[commando]

Can anyone make any suggestions on the way people would rate the headphones? See the list in the first post, but the main things there are the moment are
- bass extension/impact (useful)
- mids/highs (1-10 which probably isn't that useful)
- smooth/analytical/detail (1-10 - useful enough)
- portable, how useful is amp, isolation, comfort - all pretty handy
- soundstage (dunno if this is useful, a lot of people have no idea what it is)

Can anyone think of better parameters to rate headphones, that'd help people choose them more easily?

The other thing on my mind is if you're rating something 1-10, you really need a frame of reference. If people have only used cheap earbuds before then the MDR-V600 will sound fantastic and they'll rate it might more highly than people who've heard good headphones. The only way I can think to avoid this is the moderator approval system, and perhaps a few fields are stored to get a little more information about the reviewer. Again, suggestions about this would be welcome.

 

[3lusiv3]

I don't know how you're going to do the ratings. Ratings seem useful coming from an experienced person and with some frame of reference, but maybe not so much from a newbie. I find the Amazon ratings on CD's aren't very helpful because there are always going to be people that love CD's that I dislike.

Don't worry too much about the look of it and let us see how you're going. It's probably best to get the basics of the site right before worrying about looks. Are you doing it all in PHP? I understand the difficulties in a database backend but a db is better long term. Although it's also more time consuming to learn something else, so a PHP only site would still work as long as the design of it is right.

Sorry, I'm just babbling away. I don't think I have been very helpful.

 

[commando]

PHP is no problem, I know a bunch of languages so learning one more isn't an issue. Just takes a bit of time.

I think we have to work out the factors that are important to a headphone buyer, hopefully i've captured at least some, we can add or remove them later. And I think i'll place the burden of deciding if a review should be included with the mod - they'll have to decide if it's worth including. Perhaps i'll expand the information taken about the reviewer - head-fi username perhaps, or list of cans they've tried.

I'm still getting to grips with php, i'll post here once I have a prototype up on my site. Thanks for the feedback 3lusiv3, any feedback is useful

 

[Pirvy]

could you add a table in the db with the specs of popular headphones?

like that it would be much more ergonomic on the users since (especially newbies like me!) they woulkd ahve to stay checking out all the specs off...

also this will minimise the mistakes in spec and also allow them to be more standardised - making searching etc easier

also if i were you i'd ad the option to have multiple headphones from the same person - the date bought for each one, review, and if they were sold/ stopped working etc.

if you need any help pm me, although i'm a java programmer/ sys designer and dont know much PHP sorry :S

regs
Kurt

 

[commando]

That's already there Pirvy. There's a list of manufacturers (with website), the specs of the headphone (frequency response, open/closed, isolation, etc, etc), then reviews of each headphone.

Multiple reviews on the same page won't fit into my current page flow. Right now you click on the manufacturer, then the headphone, then you click "add review". This way people will put the review in the right place.

Thanks for your suggestions

 

[adhoc]

Quote:

Originally Posted by commando That's already there Pirvy. There's a list of manufacturers (with website), the specs of the headphone (frequency response, open/closed, isolation, etc, etc), then reviews of each headphone. Multiple reviews on the same page won't fit into my current page flow. Right now you click on the manufacturer, then the headphone, then you click "add review". This way people will put the review in the right place. Thanks for your suggestions

i had a brainwave - why you make each headphone searchable by average price (as left by posters) category? it would make the database far more useful to the average reader.

in other words, you would be able to summon a display of all the headphones in the database that have an average price which falls in a range of <$100, $100-$150, $150-250 etc etc..

 

[HiWire]

You could add a dynamic/electrostatic/other category for driver type, or even a field for enclosure material (e.g. aluminum, wood type - e.g. mahogany, plastic/polymer, etc). Also, the users should state their source, interconnects/headphone cable, amp, and other headphones compared.

Sounds really good so far; keep at it

 

[commando]

Quote:

Originally Posted by adhoc i had a brainwave - why you make each headphone searchable by average price (as left by posters) category? it would make the database far more useful to the average reader. in other words, you would be able to summon a display of all the headphones in the database that have an average price which falls in a range of <$100, $100-$150, $150-250 etc etc..

Great idea, but i'm way ahead of you, price paid is already in the review, and the search criteria will search by this price not RRP

Quote:

Originally Posted by HiWire You could add a dynamic/electrostatic/other category for driver type, or even a field for enclosure material (e.g. aluminum, wood type - e.g. mahogany, plastic/polymer, etc). Also, the users should state their source, interconnects/headphone cable, amp, and other headphones compared. Sounds really good so far; keep at it

Might be worthwhile, it's not really any extra effort. I wonder if it's worthwhile though: you can generally guess by manufacturer and price. Enclosure material might be interesting to add, i'll do that sometime.

Keep up the suggestions everyone, the more the better

The core problem I still have is how to let people rate headphones in a meaningful way - bass/detail/soundstage is about it right now, plus comments.

 

[commando]

This is starting to come together, slowly, it might actually be closer to two weeks by the time I get a prototype up and running. Is there anyone around who's good at PHP who can offer technical advice? Here's an example question.

What i'm trying to do is convert a lookup value (eg 1 = open cans, 2 = closed) into the words for them (ie show the user "open can" instead of 1). I currently have the mapping 1 => "open headphone" in an array, and the details of many headphones another array (ie an array of headphone properties). I'm looping thru the headphones array and doing the conversion for each pair, then using an array_merge to add the new value into the existing array. Can anyone thing of a better way to do this?

One that occured to me is putting these mappings into a database table and doing a join - which would be simpler and possibly a better way to define those constants.

Code:

[left]// Open/closed/canal etc headphone constants $types = array('Not Defined', 'Canal Phone', 'Large Open Headphone', 'Large Closed Headphone', 'Compact Open Headphone', 'Compact Closed Headphone'); foreach ($headphones as $key => $value) { $typeStr = $types[$value['type']]; $headphones[$key] = array_merge($value, array('typeStr' => $typeStr)); echo ""; }[/left]

NB: this is prototype level code, and damn if it doesn't look complex! Looking at it thru the daze of tiredness I can barely work out how I got this damn thing to work!
NB2: with all the arrays and the odd way PHP does them, this is getting harder than I thought. I think I probably will go for the DB join option unless someone can come up with a better idea

 

[VanTheMan]

I cant wait to see the results of that website, Mr commando, looks impressive.

 

[akellor]

I've been PMing with commando and he recommended I put my thoughts in this thread, so here they are. This has been rattling around in my brain for a while but I just don't have the time to try this out myself...

So lets say I have some SR80s but want headphones with more detail and I find two people who say “These are the most detailed headphones I’ve ever heard” about two different headphones, who’s right? Both of course, but both comments are near useless to me because there’s no frame of reference.

If they’d both compared the sound to another headphone, say my SR80s, and both said “these have much more detail than SR80s”, now I’ve got better idea how much detail those two headphones have, and I know that detail wise they are in the vicinity of each other at least.

So my idea is to have people compare headphones two at a time (and ONLY two at a time) and compare them on a sliding scale for a number of attributes. My theory (leap of faith) is that with enough comparisons a sort of headphone continium could be created for each attribute. Then one could mine this data for their next headphone fix when upgrade bugs show up, or you could compare the attributes for two headphones, etc...

I think any interface to this would be difficult to do well, but not impossible. Creating this continuim for each attribute? That's got me stumped.

 

[commando]

I think that's a good idea, but way too much work, and probably not entirely practical. I'll be trying to do a simple version by making a person declare their headphone experience so you know how much weight to give their reviews.

 

[commando]

Here's a heads up: i've gotten to the state where information (manufacturer, headphone, review) can be put into the database, and manufacturer/headphone data can be viewed. It's taking longer than I expected - it looks like it'll be another couple of weeks worth of evenings to get it to alpha stage (ie not pretty but functionally working), and then longer to pretty it up and do some testing. Things still to do:
- add admin functions
- add a basic user system (users will have to register before posting a review, to try to keep the review quality up)
- add search features to let people find headphones based on their criteria
- add email notifications (ie when your manufacturer/headphone/review is accepted you're emailed).

Any ideas on the metrics used to help people rate and find headphones are still most welcome.

 

[phkd]

Apparently this thread escaped me till now. I think the best way to go about this is gather all the data of all the headphones you can possibly find. Then when the user gets to the main menu, have him/her choose a catagory like closed-air, manufacturer, price less than a certain amount, all headphones, etc. Then make it so you can sort this list by average price, brand, etc. Also it would help to put a thumbnail pic next to each one cause people (like me) get confused between HD600 and DT880 and CD3000 etc. Then the user could click on the individual thumbnail or name for a bigger pic and all the specs and data. one more suggestion, subjective comments like "these phones are too bright" or "the lows in these cans are withdrawn" are a lot less useful (and sometimes misleading) than comparitive comments like "These phones are brighter than the rest of the phones in this line" or "Compared to these cans, there is less bass here." I guess what I'm saying is that user reviews are a bad idea unless the user has an assload of experience and a variety of headphones to go off of.

I realize this is a lot of work and i don't know how far along you are, so take these as mere suggestions. I would be glad to help you out, just PM me, the only thing is i don't know how to code or write websites... so im probably useless heh. if you can think of anything that i could do however, id be happy to help. also, a big big thank you for even attempting this.
-AJ

I tried to post this reponse and it didn't show up, so if there are now 2 of these, ignore one and i will edit it out if i catch it.

 

[commando]

Cheers phkd. I was thinking more a wizard style interface, or a search screen where you fill in your requirements and leave the fields you don't care about blank. Also, the headphones will be added by people who use the site, although i'll obviously start by putting a fair few in of my own. Since the data is all in a database the whole UI can be changed at will if the initial one doesn't work out.

If all you want are specs there are sites around for that already, the whole point is that people all hear differently and before purchasing people might like to see many reviews. This site will make it easier to see summary data on reviews, and users comments.

Thumbnail pic's a good idea, but for now all I have is a link to the manufacturers website. It's something I can add later easily enough.

Ensuring review quality will be done with a registration and moderation system. People will register and declare their headphone experience. When they submit a review a moderator will see if they have enough experience for their review to be useful, and if so they'll let the review go live. If not they'll reject it or contact the user for more information.

If you want to help i'll add your name to the list of alpha testers, to see how you like it once it's done. Figure another month or so until the alpha release, it takes a while to write these things! User management could be interesting, but won't be too bad