After a long break, I returned to stereo hi-fi with a clear budget and a clear problem: I needed to know whether the components I was considering would actually work together before I spent the money. Not just "will they connect" — but whether the impedance ratios were right, whether the gain staging made sense, whether a low-output moving-coil cartridge at 0.4 mV would be a poor match for a given phono stage.
My buying strategy made this more complicated than usual. I was mixing good used components — gear from the last decade that had depreciated but retained its performance — with a few newer pieces. Used gear means no retailer to ask, no return policy if something sounds wrong, and no way to know in advance if a $400 phono preamp is actually compatible with a $300 cartridge until you've already bought both.
I searched for a compatibility tool for a long time. I found impedance calculators, forum threads, and spec sheets, but nothing that pulled it all together into a complete signal chain analysis. So I built it.
The final verdict on any system is always your ears. This tool doesn't change that. What it does is let you surface the technical problems before you invest — so that when you do sit down to listen, you're not wondering whether the noise you hear is a compatibility issue or just the recording.