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dCS threatens with a 7-figure lawsuit over a review

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AdamG said:
I will try to answer this as best I am able and Amir can correct anything I get wrong. Vendors and Manufacturers are always welcome to come and join the conversation and community.
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amirm said:
Stereophile gets gear from companies and has direct contact with them to get such feedback. I do the same when companies send me products. But when an owner wants his gear tested, I don't go chasing companies as in almost every case they don't answer me. If we are not important enough to care about, then it shouldn't matter what we do or say. They can't have it both ways. Stereophile does not operate this way so the comparison is not valid.
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Thanks guys, in my typical Sal style I'll answer in my mainly direct, pull no punches approach.
You folks can only do what you can do. If you did operate in the Stereophile "advertisement supported" style and only published positive reviews, there would be no real issues. Even at Stereophile when John Atkinson publishes some quite negative measurement results, the manufacturer is comfortable in the knowledge that he can make a Manufacturer Comments response and tell all the believers how they design gear to "sound good to the ear and not to look good on paper" and all will be happy.
ASR and other independent reviewers mostly operate from what is a quite adversarial position. If the review is positive most all is well but even then not always. Erins Tekton review wasn't a bash with mostly positive comments. Seems like unless us independents kiss some of the manufactures asses they're looking for a fight. I've never been a conspiracy type with a paranoid attitude but I don't like the look of the way things have been moving. Looks to me as though a few from the "High End" community have gotten worried over the renewed interest in the scientific approach to Hi Fi Audio and are looking for a way to shut us up.
We as a community can't let this happen again! We need to be vocal and stay in the audio public's eye. This is a freedom of the press issue and the ones trying to shut us up need to be exposed, their reasoning revealed, and they made to look like fools.
I'm not one much for writing and public speaking but I'm sure there are many here who are. Maybe plans can be made for some public exposure at a upcoming Hi Fi show or two. Although we're not at all on the same page in Hi Fi, I think back to the public forum Chris of Computer Audio / Audiophile Style put together at one of the shows a few years back on MQA. It really was the public discussion of MQA, and the phools a few of the MQA supporters made of themselves that day the sent MQA on the road to the graveyard. Just some food for thought.

"The gullibility of audiophiles is what astonishes me the most, even after all these years. How is it possible, how did it ever happen, that they trust fairy-tale purveyors and mystic gurus more than reliable sources of scientific information? "Peter Aczel"
 
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restorer-john said:
A public right to reply immediately after the review is posted is the least you can offer. Again, whether they choose to take it up is neither here nor there.
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I have been on the product side of this countless sides. I never remotely had such an avenue to address a review. In days of print, the review would come out and that was that. You counter such things with your own marketing material, or another reviewer. So no, it is not the "least" that we offer. We offer opportunity to respond way above and beyond anything traditional press offered these companies. They can not only post a response, but argue with me and other members.
 
pablolie said:
I never speak for other people, I think the point was just to make sure the manufacturers' comments are clearly invited and -if they come in- get like the 1st reply post in the review.
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And what problem you are trying to fix with that? You have heard of companies saying this was their issue with my reviews? You haven't, right? The main and by far the most complaining is that "measurements don't represent the sound." How would reserving the first post for them change this? And seeing how small the percentage of companies are that make a response, why would we make policy to leave a hole in the thread, putting aside the fact that technically it is not possible to do?
 
No one who matters said:
There’s a dCS dealer in Bellevue, WA. Perhaps they could arrange a setup with @amirm, test the product and let it take its rightful place on the graph.
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You mean the dealer choosing on their own to send me product for review? This is just not in the cards as they could get in trouble with the manufacturer if the results are negative.

If you mean to help out dCS, that would be a logistics issue of where to get a sample for testing. If they don't have one to share, sure, they could ask their dealer to send me their demo. But this is the "minor bit" as we call in computer science. The big issue would be them wanting to have their product reviewed.

FYI, about two years ago, after Cameron's review came out, a dCS owner wanted me to test his DAC. Alas, he was on the other coast of US and was very concerned to ship his product to me. But he really wanted to test it, offering to pay my expenses to come to his place to test his DAC! I explained to him that my analyzer was more expensive than his DAC :), so for the same reason, I couldn't ship or lug it across US on plane with me.
 
Looks like it has all gone viral. Too late to put the jeannie back into the bottle for dCS. The moral of the story is that nobody likes corporate bullies :(

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tomtoo said:
Please could someone (with a legal backround ) explain me the difference of a review and my personal impression of a product?

So if i say: That bmw 318 is a peace of shit from my point of view. The risk of a lawsuit from bmw is high??


Something is very wrong in this world, and it gets more wrong from day to day.
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I don't have a legal background but working in marketing you have legal folks check your words over from time to time. :)

The main thing to remember is the risk of a lawsuit has little or nothing to do with your actual rights under the law, in the US. If you want to avoid getting sued, avoid pissing off people with lots of money or lawyers on retainer. That sounds sad because it is sad, but here we are.

As far as what the law actually says, to my knowledge:

Pure opinion: no legal liability. "I think BMW sucks."

Fact masquerading as opinion, but it's true - no legal liability: "In my opinion, BMW gas mileage is below 20 MPG." (ok as long as it's true.)

Fact masquerading as opinion, but it's false - some legal liability: "In my opinion, BMW is definitely breaking EU emissions standards here."

False statements of fact - legal liability: "BMWs are actually manufactured by North Koreans in Venezuela!"
 
shuppatsu said:
...even if he crossed a couple lines in the past.
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Let's just say a lawyer may just jump on this statement written by the OP that is supposed to defend the cause of the reviewer's infallibility... just saying.
 
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amirm said:
And what problem you are trying to fix with that? You have heard of companies saying this was their issue with my reviews? You haven't, right? The main and by far the most complaining is that "measurements don't represent the sound." How would reserving the first post for them change this? And seeing how small the percentage of companies are that make a response, why would we make policy to leave a hole in the thread, putting aside the fact that technically it is not possible to do?
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i clearly stated it is not an ASR issue.
it's your decision to support the third party review and its methodology at question here unconditionally.
i never picked sides, i never attacked ASR - quite the contrary in fact.
 
pablolie said:
i clearly stated it is not an ASR issue.
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No you didn't. You said the first post should be reserved for manufacturer response. So now you are saying I don't need to do that?
 
amirm said:
No you didn't. You said the first post should be reserved for manufacturer response. So now you are saying I don't need to do that?
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i am out of this discussion. i thought you said vendors are invited to review and comment the reviews, now you seem to say you don't care.

it's not my website, so i don't either. i thought opinions were openly invited. guess they aren't. i hereby quit my ASR membership. i just discovered no audio website on the planet is immune to silly diatribes. even the very best one.
 
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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God in His infinite wisdom has ensured that I will never have the money to buy all this over priced, cheaply assembled trinkets, hence all I can do from my low income home with low end equipment is say "HUMBUG" to dCS and too bad you're about to go out of business simply because I just said so.
 
pablolie said:
i am out of this discussion. i thought you said vendors are invited to review and comment the reviews, now you seem to say you don't care.
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I never said I don't care. I said the exact opposite. That I open my arms to any and all comments from manufactures. When Tekton came here with great complains about me, I still warmly welcomed him. I am addressing your suggestion that we must reserve a post for manufacturers when they rarely come here to say anything. And when they do, I have pulled in their comments into my review.
 
Hatto said:
I wouldn't call anyone who would pay over $12k for a basic signal processing device a "rational person" in this day and age, but maybe that's just me; difference of perspectives I presume.
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No human being is purely rational. And for the most part each of us is far less rational than we see ourselves as being
 
And it goes on:

forum.headphones.com

dCS Response and Story

For those who did not see, this was posted on The HEADPHONE Show yesterday. This video was made in relation to an ongoing situation regarding @GoldenSound by dCS in regards to a video review he did of the dCS Bartok in 2021 before he had joined The HEADPHONE Show and Headphones.com which...
forum.headphones.com forum.headphones.com

Torben
 
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