Introducing The Score: IC's in-house rating system designed to make choosing a sound system easy.
Objective and transparent: products are evaluated on category-specific criteria, with each scored out of 100. An average overall score is then calculated.
An easy rating scale: 100 signifies the best possible experience in that category (from any current product on the market), while 0 indicates the opposite.
Smart matching: if any product is more than 10 points under another for corresponding criteria (e.g. sound quality), we’ll suggest you pick an alternative.
The result: a well-balanced sound system with no weak links and no guesswork.

So you’re tossing up between different models of turntables, speakers and amplifiers, reading up on which ones are better and how well one matches with the other.

It can feel like a wild goose chase; different reviewers have different scales (when most things get 4 or 5 stars, it feels kind of meaningless anyway), and there’s no reliable way to know whether a turntable at a certain level from one brand matches an amp from another. On top of that are customer reviews, which while really useful, add another (sometimes conflicting) rating to consider.

So we devised The Score. It’s IC’s own standardised rating system for the audio products we sell. We pick relevant criteria for that category of product, giving each criterion its own rating out of 100 (for example, a turntable will be rated on sound quality, build quality and features. Those will then be averaged for a total rating out of 100.

These numerical ratings are ‘absolutist’, meaning that 100 is the best we know of in that category (so something like a Tech Das Air Force, which can go for several hundred thousand dollars), inside or outside of our product range. A rating of 0 would be reserved for the crappiest thing available (think a cheap suitcase turntable with built-in speakers that creates a negative feedback loop and scratches your records - we’ll stay collegial and not mention any names!).

This concept is in contrast to a ‘relativist’ approach which would give a rating to a product relative to its price point. This would be less useful; we want to be transparent so you get an idea for how well or badly something objectively performs compared to the spectrum of other products out there. You can then decide on a budget that suits you.

Maybe seeing a turntable that we rate at 70 convinces you to spend an extra $100 to get to 80. Or maybe seeing that it’s going to cost another $1,000 to get speakers with a modest improvement of 90 vs 85 means you decide to save your cash. That’s your decision to make.

Our scoring is as objective as possible, even if it means we end up rating some of our gear in the 60s. We’d rather earn your trust than pretend every single thing that we sell is perfect by giving them all 80s or 90s. How can you possibly choose between models that way?

Speaking of objectivity, it’s hard to be totally independent when you’re reviewing yourself or your own products. So we use AI to assist us in keeping things standardised and accountable.

If our rating for a product falls below what we deem an acceptable or satisfactory level where value-for-money and a good quality music experience aren’t present, then it just won’t be offered on IC. So if it’s available for sale and got a rating at all, assume we think it’s decent at the very least.

For argument’s sake, would a rating of, say, 65 be bad? Not at all. If the alternative is something on Amazon or at a big box store we reckon gives a 10, then you’re winning. And if that 65 costs $400 where an elusive 98 costs, say, $100,000, then everything’s coming up Milhouse!

If you’re on a budget but want to achieve a nice balance of quality and value-for-money, the sweet spot might be products in the 70s. Got the cash to splash and want something luxurious, rare and extra? Maybe the 90s zone is for you. Go off king/queen.

Something to note for consumer products in general is that, as you get closer to perfection, you end up paying more for the same increments in quality. So you might reckon a Tesla Model 3 at $60k is double as good as a Toyota Corolla at $30k. But is a Tesla Model S at $150k almost triple as good as a Model 3? No. Do people still buy the Model S? Yep.

To torture the car analogy, what happens then when we’re talking about a Toyota Hilux ute? You’d be interested in tray capacity, which isn’t a consideration for a standard car. So for the ute category, our rating system may look at fuel efficiency, safety, power and payload capacity, whereas for family cars, we’d replace payload capacity with comfort. We’d give a total average Score out of 100, but also individual Scores for each criterion that you could drill down into.

Bringing it back to hifi, our turntable criteria are sound quality, build quality and features. For example, does it have electronic 33/45 speed change or automatic tonearm return? No power ratings here as this simply isn’t relevant to turntables - power is determined by amplifiers and speakers.

For speakers, we substitute features for power. Passive speakers are all pretty standardised in their feature-set, but very differentiated by their power handling and how loud they can go. Power is still distinct from sound quality though - you can have less powerful speakers that suit a small space but still sound immaculate - so it’s important we give you access to each individual criterion’s Score.

Next comes the second critical element to the philosophy of The Score, and that’s matching. Traditional hifi centres around separate components which perform separate jobs. This improves sound quality, allows for interoperability between different brands, flexibility for when you want to add or remove something over time like a CD player or tape deck, and better repairability if something goes wrong.

Just like you don’t want to wear clothes all from the same brand (or do you??), hifi doesn’t all need to be from the same manufacturer. Part of the fun is mixing and matching, upgrading over time, and maybe even incorporating something you found at a vintage shop like a tape deck or CD player.

But how do you know if those old JBL speakers from dad go with the new Encel amplifier from IC? You can read write-ups and try to match specs yourself, but the reality is there’d be a lot of guesswork, and that specific combination may never have been tried before. Do their power ratings match? Are they at a similar level of quality? No point getting a really nice amp with basic speakers.

The complexity compounds with the more components you add to your system.

To draw a parallel, you could technically drink Sprite while eating gourmet oysters, but that’s disgusting and you’d be disowned by anyone around you with good sense. A sommelier will advise you that you should pair them with a white wine, and a great somm will tell you whether it should be a chablis, muscadet or savvy B based on the flavour profile of those mollusks.

That’s what The Score does for you. If a product you’ve selected in our Designer is more than 10 points below your top-rated selection for any single one of those rating criteria, we’ll suggest you choose an alternative.

So say you were looking at a turntable that was rated 82 for sound quality, 85 for build quality and 70 for features. That’d give you a total average Score of 79. Then you selected an amplifier rated 71 for sound quality, 83 for build quality and 89 for features, for an average Score of 81.

Even though the averages of 79 and 81 for the respective products are very close, the amplifier’s sound quality alone is greater than 10 points lower than the turntable’s. Designer wouldn’t label this a good match, and you’d be nudged to pick a different amplifier that was within 10 points of difference.

The result? You’ll be left confident that each of the parts of your new hifi system adds up to a well-balanced whole, with no weak links. Now press order and enjoy!

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