How Gearank Works


What is Gearank?
Gearank is a rating out of 100 for music gear that incorporates a large number ratings and reviews from around the web in one simple number for you to compare. Our researchers compile information from many sources including the buyer reviews from the big music gear retailers, expert reviews and what owners are saying on forums. We focus on reviews and ratings by and for musicians. We then use a Bayesian Averaging process to combine all that information and produce the the number you see on the page.
What does it Gearank Measure? Is it an Indication of Overall Product Quality?
Gearank is best thought of as a measure of user satisfaction with a product. Product quality certainly plays a part in that but price is also an important factor. People appreciate it when lower priced gear is better than they thought whereas they expect more performance from higher priced gear. So a $20 pair of headphones that sound pretty good may generate more positive reviews than a far better $500 pair of headphones if it doesn't quite live up to its loftier standard.
Also quality and gear satisfaction can mean different things to different people depending on how they need to use the gear. That's why our team of researchers probe not only the overall ratings but also the important characteristics of gear that make buyers and reviewers love or hate the gear so that you can find the best gear for your needs. You can find these in our 'What to Look for' sections in our gear guides.
How is Gearank Used in Gear Guides?
Gearank plays an important part in selecting the best gear for our roundups but it is not the only factor we use. We aim to make the Gearank incorporate all of the aspects of gear goodness but in the end our lists of the best gear are compiled by our gear researchers based on their assessment.
Firstly we look at the suitability of the gear for the particular purpose of the guide. Gear is great only when it's right for the job at hand (not just sitting there looking pretty in your practice room). Where applicable, we look to include the main range of options within a gear category and contrast the benefits and disadvantages of the these to give you a good overview of what's available in the area.
Finally we try to select a mix of gear that's mainly tried and true with a solid reputation and a good number of reviews so that you can be confident that it's going to work for you. These products often have a large community of buyers so that you can often find handy tips and tricks. Also they are generally widely available from many of the reputable retailers. We do also look to include well regarded emerging products where there are reliable user and expert opinions. Sometimes there are boutique products that look good but don't yet have enough feedback from users to be included.
Comments
Hi guys, wondering why I cant
Submitted by Greg (not verified) on
Hi guys, wondering why I cant find RCF ratings on what seems to be an otherwise extremely valuable website to band and dj performers?
Thanks,
Greg
Sorry about the delay in
Submitted by Jason Horton on
Sorry about the delay in publishing and responding to your post - occasionally genuine posts like yours get caught up in the spam filters.
At the time of writing this we currently currently have the RCF ART 310-A MK III featured in our guide to Powered PA Speakers.
The only reason RCF haven't appeared more frequently in our guides is because they are in one of the most competitive, if not THE most competitive, areas of pro sound that we cover - it's very hard to out-rank giants such as QSC and Yamaha.
There have been many off
Submitted by Jason Horton on
There have been many off-topic questions posted here which we have not published.
Please restrict your questions on this page to ones about How Gearank Works.
If you have a question on a different topic then please post it on the relevant Gear Guide or Article.
If there are no relevant places to post your question then please use our contact form.
What does the ( sources
Submitted by Greg (not verified) on
What does the sources numbers mean IE: 40+ 60+ 100+ 125+ ?
Good question Greg.
Submitted by Jason Horton on
Good question Greg.
It represents the number of sources that were processed by the Gearank Algorithm to produce the Gearank score out of 100 that you see on all items in our guides and database.
Sources include things like Expert Reviews, Forum Posts, Customer Reviews and Video Reviews about a product.
When you see 40+ sources that means 40 or more sources were processed to produce a particular Gearank score.
The problem with 60+ is that
Submitted by Robert (not verified) on
The problem with 60+ is that it is also 40+. Seeing that you must have the number why not be precise?
Hi Robert,
Submitted by Jason Horton on
Hi Robert,
You are technically correct that a smaller count is a sub-set of a larger one, however we think most people understand the difference.
We chose to go with rounded source numbers because the groupings we've chosen to round to tell our audience enough to understand them, and because they result in a tidier looking display on our website.
We also decided to protect the Gearank Algorithm from being easily reverse engineered - adding more precision to the displayed values would help people trying to do that. This is similar to the way that when Google used to publish PageRank scores it was only ever with a rounded presentation.
Rest assured that we will never publish a low rounded number when there is a higher rounded value - EG we won't publish 5+ when it's 10+ or 100+.
Do you list new products not
Submitted by Akshita (not verified) on
Do you list new products not mentioned on your website?
Hi Akshita,
Submitted by Jason Horton on
Hi Akshita,
If I understand your question correctly, I think you're asking if we write articles about new products when they are released. The answer is no because there are plenty of other websites that do that.
I hope that answers your question, but if not, please clarify and I'll try to give you a better answer.
Jason.
Using ratings from retailer's
Submitted by Bob (not verified) on
Using ratings from retailer's sites means you're just echoing their marketing-through-astroturfing. They always generate rave reviews for products with higher markups. What's done to correct for this?
Hi Bob, good question. We
Submitted by Daniel Barnett on
Hi Bob, good question. We use a number of differect ways to avoid fake reviews impacting our Gearank scores including the following :
As an audio professional for
Submitted by Bob (not verified) on
As an audio professional for many years I find some of your reviews to be rather questionable at best.
Hi,
Submitted by Ambidexter (not verified) on
Hi,
Thanks for a great site! I've been shopping got 88-key MIDI controllers, and I don't find the M-Audio Oxygen 88 listed in your 88-key review or generally on your site. Are they too new to show up, or are there some aspects of their product which cause you to not review it?
Thanks,
-A
It's not that it's too new,
Submitted by Jason Horton on
It's not that it's too new, instead it's the opposite. The M-Audio Oxygen 88 is no longer sold by most major American online retailers - you can't get it from Musicians Friend, Guitar Center, Sweetwater or Amazon.
Quite a lot of work goes into producing our ratings so we only do that for current gear that is readily available.
The Boss GP-10 is getting
Submitted by Ken Sherman (not verified) on
The Boss GP-10 is getting rave ratings from consumers. Would like to know the results of your team as to the worthiness of this unit.
Thanks...Ken
Looking for a good 4 discrete
Submitted by john w (not verified) on
Looking for a good 4 discrete output USB device to interface with MuseScore and Adacity. Have any suggestions?
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