Editorial Standards
Everything on this site is either a number we observed or a judgement we made. This page says which is which, and what to do when we get one wrong.
Who writes the guides
The buyer’s guides are written in-house by the HiFi Registry editorial team and published under the organisation’s name rather than an individual byline. We are a small team; attributing a 6,000-word brand chapter to one person would imply a division of labour that does not exist here.
Guides are not written by manufacturers, dealers, or anyone who stands to gain from a particular recommendation. No brand has editorial review, approval, or advance sight of a chapter about it.
Where the price data comes from
Listing Comps draw on two sources, and they are labelled separately wherever they appear: completed sales on HiFi Registry, and sold and asking prices observed across the wider used-audio market.
They are observed transactions, not valuations. We do not estimate what something is worth, adjust figures toward what we think they should be, or model prices for equipment with no recorded sales. Where we have no data, the page says so instead of filling the gap.
Transaction dates are shown to the month rather than the day, so that a specific sale cannot be tied back to a specific buyer or seller.
Sample sizes are always shown
Every price figure is published with the number of sales behind it. A median drawn from three transactions is not the same claim as one drawn from three hundred, and a page that hides the difference is not being straight with you.
Where a sample is small enough that we would not rely on it ourselves, the page says so in plain language next to the number.
How we handle corrections
If something here is wrong, we want to know, and specifics help more than anything: the page, the figure, and what it should be. Write to admin@hifiregistry.com.
Factual errors are corrected at the source rather than patched over, so the fix reaches every page that drew on the same data. Where a correction changes something a reader may have acted on, we note the change on the page rather than quietly editing it.
How the site makes money, and what that does not buy
Revenue comes from a flat listing fee. There is no commission on a sale, no advertising, no sponsored placements, and no paid inclusion in Listing Comps, the brand directory, or the dealer directory. Paying to list does not affect where a listing ranks, and no dealer can buy a mention in a guide. See the fee schedule →
Analytics are self-hosted and first-party. The site sets no cookies and loads no third-party tracking scripts, so reading a guide here is not shared with anyone. Privacy policy →
What we will not do
We will not publish a price we did not observe, recommend equipment on the basis of a commercial relationship, present an asking price as a sale, or remove an unflattering figure because a brand or dealer asked us to.