Marshall Emberton II vs Willen

Oct 24, 2024 01:26 PM By  Christopher Steward

Thanks Bashar! I’m glad you appreciate what we do and we always like getting feedback from passionate users such as yourself. Even if you don’t see immediate changes to out testing and scoring process, I can assure you we’ll be taking your comments on board for future tweaks.

Hi Christopher! Thank you so much. I am sure my passion is parallel to yours: Just to make Rtings site better and better for the all users :)

Oct 16, 2024 02:55 AM By Bashar

100

Thank you so much for your reply Chris! I understand your (Rtings) logic-math about the Battery Ratings calculation and of course I respect that. But personally still not convinced about the efficiency of this calculation. Please you ask yourself; do you prefer to charge your speaker few hours more in an idle time and use it 10 hours (50%) longer, or charge 2 hours less and use 10 hours less? (Especially for the similar size-prize speakers) I am sure that majority would prefer the first one; and therefore in my opinion first one should have higher Battery ratings beside all calculations and math. Anyways, I understand that its not always possible to reflect the choices of the majority and not possible to change all ratings from the beginning. Thank you for your care and time.

Thanks Bashar! I’m glad you appreciate what we do and we always like getting feedback from passionate users such as yourself. Even if you don’t see immediate changes to out testing and scoring process, I can assure you we’ll be taking your comments on board for future tweaks.

Oct 15, 2024 04:36 PM By  Christopher Steward

Thank you for the feedback Bashar - I’m currently speaking to one of our test developers about this issue. Your second comment is very much right. We do weight the battery box at 70/15/15 right now. The key part that is missing from the verification you provided is the weighting behind the battery life score (which makes up 70% of the current battery box) as your equation relies on using a speaker’s total battery life, as opposed to a weighted score for battery life (which we currently use). The score given to the battery life result is not linear with the battery life. It follows a logarithmic trend (diminishing return). In practice, this means that the Emberton II with 22 hours of battery life scores a 9.5 in battery life, while the Willen (with 14.5 hours) still scores a 9.2. So as you can observe, the difference between 14.5 and 22 hours of battery life only amounts to a 0.3 difference in the weighted score. While this difference in battery life is expressed in the Emberton’s slightly higher score in this sub-category, it’s eclipsed by the longer charge time, thus giving it a lower score.
I hope this makes sense! Your logic is sound, but the conversion of battery life to weighted scores gets complicated when our speakers’ battery lives range from 4 to 117.9 hours.

Thank you so much for your reply Chris! I understand your (Rtings) logic-math about the Battery Ratings calculation and of course I respect that. But personally still not convinced about the efficiency of this calculation. Please you ask yourself; do you prefer to charge your speaker few hours more in an idle time and use it 10 hours (50%) longer, or charge 2 hours less and use 10 hours less? (Especially for the similar size-prize speakers) I am sure that majority would prefer the first one; and therefore in my opinion first one should have higher Battery ratings beside all calculations and math. Anyways, I understand that its not always possible to reflect the choices of the majority and not possible to change all ratings from the beginning. Thank you for your care and time.

Oct 05, 2024 05:18 AM By Bashar

100

I may add one more example to clarify my point, I hope you could understand what I mean. UE Wonderboom 2 has 12.9 hours of Battery Life and 2.5 Charge time. Emberton 2 has 22.1 hours of Battery life and 4.9 hours of charging time. If the weight of Charging Time and Battery Life would be equal as 50-50% then we might consider to compare as UE Wonderboom has 5.16 hours of battery life per 1 hour charge (12.9÷2.5) vs Emberton 2 has 4.51 hours of battery life per 1 hour charge (22.1÷4.9) and that would be fair to rate their battery points 8.9 vs 8.7 in favor to Wonderboom 2. (as it is in Rtings now). But in an equation where you consider the weight of Battery life 70% and Charging time 15%, Emberton 2 SHOULD have better battery rating than Wonderboom 2 with correct Math. P.S: My point is not just about the speakers I mention here and their battery ratings in particular; I just believe that there is a systematical error in these calculations and ratings which actually affects all Battery&Outdoor ratings of all speakers. I will be so glad, if you let me know your thoughts about the matter. Thanks in advance.

Thank you for the feedback Bashar - I’m currently speaking to one of our test developers about this issue. Your second comment is very much right. We do weight the battery box at 70/15/15 right now. The key part that is missing from the verification you provided is the weighting behind the battery life score (which makes up 70% of the current battery box) as your equation relies on using a speaker’s total battery life, as opposed to a weighted score for battery life (which we currently use).

The score given to the battery life result is not linear with the battery life. It follows a logarithmic trend (diminishing return). In practice, this means that the Emberton II with 22 hours of battery life scores a 9.5 in battery life, while the Willen (with 14.5 hours) still scores a 9.2. So as you can observe, the difference between 14.5 and 22 hours of battery life only amounts to a 0.3 difference in the weighted score. While this difference in battery life is expressed in the Emberton’s slightly higher score in this sub-category, it’s eclipsed by the longer charge time, thus giving it a lower score.

I hope this makes sense! Your logic is sound, but the conversion of battery life to weighted scores gets complicated when our speakers’ battery lives range from 4 to 117.9 hours.

Oct 04, 2024 02:07 PM By Bashar

100

Hi Chris! Thank you for your reply, but honestly its not satisfactory. Of course I had checked the (?) icon before, and it’s more confusing because of that exactly. (Rtings mentions there that the weight of charging time is just 15%). I don’t want to be rude but I will try to explain my logic and please correct me if I am wrong: Let’s take this example for instance (though it’s similar in many other Speakers) Battery life of Emberton is 52% longer than Willen (14.5 hours vs 22.1 hours) while Charging time of Emberton is 88% longer than Willen. (2.6 Hours vs 4.9 hours) 52% “plus” in 70% weight, should be considered as “better-more” than 88% “minus” in 15% weight. Or in another equation (regarding to your 70-15% weight) we may formulize that as Battery Point = (Battery Life in Hours ÷ 0.7) - (Charging time in hours ÷ 0.15). (When both speakers have Battery Saving) That’s why I couldn’t understand how you calculate this 70% - 15% weight. (I may give you few other examples also if I couldn’t explain my point) Maybe you may consider to discuss this with Test designers, I don’t know. Pierre from Rtings team had already enlighted me about another subject today.

I may add one more example to clarify my point, I hope you could understand what I mean. UE Wonderboom 2 has 12.9 hours of Battery Life and 2.5 Charge time. Emberton 2 has 22.1 hours of Battery life and 4.9 hours of charging time. If the weight of Charging Time and Battery Life would be equal as 50-50% then we might consider to compare as UE Wonderboom has 5.16 hours of battery life per 1 hour charge (12.9÷2.5) vs Emberton 2 has 4.51 hours of battery life per 1 hour charge (22.1÷4.9) and that would be fair to rate their battery points 8.9 vs 8.7 in favor to Wonderboom 2. (as it is in Rtings now). But in an equation where you consider the weight of Battery life 70% and Charging time 15%, Emberton 2 SHOULD have better battery rating than Wonderboom 2 with correct Math. P.S: My point is not just about the speakers I mention here and their battery ratings in particular; I just believe that there is a systematical error in these calculations and ratings which actually affects all Battery&Outdoor ratings of all speakers. I will be so glad, if you let me know your thoughts about the matter. Thanks in advance.

Oct 04, 2024 11:44 AM By  Christopher Steward

Hi Bashar, thanks again for your feedback. As we mentioned, we have deployed a different method of scaling battery life which we feel is more reflective of a speaker’s battery performance. While I understand why this particular comparison looks a little strange, given the Emberton has a longer continuous battery life, I’d encourage you to hover your cursor over the (?) icon next to the battery life box, so you can see the full breakdown of the battery scores and how they’re reached. In this instance, you can see that the Emberton has a much longer charging time, which contributes to its lower battery life score. We do feel like charge time is an important metric to measure, particularly as the battery life of speakers trends towards being longer. That said, we recognize that the changes made to the weighting of battery life scores isn’t an ideal fix, and we’re working towards a more permanent solution that better represents battery performance.

Hi Chris! Thank you for your reply, but honestly its not satisfactory. Of course I had checked the (?) icon before, and it’s more confusing because of that exactly. (Rtings mentions there that the weight of charging time is just 15%). I don’t want to be rude but I will try to explain my logic and please correct me if I am wrong: Let’s take this example for instance (though it’s similar in many other Speakers) Battery life of Emberton is 52% longer than Willen (14.5 hours vs 22.1 hours) while Charging time of Emberton is 88% longer than Willen. (2.6 Hours vs 4.9 hours) 52% “plus” in 70% weight, should be considered as “better-more” than 88% “minus” in 15% weight. Or in another equation (regarding to your 70-15% weight) we may formulize that as Battery Point = (Battery Life in Hours ÷ 0.7) - (Charging time in hours ÷ 0.15). (When both speakers have Battery Saving) That’s why I couldn’t understand how you calculate this 70% - 15% weight. (I may give you few other examples also if I couldn’t explain my point) Maybe you may consider to discuss this with Test designers, I don’t know. Pierre from Rtings team had already enlighted me about another subject today.

Sep 26, 2024 09:51 AM By Bashar

100

Dear Rtings team, I adore your site, I am one of your biggest fans, and I appreciate your works a lot; but please do something (or at least write smt) about your battery ratings. I had asked about that few weeks ago and you replied that it would be corrected in few days, but seems like no change and still so confusing. If you can’t make necessary corrections, (maybe its really so hard to start all over from the beginning and change all ratings ) maybe better to remove battery ratings totally instead of wrong information and calculations? Check this comparison for instance and correct me if I am wrong: same company Willen has 9.0 rating with 14,5 hours of battery life while Emberton 2 has 8.7 rating with 22.1 hours of battery life. And this affects their outdoor ratings directly as well? If this looks normal to you, I don’t have any more question about this subject, let’s ignore all together. :((

Hi Bashar, thanks again for your feedback. As we mentioned, we have deployed a different method of scaling battery life which we feel is more reflective of a speaker’s battery performance. While I understand why this particular comparison looks a little strange, given the Emberton has a longer continuous battery life, I’d encourage you to hover your cursor over the (?) icon next to the battery life box, so you can see the full breakdown of the battery scores and how they’re reached. In this instance, you can see that the Emberton has a much longer charging time, which contributes to its lower battery life score.

We do feel like charge time is an important metric to measure, particularly as the battery life of speakers trends towards being longer. That said, we recognize that the changes made to the weighting of battery life scores isn’t an ideal fix, and we’re working towards a more permanent solution that better represents battery performance.

Dear Rtings team, I adore your site, I am one of your biggest fans, and I appreciate your works a lot; but please do something (or at least write smt) about your battery ratings. I had asked about that few weeks ago and you replied that it would be corrected in few days, but seems like no change and still so confusing. If you can’t make necessary corrections, (maybe its really so hard to start all over from the beginning and change all ratings ) maybe better to remove battery ratings totally instead of wrong information and calculations? Check this comparison for instance and correct me if I am wrong: same company Willen has 9.0 rating with 14,5 hours of battery life while Emberton 2 has 8.7 rating with 22.1 hours of battery life. And this affects their outdoor ratings directly as well? If this looks normal to you, I don’t have any more question about this subject, let’s ignore all together. :((