Audio guides
Thirteen articles on how audio hardware fails, what the measurements mean, and what to do about it. Each one is written to be read next to the tool it explains.
Bluetooth Audio Latency by Codec
What each codec actually costs you in delay, and why published figures disagree.
Hearing Range by Age
What the top of your hearing does decade by decade, and why 20 kHz was only ever a young person's ceiling.
Dead, Blown or Miswired: Diagnosing a Silent Speaker
How to tell a dead driver, a blown one and a wiring fault apart without instruments.
Why Is One Earbud Quieter Than the Other?
A blocked mesh, a nudged balance setting, or a failed driver, checked in the order that actually finds the cause.
Out of Phase: What Reversed Polarity Sounds Like
Why a collapsed stereo centre is a polarity fault, not a phase one, and why one speaker alone can never show it.
Why Isn't My Microphone Working?
The four gates a microphone has to clear, checked per platform for Windows, macOS and Linux, and per app for Discord, Zoom and Meet.
How Loud Is Too Loud? Safe Listening Limits
WHO's consumer guidance, NIOSH's and OSHA's occupational limits, and why the two disagree.
Sample Rate and Bit Depth Explained
Nyquist without the stair-step myth, why 44.1 kHz comes from 1970s video tape, and what bit depth actually buys you.
Stereo, Mono and Surround: Channel Layouts Explained
What 2.0, 5.1, 7.1 and Atmos each mean, why the ".1" isn't a full channel, and why channel order differs between formats.
White, Pink and Brown Noise: What the Colours Mean
Equal energy per hertz versus per octave, the -3 and -6 dB slopes, and why pink rather than white is the measurement standard.
Headphone Impedance and Why It Matters
Why 32 Ω and 250 Ω headphones behave differently on the same output, output impedance and the "rule of eighths," and when an amplifier genuinely helps.
Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) Explained
Why THD and THD+N are different measurements, why a percentage is meaningless without its level, frequency, load and bandwidth, and why published figures aren't comparable across brands.
Speaker Placement and Room Acoustics Basics
Room modes and the Schroeder frequency, the equilateral triangle convention, first reflection points, and why corners exaggerate bass.
Testing a new screen as well? Dead Pixel Test's guides cover stuck pixels, backlight bleed and burn-in. It is run by the same person as this site.