-glazed window. Stock condition, the kind of room most readers actually live in. Used to measure what a beginner-tier purchase actually does in a typical small space.

Room C — open living + dining

Roughly 32 m², irregular shape, mixed surfaces (hardwood, rug, soft furniture, glass). The room where soundbars and subwoofers are tested in something close to the conditions readers buy them for.

Every claim with a number on it specifies which room it came from. If we don’t name a room, the claim is a comparative statement (“Product X has a deeper low-end than Product Y at matched SPL”) and is room-agnostic.

The protocol, in order

Every product review and category roundup follows the same five steps. The order matters: change before measurement is just opinion.

  1. Pre-measure the room. Capture RT60, frequency response, and any category-relevant metric in the room before the product goes in. Establish baseline.

  2. Install per the maker’s instructions. No tricks — corner placement only if the manual says corner placement, panel quantity per their coverage spec, mounting at their recommended height.

  3. Re-measure on the same day. Same mic position, same SPL, same source, same software settings. Temperature and humidity are logged because both move RT60.

  4. A/B against a baseline product. A previous winner in the same category, or a known-good control. Results are reported as a delta, not as a raw score.

  5. Write up with the data attached. Charts go in the article. Raw measurements are kept on file and shared on request when a reader challenges a finding.

What “best” actually means here

When we say a product is the best pick in a category, we mean it cleared the protocol above and outperformed everything else we tested against the same metrics in the same rooms. Ties are broken in this fixed order:

  1. Performance. The measured numbers, weighted to the use case the article is written for.
  2. Price. Equal performance, lower price wins.
  3. Availability. Equal performance and price, the one in stock and shipping today wins.
  4. Warranty. Equal everything else, longer/clearer warranty wins.

Notice what isn’t on that list: commission rate. Affiliate margin has zero input into rankings. If our top pick has no affiliate program, we still recommend it and link to the manufacturer’s page directly. See the affiliate disclosure for the full version of that promise.

When — and why — we update articles

Acoustic products change. Firmware updates shift soundbar tuning. Foam densities get re-spec’d quietly. Models get discontinued and replaced with near-identical SKUs that perform differently. Every article on the site carries a last verified date for that reason.

We re-measure and update when one of four things happens:

  • The maker ships a firmware or hardware revision. A new DSP profile counts as a new product; we re-test.
  • A reader sends a measurement that disagrees with ours. If the methodology checks out, we re-measure and either confirm their result or explain the variance.
  • The product line is replaced. The article gets a header note pointing to the successor; the old test stands as a record.
  • The article is older than 18 months. Anything past that ages back into the queue automatically for a re-verification pass.

When an article is updated, the last verified date moves and a short changelog is added at the bottom. We don’t silently rewrite history.

What we won’t publish

The negative space defines the editorial more than the positive. If a piece falls into one of these buckets, it doesn’t go up:

  • Untested products. No “based on specs” roundups. If we haven’t measured it or held it ourselves, it isn’t ranked.
  • Specs-only comparisons. Specifications are claims. Measurements are evidence. We don’t treat one as the other.
  • Recycled “best of [year]” lists. Last year’s ranking with new dates and shuffled prose is dishonest. Every roundup gets re-tested against the current bench before it gets a new dateline.
  • AI-generated reviews. Models are useful for transcripts and summarization, not for telling readers what a product sounds like. Every recommendation comes from a human with a mic.
  • Pieces brand-approved before publication. Manufacturers see the article when readers do. No previews, no fact-checks-as-veto, no “could you reconsider that paragraph.”

How to challenge a finding

If your measurements disagree with ours, we want to know. The path is:

  1. Email hello@burtonacoustix.com with your data — mic model, software, room dimensions, mic position, the raw export if you have it.
  2. If the methodology checks out, we re-measure on our end and report back — either confirming your result, or showing where the variance came from.
  3. If we were wrong, the article is corrected with a visible changelog. You get credit by name unless you ask not to.

That’s the whole process. We update this page when readers find gaps in it.