Do’s and Don’ts

Alpha Audio has grown considerably in recent years. That’s great, of course, but it also presents some challenges. Think of developing and maintaining a sustainable, future-proof and reliable platform. Or steering the discussions under articles and on the forum.

On this page you will find information about our revenue model and all the do’s and don’ts as a visitor.

Discuss with respect

Behind every screen, there is a person. A human being of flesh and blood. A human being with feelings. That goes for both the readers and the team behind Alpha Audio. It is therefore important to discuss things with respect towards each other. We don’t all have to agree with each other, but on Alpha Audio it is not done to slander each other get personal. Without exception this will result in a time-out and then a ban.

Advertisements and links

We are fairly lenient about posting comments and links to additional information. What we do not accept, however, is advertising for our own products or commercial links to our own webshop. These reactions will be deleted without exception, followed by a warning. Another posting will result in a time-out.

Patreon only – Alpha Supporters

We have been working with Patreon since the end of 2022. This is to future-proof the platform and keep large – possibly Live – mass tests possible. We also create unique articles for our Alpha Supporters. Think in-depth background stories or unique interviews and tutorial articles. This archive is growing steadily, making it increasingly interesting to support Alpha Audio.

Patreon members – Alpha Supporters – also have access to a separate contact form (faster and more comprehensive response), lossless samples and they can play lossless samples directly online via the online player.

Revenue model

Alpha Audio went online in 2007 (The Dutch version). At the time, it was nothing more than a hobby project. As of late 2012, however, Alpha Audio started as a business in order to grow. And in order to grow and run tests properly, money has to be made. Costs such as hosting, office space, trade show visits, authors, camera people, measuring equipment, computers, cameras and, for example, large-scale research just have to be covered.

For this reason, we need advertisers. These advertisers get visibility on the platform. That includes banners, but also articles (reviews, interviews, or other types of articles) and the Store Locator. Advertisers know that Alpha Audio operates objectively.

Alpha Audio explicitly does not sell reviews. We do sell direct display advertising. This investment enables us to post reviews. We can convert the banner space an advertiser purchases into time that we can then invest in reviews. This is how we keep reviews as objective as possible.

You will also never find sponsored content (or other types of guest posts with vague back-links to shadowy websites.). We find that degrading the website and it is contrary to what we stand for at Alpha Audio: honest content. Every review or other type of content is written by Alpha Audio itself.

Patreon is additional to Alpha Audio’s standard revenue model: our advertisers, or partners as we call them. We believe that Patreon makes Alpha Audio future-proof, because it allows us to offer additional depth and service.

Finally, we place affiliate links under some articles. If you purchase the product through these links we receive a small compensation. Affiliation links can be recognized by the blue block.

Balance: premium content

In the end, we need income to do our work. That income comes largely through advertisers and partly through affiliations and our Patreon supporters. We always try to keep the right balance between freely accessible content for all visitors and premium articles and extra help for our supporters.

Reviews of our partners’ products are never locked. That time has already been paid for. Hence you will also find few reviews that are for Alpha Supporters. You will also be able to follow all the live streams on Youtube.

What we do lock as premium content are large-scale studies in which a lot of time has been invested. These articles are completely funded by Alpha Audio. Both in terms of time and investment in any accessories or additional measurement or audio equipment.

Under some Premium articles, non-Patreons can respond. This is because only a portion is shielded. This way we can show non-supporters a bit of what we create for our supporters. So while responding to these articles is freely accessible, we cannot answer every question. Certainly not questions answered in the article. So, as a non-logged-in Patreon member, it is explicitly not the place to continue asking questions about things that are answered in detail in the article.

Tracking and profiles

Alpha Audio works with WordPress. That system is very well maintained and gets regular updates. For extra security, we use Cloudflare Pro with advanced firewall rules.

To collect statistics we explicitly do not use Google Analytics. Also for the advertisements we do not use Google DFP, which is widely used. We also do not place Facebook pixels or other aggressive tracking software that will follow you indefinitely.

We use our own server on which we run Revive and Matomo. We use Revive for ads and Matomo for statistics. The advantage is that we can turn off all tracking ánd it works much faster than external services.