Here are some year’s results, self-praise and a pity party, excuses and further plans to take over the world. Business as usual, you know. 😊

Promises and doings

This is what has been done from what was promised in the last year’s final post:

1. Headphone reviews became shorter, but more informative, and the quality and volume of measurements were improved.
2. There were several theoretical articles published: one about sound, one about some fine points of headphone measurements , and one about system analysis.
3. As for my own small ‘tangible’ themes and schemes, the only thing where I succeeded is an IEM case.
4. As for reviews of something other than headphones, that’s what I can’t do yet, so my maximum is something like this.

Numbers

Let’s take a look at the numbers. In 2025, I wrote 46 posts, of which:

1. 18 posts are reviews of headphones;
2. 12 posts are monthly informational posts about updating measurement databases and ratings;
3. three are theoretical articles (see above);
4. one post is about eartips for in-ears;
5. two posts are Q&A, which got 59 and 89 comments respectively (my respects, guys, I never expected that);
6. 10 posts are about a huge comparison of TWS, news, and you name it.

What’s more:

1. The IEM rating is updated regularly.
2. The over-ear headphones rating appeared in 2025 and is being updated (in fact, these are 29 mini-reviews with measurements and photos).

Out of 18 headphone reviews, 16 were translated into English, and the reviews of Moondrop Laputa and XK Audio Fluxion were the first in the world.

Having counted the number of headphones I listened to and the number of measurements I took in 2025, I’ve got as follows:

1. 110+ models of in-ears were listened to, and 539 measurements were made.
2. ~60 models of over-ear headphones were listened to, and 485 measurements were made.

In total, 1108 measurements of in-ears and 590 measurements of over-ear headphones are posted on my squig.link, some measurements, for example, XK Audio Ken or Vzonis DDB-03, provided solely by me. Besides, let’s compare some numbers of 2025 with previous years. Some infographics:

Feelings and emotions

So, when it comes to all these numbers, is this a lot or a little? If I compare them with my own wants and wishes, they’re definitely not enough. My brain has too many tabs open! But when I compare them with what I really can do, it’s just as much as suffices because I’m not tired of endless writing and measuring, but I’m not wasting my time either.

What really pleased me last year was the increase in the number of comments without turning the blog into another toxic audiophile fuss. We know the examples, so I won’t point fingers. The number of comments is growing very, very slowly, and I can understand why. Firstly, adult males (who form the basis of my blog’s audience) don’t have time to post bullshit as they usually have little time, as well as enough brains not to write bullshit. Thus, there simply can’t be many meaningful comments, which clearly predominate in the blog. Secondly, when a text contains more or less complete information about the subject, and it’s logical, well-balanced and spot on, then there are usually no questions left. Anyway, the number of comments (about 550 in 2025, by the way) and the overall quality of the discussion on the posts (especially Q&A ones) is incredibly encouraging.

I met a lot of my readers in person. I heard a lot of warm words about my writings, which was definitely pleasing. But I was much more pleased that many people who bought headphones after reading my reviews were satisfied: the sound turned out to be exactly what they had imagined after reading the review. As expected, everyone I met turned out to be perfectly normal, reasonable, and nice people. Different, but always friendly and sociable. I believe that the strict moderation policy, which I adhere to and which is necessary to maintain a healthy atmosphere within the community, plays an important role here. It is vital and efficient to timely identify idiots and boors and leave them in the ‘quarantine area’, disabling the commenting for them.

I also had failures related to those ‘great beginnings’ that I hinted at in last year’s post. To implement the most ambitious project, I draw up a plan with deadlines and readiness criteria for each stage, managed risks, purchased facilities and equipment, and spent several hundred thousand rubles on them. Eventually, the risk that is most difficult to mitigate did the dirty on me, and it was the incompetence and chaos of PIC in terms of their way of doing things, so to say, as well as their low professional skills. It was very disappointing and sad. It was not about the money, but about the efforts invested, as well as about my failure to assess those risks properly. Well, a bit about the money, too, though. But I tried, didn’t I? Goddammit, at least I did that.

In general, my gut sense is that my blog is developing slowly, but in the right way because the right way usually can’t be fast. It’s slow just because I’m by myself and limited, at least, in time. It’s right because the quality of materials is improving, the quality of comments and discourse is growing, and objective measurable indicators are creeping upward, too (see the graphs above).

I do as much as I can and enjoy it.

Credits

The first message of thanks is addressed to my job, which provides me with a financial opportunity to make this blog. If I didn’t have it, there would be nothing. And, since my job lets me preserve a non-commercial approach to my blog, I am in position to decline many offers to make reviews of uninteresting headphones such as Kiwi Ears Belle, NiceHCK Tears and other unstriking models. And that’s why I don’t publish manufacturer news (that’s what I get requests about all the time), even for money – there are other places for that on the Web.

The second thanks goes to my wife, who’s also my proofreader – if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have time to deal with all this mess that consumes the evenings of working days and weekends, and my texts would have much more errors. Thank you!

I would like to express my third thanks to the people who provided me with headphones for measurements and reviews. As for 2024, I could list everyone by name, but I won’t even try this time as there were so many of these people. Thank you so much for the opportunity itself and for your trust. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have been able to write many reviews and to take many measurements. Thanks to you, I have ‘food’ for reviews, enrich the quality of my own analysis, and ultimately it becomes more interesting for everyone to read my writings.

Who I want to thank separately is Kirill, who provided the Moondrop Laputa headphones for the review. If it weren’t for him, there would have been no ‘first review of Laputa in the world on boizoff.com’. Thank you! This review greatly influenced the popularity and citation rate of my blog on the Internet.

Another profound bow goes to Igor, who saw the imperfection of my distortion measurements and offered to assemble, actually assembled and taught me how to use devices, with which I can measure these very distortions very accurately now, as well as the impedance of headphones.

Marina, my indispensable translator, your work is also invaluable – I would have nothing to publish on Reddit and Head-fi without your translations, and KeepHiFi, HifiGo and other foreign stores and manufacturers would never have known about me.

Last, but not least is my readership. Like all of the above, you and your comments are a prerequisite for my blog to live so that I have the desire and inspiration to continue my work, to go on digging into the difficult field of audio even deeper, and to find even clearer and simpler words in order to logically and clearly explain complex things. Thank you!

If we consider all these points as the conditions of existence of this blog, then there are no omissible conditions among them, they all are essential. Remove any of them, and I won’t be able to do what I do and in the way I do it. Therefore, their order is completely random, and the importance of each is difficult to overestimate.

Plans

1. I found a solution to the problem that caused links to my squig.link from my own reviews to open incorrectly. That’s on me. I’ll try to fix everything I find.
2. The number of blog posts has exceeded 180, so now I can consider the need for some sort of a navigator. My categories and tags are a mess, so I’ll sort them out and put the heading tree in a prominent place.
3. The number of articles and site traffic has grown to such a scale that it already makes sense to consider the need for some kind of design updates, a decent logo and all this stuff. I tried to do it in early 2025, but it didn’t work out, so I’m going to try again.
4. I don’t really like the way my squig looks. It lacks links, functions and all sorts of additional features that my ‘co-residents’ have. I’ll try to figure it out — I just need some time.
5. My measurements can be made even better in some aspects. To do this, I need to upgrade some of my equipment, and then, finally, it will be possible to create a separate page with a full description of my rig so that all hardware issues are settled.

I wish us all good health, mindfulness and sense of purpose.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!