Yes, we earn commissions. Here’s exactly how — and how it doesn’t shape what we recommend.

What “affiliate link” means here

If we recommend a product and link you to where to buy it, that link sometimes carries a tracking code. If you click through and buy within a fixed window (typically 24 hours on Amazon), the retailer pays us a small percentage of the sale.

Three things to know:

• It costs you nothing. The price you pay is identical whether you click our link or type the URL directly.
• It applies to your whole cart. If you click a link to one acoustic panel and end up adding a microphone and a router on the same Amazon visit, we earn on those too. (That’s Amazon’s rule, not ours.)
• The window is short. The cookie expires in about 24 hours. We don’t track you beyond that.

The retailer programs we use

One. Amazon Associates, the affiliate program operated by Amazon.com, Inc.

That’s the entire list right now. If we ever add another — for example, a music-gear retailer like Sweetwater for the Make Music vertical — we’ll update this section before the first link goes live.

As an Amazon Associate, Burton Acoustix earns from qualifying purchases. (This sentence is required by the Amazon Associates Operating Agreement.)

What we do not do

This is the part that matters. The whole pitch of Burton Acoustix is that recommendations are picked on physics and measurement, not on what pays best. To make that real, we don’t:

• Run sponsored posts. No “this article brought to you by,” no “in partnership with,” no native advertising disguised as editorial. Ever.
• Accept payment for reviews. No PR firm, manufacturer, or retailer can pay to be reviewed, ranked, or featured.
• Take placement money. Position in any list — best-of, vs, alternatives, picks — is decided by testing and editorial judgment, never by commission rate or affiliate margin.
• Promise coverage in exchange for products. See the next section for how we handle review units when we accept them.
• Show articles to manufacturers before publication. No fact-checking with the brand, no preview, no veto. The first time the maker sees the piece is when you do.

How we handle review units

We sometimes accept loaner units from manufacturers. There is no honest way to test a $4,000 measurement microphone array, or every soundbar in a category, otherwise. When we do accept a unit, the rules are fixed:

1. The article will say so. Look for a line near the top: “This unit was supplied by [maker] for review,” with a note on whether we kept it, returned it, or bought it after testing.
2. We negotiate full editorial freedom in writing before the unit ships. If a brand insists on copy approval or guaranteed positive coverage, we don’t review it.
3. We test against a control. Loaner units are measured against products we bought retail or rented, on the same protocol, in the same room.
4. If a loaner doesn’t perform, we say so. The maker doesn’t get a re-roll, a re-test, or a quiet shelving.

If a relevant article does not include a loaner-disclosure line, the unit was bought at retail or rented at our own cost.

How we pick what to recommend

The order is always:

1. Define the room or use case. A bass trap that wins in a treated 30 m² studio is wrong for a 12 m² apartment. The first job is to know which question we’re answering.
2. Test against measurement, not opinion. RT60, frequency response, transmission loss, dialogue clarity — whatever physics is relevant to the category.
3. Pick the winner on performance. Tied scores break on price, then on availability, then on warranty — in that order.
4. Then, and only then, add the link. If our top pick has no affiliate program, we still recommend it and link to the manufacturer’s page directly. Commission rate has no input into the ranking.

Questions, corrections, or concerns

If you spot an undisclosed loaner, an article that reads like marketing, a product ranking that looks bought, or anything else that smells off — we want to know. Email hello@burtonacoustix.com or use the contact page. We read everything; we update this disclosure when readers catch something we missed.