That website has caused me a bit of pain. So, here’s a fun story of how that website made me miserable for a few weeks, and helped me get a new amplifier I didn’t need. But it will take a bit of ink to explain:
You know the video game Final Fantasy VII? My wife played it as a kid. So when a remaster was released (read: modern retelling of the story with current video game tech), my wife wanted to play it. So I dusted off the old Playstation 4 we had lying around, and got the game. But then disaster struck: the center channel was dead.
Our 5.0 surround system was powered by an aging Arcam Movie 5.1. A fine amplifier, but not modern. In particular, lacking HDMI audio. Which is a problem, because the Playstation 4 has no audio outputs but HDMI . So I bought a cheap HDMI splitter, which is where we ended up with the dead center speaker. After much deliberation and checking, I determined that the old amplifier had a busted digital preamp, and needed to be replaced.
So, woe is me, I needed to delve into the difficult world of hi-fi reviews. A critical piece of information here: I was a big hi-fi nerd two decades ago, but that changed when it prompted me to study audio engineering, and ultimately ended with a PhD in audio signal processing. Thus knowing the technology and psychology of audio perception too well left me deeply disenfranchised with hi-fi reviews. As you might imagine, there is now some tension in my heart between the measurement microphone and the musical ears.
Equally importantly, my wife and I don’t want a hi-fi altar in our living room. We deliberately use a projector instead of a TV, so as to have the couch facing a window instead of a blank wall, because we don’t like the TV-centeredness of many homes. But as I had to find out, most modern surround sound amplifiers are terribly attention-grabbing and ugly.
Still, there was the NAD T758, an unassuming amplifier which seemed to fit our budget and style. And I just loved the idea of those interchangeable upgrade modules! But then, storm clouds appeared, in the form of audiosciencereview.com, a website that actually measures hi-fi equipment. And those measurements did not look good for the T758. Not good at all.
Now, I know very well that measurements and listening are not the same thing. I suspected, actually, that the T758 would probably sound just fine, especially for my somewhat pedestrian purpose. But still. I am a former audio scientist, and those measurements did look bad. This didn’t sit well with me.
What followed were a few dark weeks. I spent so many evenings poring over audiosciencereview’s reviews. Would I accept a Denon AVR that measured well but looked oh-so-ugly? The attention-grabbing Marantz instead that put the same electronics in a prettier box, but measured worse? Spend some ridiculous money on something nicer, undoubtedly completely out-pacing our speakers and room? I hated all those options.
In the end, I found a used NAD T777 for sale that had been upgraded to V3 electronics, and came with a warranty and a return window. It did not, however, come with a remote. The NAD support is spelled with B instead of N, regrettably, and couldn’t tell me which of their remotes would work with the T777, as the original one is no longer for sale. So I bought the most recent model and just hoped.
And thankfully, the remote actually did work for the T777, even though the handbook did not mention any of that, and their support… Let’s not mention their support ever again. That is, the remote almost worked. One function was missing: volume. It couldn’t change the volume. At this point, I was thoroughly annoyed. Remember, I just wanted to play a darn video game with my wife, and instead go sucked into a quagmire of reviews and measurements and HiFi voodoo. I was done. I’d just send the whole darn package back, T777 and remote and all, and just give up on surround sound and center channels and all that junk.
But then, just as I was about to pack everything up: a thought. The remote was programmable. It had been sold as new, but the box had looked awfully used. What if there had indeed been a previous owner, and what if they had reprogrammed the volume buttons, just to mess with me? Could the universe be that cruel? So it was. After de-programming all the remote buttons, for good measure, everything worked. And actually, sounded quite a bit better than the previous Arcam amp. I unexpectedly found myself revisiting some favorite music, and enjoying the new system a whole lot!
Except, that is, for the center channel in Final Fantasy VII Remake. Because that’s just a bug of the game, as it turns out. It just doesn’t play a center channel in some circumstances. 
So, anyway, that’s how I spent way too much time on audiosciencereviews, and ended up with a new amplifier that I didn’t need, but ultimately liked anyway.
