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Affiliate Disclosure

Short version: when you buy through our links we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never decides a score or a pick.

By Mike M. · Updated September 2026

Amazon Associates

As an Amazon Associate, Sounder & Scope earns from qualifying purchases. When you click a “Check price on Amazon” button and buy something, Amazon may pay us a small commission. The price you pay is the same whether or not you use our link.

Buy buttons on this site point to addresses that start with /go/. That's a simple redirect on our own domain: it adds our Amazon Associates tag and sends you to Amazon. We use it so a product's destination can be updated in one place (for example, if a model is replaced) without rewriting every page, and so we can count clicks in aggregate. The redirect never adds any fee, and it only forwards to the retailer named on the button.

Every earning link is marked rel="sponsored" for search engines, and every buy button on the site carries a small #ad note linking back here.

Other programs

At launch, Amazon is the only retailer we earn from. We may join other retailer or brand affiliate programs in the future; if we do, we'll list them here and the buttons will say which store you're going to. Some trap makers sell only direct (not on Amazon). When we mention one for context, the link is a plain reference link, labeled as one, and we don't earn on it.

Why we don't print prices

Prices come from the retailer and change often. We don't have a live, verified price feed connected yet, so rather than show a number that might be wrong, every button says “Check price on Amazon.” Budget tiers like “under $1,000” describe the category a product sat in when we researched it, not a current price.

Editorial independence

  • No brand pays for placement, and we don't accept free products in exchange for coverage.
  • Commissions never set a score or pick a winner. Scores come from the published rubric on How We Choose.
  • We rank products we'll earn nothing on when they're the right answer, and we say plainly when the best option isn't sold on Amazon at all.

Questions

Email mike@blackironathletics.com or use the contact form. Our full standards are in the editorial policy.