Hifi is a complex and quite pricey hobby. That combination makes it require a fair amount of knowledge to make the right decisions and not flush your savings down the drain. And not to get lost in the many mazes this hobby hides. Alpha Audio wants to be by your side in this hobby. And that requires trust … mutual trust.
Alpha Audio’s goal is 100% transparency in reviews. That is why we always tell you the gear we have tested the product with. In addition, we always take pictures ourselves so you can see that we’ve actually held the product in our hands. And with many reviews we post lossless samples for our Patreons to download. This way, various devices can be compared in a sense. After all: the samples are recorded in the same environment and with mostly the same reference system.
But to go one step further, we hold monthly, Live!, group tests (every last Sunday of the month). During these mass tests, you can listen in yourself, ask questions, and partially experience what we experience. So you can in fact check what we say ánd decide for yourself which device you think suits your taste best. Again: transparency.
Why measure?
Now for a few months we have also been doing larger studies on certain phenomena. Consider the influence of cables on playback quality. We investigated this in the large speaker cable test. There will be a follow-up with interlinks.
The test after that was with plugin filters and now we are doing a mega investigation into the influence of switches on playback. Recently a livestream was devoted to that. However, the research is not yet finished. We now want to measure the influence of switches on clocks in streamers and dacs.
Why are we doing this? Simple. to find out whether certain products do something or not. However, we only start investigating when we think it makes sense. For example: we hear differences in speaker cables. That intrigues us and we start investigating that. The same goes for switches. We hear that things are changing. We want to know why.
The one exception was the plugin filter test. There we also wanted to show that some products don’t do that much. The relationship between blind testing and measurements was striking there.
Our goal, however, is not to lapse into sourness. On the contrary… we want to offer added value; not bash products or product groups. Moreover, we believe that there are still many things that we as humanity do not understand when it comes to music reproduction. So we always try to keep an open-mind.
Booooorrrinnggg…
You have been able to read why we measure and why we do research. However, we can fully imagine that not everyone is asking for all those graphs and ‘nerdy data’. It’s also unprecedentedly complicated stuff. The point is: you can also just skip the measurements and read the conclusion of the article. That way you do have the benefits of the research but are not confronted and bored with all that nerdy data…. in effect, therefore, it’s a win/win situation!
Trust
Why put so much time, money and energy into live testing and lengthy research with complex and expensive measurements? Quite simply. We want you to experience Alpha Audio as a trustworthy platform. A platform with solid reviews and stories. Articles that are useful to you.
Since its inception, our goal has not necessarily been to be the biggest audio platform, but to be the best. And with best we mean: the platform with the best tests and the highest reliability. Not only in the Netherlands where we have our offices… but worldwide. (Yes: a serious mission … but you have to set the bar high, right?)
And to return to the title: I trust you to trust me…… I (and the Alpha Team) believe in our readers. And so do you!