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dCS threatens with a 7-figure lawsuit over a review

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akamatsu said:
I don't think dCS should sue anyone. I think they, and everyone else, should just ignore these subjective reviewers and reviews. I made it through about two thirds of Cameron's review whilst fighting off nausea. He really is clueless. If you are going to go on YouTube and spew a bunch of nonsense, then someone may threaten to sue.

It seems the qualification for being a subjective reviewer is to have no technical background, and to attribute musical qualities to electronic circuits.
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dCS cant afford that. Their products are extremely expensive. If they go the objective route it will end up as "buy Topping or SMSL instead"
 
WalterW said:
"We take great pride in the measured performance of our products and regularly submit our products for test, measurement and subjective listening tests worldwide. Genuine, independent measurement and subjective review of audio components by the media is an extremely important part of our industry and we will always be in support of this."

Ok, send some DACs and amps over to Amir, I think he will be happy to measure them and give also some personal evaluation without audiophool babble like GoldenSound.
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Both Cameron and Stereophile measured it. It measures great. But then so does my Topping D10S.
 
prerich said:
Well, well.......that's new light shed on the situation.
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Measurements by Cameron seem correct and do not seem to be disputed.
The subjective babble is probably what pissed dCS off and is what I don't like about his reviews either and the reason for Cameron being banned here (AFAIK)
Have not looked at any of his reviews in detail since then as he went to cry about it at SBAF.
Matching measurements and subjective findings is bound to fail with any good performing DACs/amps because of hearing being notoriously easy to fool.

This all turned into a nasty sh!tsh0w dragging out over a few years with no winners.

Both seem sincere ... The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.... leaning towards Cameron's side of the story.
Drama attracts views/clicks/comments.
dCS severely damaged their own reputation in this process, much more so than the review ever could.
 
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GeorgeWalk said:
This is the same product/market strategy that Kodak used to go bankrupt after more than 100 years of dominance. Protect the key technology (sliver halide film - in Kodak's case) no matter if other technologies are surpassing it (digital photography), use legal means, and deny the truth of the situation. Get every last dollar out of the product, and that is what Kodak got. dCS is using the same playbook.
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I guess if your product no longer makes sense, you might as well go with a nonsense marketing strategy too.
 
shuppatsu said:

Amir assisted Cameron in his video rebuttal, which is great. I hope that breach can be repaired because I think Cameron is an honest person and invaluable to the community, even if he crossed a couple lines in the past.
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This topic is important and has several related. I, personally, am not going to watch a 30 minute video without text to explain what is in the video. This one is not bad, it is indexed on YouTube. It has a transcript, but downloading a transcript, even AI summarizing it is not useful. All my previous contributions to the other actionable threads on reviewing and SLAPP are relevant.

The attorney threat letter would be interesting to read.

I would say this is another illustration of the need for an Anti-SLAPP resource group proposed on ASR. Such a group could unofficially advise on record keeping, what to publish, and press relations.

Thanks OP for posting, and thanks Amirm for contributing, but searching on the Internet just finds the video maker YouTube reference. I wonder how many people reposting it actually watched and understood it?
 
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solderdude said:
Measurements by Cameron seem correct and do not seem to be disputed.
The subjective babble is probably what pissed dcs off and is what I don't like about his reviews either and the reason for Cameron being banned here (AFAIK)
Have not looked at any of his reviews in detail since then. Matching measurements and subjective findings is bound to fail with good performing DACs/amps.

Turned into a nasty sh!tsh0w dragging out over a few years.

Both seem sincere ... The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
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They would have no problem if the subjective babble was positive. Thats the hypocrisy.
 
I expressed my unhappiness to DCS on their webpage.

But DCS' claim, that they tried all other ways and GoldenSound didn't respond, needs to be taken seriously.

Having said that, I would like a statement by GoldenSound plus seeing the actual letter.
 
sweetsounds said:
I expressed my unhappiness to DCS on their webpage.

But DCS' claim, that they tried all other ways and GoldenSound didn't respond, needs to be taken seriously.

Having said that, I would like a statement by GoldenSound plus seeing the actual letter.
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The thing is: GS doesnt need to respond. dCS is like some asshole harassing a girl that isnt into him for whatever reason. It is way wiser to move on and accept that no one can please everybody.
 
Reading the dCS comment correctly? this is the highlighted concern:

..."In addition to this we were made aware of a voice note made by GoldenSound within a WhatsApp group. This appeared to contain a false and unfounded claim that dCS had been misleading consumers. In the audio clip that we were alerted to, GoldenSound said (referring to dCS) “It is possible the DAC does DSP or processing differently when there is an external clock attached, and that makes the difference. It would still be making an improvement to the Lina DAC when you do that, but it’s not a genuine difference because of an improvement in the clock signal, it’s something that they would have constructed to make it so that when you use the Lina DAC with the Lina Clock it operates in a better way”.
GoldenSound claims that the specific clip we were alerted to had been edited. The audio that was presented to us appeared to claim that dCS is misleading customers on the operation of clock circuitry within dCS DACs by carrying out DSP (digital signal processing, in this context presumably oversampling, noise shaping, filtering) which produces a sonically inferior result. Then when the DAC detects a master clock, such as the Lina Clock, has been connected, it switches to using DSP which does not produce this intentionally inferior result. The implication here is that dCS is knowingly and intentionally deceiving customers on the technical performance and benefits of using master clocks in order to sell more master clocks to customers."....

So it is not (all) about DAC, but mighty influence of external Clock? disputed!?

If so: sent "The Tower Of Power" to Amir (All Includedsive) and we'll see.

Your brave hearts will dare to, not?
 
Salt said:
Reading the dCS comment correctly? this is the highlighted concern:

..."In addition to this we were made aware of a voice note made by GoldenSound within a WhatsApp group. This appeared to contain a false and unfounded claim that dCS had been misleading consumers. In the audio clip that we were alerted to, GoldenSound said (referring to dCS) “It is possible the DAC does DSP or processing differently when there is an external clock attached, and that makes the difference. It would still be making an improvement to the Lina DAC when you do that, but it’s not a genuine difference because of an improvement in the clock signal, it’s something that they would have constructed to make it so that when you use the Lina DAC with the Lina Clock it operates in a better way”.
GoldenSound claims that the specific clip we were alerted to had been edited. The audio that was presented to us appeared to claim that dCS is misleading customers on the operation of clock circuitry within dCS DACs by carrying out DSP (digital signal processing, in this context presumably oversampling, noise shaping, filtering) which produces a sonically inferior result. Then when the DAC detects a master clock, such as the Lina Clock, has been connected, it switches to using DSP which does not produce this intentionally inferior result. The implication here is that dCS is knowingly and intentionally deceiving customers on the technical performance and benefits of using master clocks in order to sell more master clocks to customers."....

So it is not (all) about DAC, but mighty influence of external Clock? disputed!?

If so: sent "The Tower Of Power" to Amir (All Includedsive) and we'll see.

Your brave hearts will dare to, not?
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The "it is possible" clearly shows it was a especulation, a suposition. Freaking out about that is beyond silly.
 
Salt said:
Reading the dCS comment correctly? this is the highlighted concern:

..."In addition to this we were made aware of a voice note made by GoldenSound within a WhatsApp group. This appeared to contain a false and unfounded claim that dCS had been misleading consumers. In the audio clip that we were alerted to, GoldenSound said (referring to dCS) “It is possible the DAC does DSP or processing differently when there is an external clock attached, and that makes the difference. It would still be making an improvement to the Lina DAC when you do that, but it’s not a genuine difference because of an improvement in the clock signal, it’s something that they would have constructed to make it so that when you use the Lina DAC with the Lina Clock it operates in a better way”.
GoldenSound claims that the specific clip we were alerted to had been edited. The audio that was presented to us appeared to claim that dCS is misleading customers on the operation of clock circuitry within dCS DACs by carrying out DSP (digital signal processing, in this context presumably oversampling, noise shaping, filtering) which produces a sonically inferior result. Then when the DAC detects a master clock, such as the Lina Clock, has been connected, it switches to using DSP which does not produce this intentionally inferior result. The implication here is that dCS is knowingly and intentionally deceiving customers on the technical performance and benefits of using master clocks in order to sell more master clocks to customers."....

So it is not (all) about DAC, but mighty influence of external Clock? disputed!?

If so: sent "The Tower Of Power" to Amir (All Includedsive) and we'll see.

Your brave hearts will dare to, not?
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Watch the video for GS explanation on that.
 
There is a risk in presenting yourself as a professional expert and making claims about products on the internet. Anyone that thinks they can publish professional reviews without risk deludes themselves, even when they truly believe they're being honest and presenting the pure, unbiased truth. *Especially* in our lawsuit trigger-happy USA. I work in high tech, and I could easily be fired if I make disparaging claims about competitors' products in public... even when I know them to be entirely true. The legal liability is big. Never forget many companies live one big commercial failure from going out of business. Tends to bias the fight-or-flee reflex to do the former...

I am pretty sure that's why audio magazines never fail to find something-anything to like even in the worst products they review. They guide *you* to conclude the obvious, but they are careful about openly stating it.

PS: And always keep in mind lawyers are not the least interested in finding "the truth". They get paid to dismantle your argument in any way possible and drill you from 20 angles, ranging from questioning/drilling your expertise or bias to attacking your motives ("so you are disgruntled because you used to work there/they didn't hire you/whatever"). Nothing to do with "fact finding" when it gets to that.
 
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pablolie said:
There is a risk in presenting yourself as a professional expert and making claims about products on the internet. Anyone that thinks they can publish professional reviews without risk deludes themselves, even when they truly believe they're being honest and presenting the pure, unbiased truth. *Especially* in our lawsuit trigger-happy USA. I work in high tech, and I could easily be fired if I make disparaging claims about competitors' products in public... even when I know them to be entirely true. The legal liability is big. Never forget many companies live one big commercial failure from going out of business. Tends to bias the fight-or-flee reflex to do the former...

I am pretty sure that's why audio magazines never fail to find something-anything to like even in the worst products they review. They guide *you* to conclude the obvious, but they are careful about openly stating it.
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Audio magizines here 'protect' the audience from 'minor' products (stated by them), so customers are not to be bothered ....
 
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