How to Be Considered for a Recommendation
The Shelfline Compendium is a community resource about home audio and vintage hi-fi equipment. We recommend businesses that we have worked with directly and can vouch for from firsthand experience — local retailers who know what they are selling, technicians who do good repair work, and custom installation specialists who listen to what their clients actually want to hear. If you are in the audio industry and think your business belongs here, here is how consideration works.
What We Are Looking For
We recommend businesses that serve the home audio community with genuine expertise and customer-first practices. That means vintage equipment specialists who understand restoration, repair technicians with training in both solid-state and tube circuits, retailers who stock quality gear at fair prices and back what they sell, and installation professionals who design systems around how people actually listen. We also consider businesses that teach — workshops on speaker repair, classes on how to evaluate used gear, or content that helps readers make informed choices. Most of the businesses we recommend have been recommended to us by readers or have developed a reputation in the local audio community that we have verified ourselves.
How to Send Us Information
If you think your business should be considered, send us information about what you do, who you serve, and what makes your work different from others in the field. Tell us about your experience, your training, and the community you serve. A few photos of your work or your space help us understand what you do. Be specific — “we sell audio equipment” tells us nothing; “we specialize in solid-state amplifiers from the 1970s and 1980s, and we restore and recondition them for resale” tells us you have the knowledge we want to recommend. We review every submission personally and may reach out with questions or to learn more about your work.
Send your information to the email on the contact page. Include your business name, what you do, and a brief description of who your customers are and what they come to you for.
What We Do Not Do
- No paid placement or sponsored content: We do not accept payment for recommendations, links, or featuring a business on this site. Every recommendation is made because we believe the business deserves to be mentioned, not because anyone paid for it.
- No affiliate links or commissions: We do not earn a percentage of sales when readers visit a recommended business. Our only interest is connecting readers with businesses we trust.
- No reviews of national chains or mass-market retailers: We focus on independent businesses and local specialists. National chains with retail locations everywhere do not need our recommendation, and local experts are more interesting to write about.
- No links to repair services outside our local community: This site is for our community. We may mention national resources like the CPSC or trade associations, but we recommend services and retail only where readers can actually visit or work with the people involved.
What Happens After You Submit
When we receive information about a business, we do our own verification. We may visit in person, call to ask specific questions about equipment or service offerings, check references if needed, and take time to understand your work. We are looking for depth of knowledge, integrity in dealing with customers, and a genuine commitment to the community. Some submissions we cannot move forward with — perhaps the business operates outside our geographic area, or the service is not something we currently cover, or we cannot verify the claims being made. We do not give detailed feedback on rejections, but we do read everything.
If we move forward, we will write a description of your business, your expertise, and why we recommend you. We may feature your work in a relevant article when the opportunity comes up, or we may simply add you to a resource list of businesses readers can contact. We own what we write — you do not have editorial control or approval rights over what we say about your business. That is what makes a recommendation mean something.