There is a forum I stumbled onto trying to find info on an old amp I have.

Audio Science Review.

Seems like a pretty good alternative to AVS. Lots of measurements and gear reviews based on objective data. Good resource and quickly growing database.

I found this site when I was looking at the 8805. The main guy, Amirm, is pretty harsh on gear ... really digging into the measurements. I think before the 8805 he mainly tested things like dedicated A/D's ...

He gave the 8805 a pretty poor rating as the path he tested had an S/N of about 90db. Also the THD went through the roof once the test tones got over 5khz because of harmonics you could not hear ... still he had a point ... for the price of the unit it should have been filtered out. Can't remember anything else on the 8805.

Anyway for a unit this complex with everything but the kitchen sink in it ... I kind of have to give it some leeway ... so, I bought it anyway. It will be good enough for me for a while.

Guess what I'm trying to say is that you need to understand what's being measured and how that relates to what you hear to make realistic decisions.

Yeah, he lambasted the NAD T777v3..... I own one and can say I’m pretty happy with it.

I like how gear within categories is ranked by measurements. Can find some strong options at good prices. Easy to see trends in certain manufacturers...

Amirm recently tested the RMC-1.

I've been following this processor waiting for it to come out and then waiting for it to stabilize (Emotive seams to think early RMC-1 buyers are it's beta testers). Even now the unit has not fulfilled its promises (think that Dirac is finally being released for it). It's one of the reasons I went with the 8805 ... I wanted a fully debugged and working unit.

Anyway, the RMC-1's measurements came out not much better then the 8805. Amirm gave it the same score. That was unexpected. The RMC-1 is supposed to have a fully differential path which I would hope would serve some real world purpose (like to eliminate noise from other sources in the box) ... Since I didn't really dig into his review I can't really draw any conclusions but it's a very interesting data point.

I was really surprised to see a behringer 800 get his recommendation. It measured pretty well and is very affordable compared to other amps.

Yes, he is really hard on gear, but I really think efforts like this will make some companies more accountable to results if they are compared in a black and white scientific manner to others.

The PS audio amps did pretty well. Wonder how the Axiom amps would do.

I think he's starting to take price into consideration on giving out grades ...