dCS threatens with a 7-figure lawsuit over a review

[solderdude]

That's a good question. I can't tell you with certainty, as I have used a deliberate digital negative preamp for many, many years at this point specifically so I don't have to worry about this issue. Sometime when I have a few days to kill, I'll look at the incidence of intersample overs in contemporary popular music and my own library (given how poorly produced most of my music is, I suspect it will have more).


I'm sure that those 3dB are a life-altering difference in both peak output and usable SNR, so I fully understand you

Looking at Amir's DAC measurements it seems like optimal signal quality/fidelity is (almost) never reached at 0dBFS (noise and SINAD is) but usually just a few dB below 0dBFS which for signal purists/audiophiles should be reason enough to abandon their bit-perfect thoughts and attenuate digitally by a few dB anyway.

 

[Mad_Economist]

Looking at Amir's DAC measurements it seems like optimal signal quality/fidelity is (almost) never reached at 0dBFS (noise and SINAD is) but usually just a few dB below 0dBFS which for signal purists/audiophiles should be reason enough to abandon their bit-perfect thoughts and attenuate digitally by a few dB anyway.

From a distortion perspective, it would surely be uncommon for full scale output to be superior to a lower output - although of course we are talking about distortion so low as to be wholly irrelevant to listeners.

From an noise standpoint I'd expect most but not all devices to be best at their highest output - I don't recall if they remain in production, but there were a few audio ADCs that saw broadband noise rise somewhat at very high outputs, but those aside I would expect peak SNR at maximum output/0dBFS without attenuation.

 

[solderdude]

although of course we are talking about distortion so low as to be wholly irrelevant to listeners

As well as S/N ratio is ...

Now Cameron can focus on what's important for audiophiles.... can he reliably tell the Lina apart from say ... an E30-II (with similar-ish filter settings) in a witnessed well performed blind test focussing on audiophool properties (not on single 'tells' at a specific point in a recording)

 

[kemmler3D]

It is quite strange to me to imagine that we should accept a real risk of an audible problem (intersample clipping), rather than forgoing a difference in SNR which will be inaudible.

Indeed, it isn't even necessarily the case that the SINAD measured by APX555 would decrease - particularly for a "luxury" segment device, paralleling enough DAC chips to push the device noise meaningfully below the analyzer noise would be quite trivial, even with a 3-6dB pad.

We had this debate some months ago (maybe longer?) and AFAIK nobody mentioned having heard intersample over artifacts in practice, even on recordings that seem to have a lot of them.

Another audible in theory, not a big deal in practice thing, I think?

 

[Mad_Economist]

Now Cameron can focus on what's important for audiophiles.... can he reliably tell the Lina apart from say ... an E30-II (with similar-ish filter settings) in a witnessed well performed blind test.

I'm quite eager to get him back on ABXing some things. One of the top of my list is "ABX two DACs, then recordings of said two DACs", since he has a pair of DACs he's highly confident he can differentiate, and the recordings will allow external validation.

 

[ChrisMag2099]

Sorry if this doesn't add much to the broader issue, but I found Cameron's comment about the Bartok sounding soft with electronic music to be a curious thing.

I just recorded this with an iPhone, and it's with YouTube compression on the upload side. Less than ideal, but I think most would agree... this isn't "soft". Given, this is from a Vivaldi One, but I'd guess any differences would be minor. And this is with YouTube as the source. Speakers are Focal Scala Utopia Evos.

This is mapper 1, filter 6, DXD upsampling.

Mods - please feel free to delete this comment if it's counterproductive or prohibited. Not trying to cause drama.

 

[Mad_Economist]

We had this debate some months ago (maybe longer?) and AFAIK nobody mentioned having heard intersample over artifacts in practice, even on recordings that seem to have a lot of them.

Another audible in theory, not a big deal in practice thing, I think?

Oh it's surely not a big deal, but essentially nothing with DACs is - achieving consistently audible distortion in a modern DAC takes active effort, and outside of edge cases like hypersensitive IEMs, the same is largely true of noise.

 

[firedog]

GoldenSound, headphones.com & dCS: an update

On July 15th I published a statement responding to videos posted by GoldenSound (Cameron Oatley) and headphones.com, which detailed recent communications between dCS and GoldenSound regarding a review of the dCS Bartók Headphone DAC. After reading headphones.com’s official response to this...

dcs.community

dCS backs down. CEO said it should never have happened and he was lied to.

 

[ChrisMag2099]

Good recovery.

For what it's worth, I spoke to an individual who knows both David Steven and the other person who seems to be involved yesterday. The person I spoke to is a reasonably well known reviewer/editor who owns a hifi publication, and has visited DCS's UK location on several occasions. His opinion is that David Steven is a straight-up guy, and that the other person whom I won't name isn't. The editor's experience with that person was when he worked for another well-known manufacturer.

After that conversation, and after reading David's first post, where he claimed certain conciliatory events had occurred, and then re-reading the HP thread, I came to the conclusion that the US person was probably not copping to his bad behavior, and may have misled his superior(s). Taken at face value, this seems to be likely based on Mr. Steven's follow-up post. Ouch.

I work for a corporation. I've seen this type of thing occur in varying forms. It always comes out eventually, and the person who is responsible gets canned, and could be held liable. In this case, I suspect that person will never work in the hifi industry again at the very minimum.

 

[TonyJZX]

to chrismag

given the limitations of technology delivery methods out of your hands, that's how i expect $100k+ to sound like....

 

[suur13]

Can you imagine a house that costs in the tens of millions of dollars with all the rooms done by a known designer having an audio component stuffed behind a flowerpot?
It is possible for someone to just enjoy the look of a product themselves. Everyone has a different balance of practicality vs price on everything they buy.

I know cases when expensive AV equipment on those homes will be never connected (cables are fugly, you know...). They are just for the decoration, show and to impress guests.
In the same time I have many friends/relatives, typical middle-class, to whom spend several thousands of euros would go unnoticed in their bank account, yet they consider price bracket 500...1000€ to spend on audio gear (all-in-1 system and speakers for example) "way too much".

 

[DACs_Lover]

It'd be super good if Amir could measure this dCS DAC.

 

[ChrisMag2099]

I know cases when expensive AV equipment on those homes will be never connected (cables are fugly, you know...). They are just for the decoration, show and to impress guests.
In the same time I have many friends/relatives, typical middle-class, to whom spend several thousands of euros would go unnoticed in their bank account, yet they consider price bracket 500...1000€ to spend on audio gear (all-in-1 system and speakers for example) "way too much".

Cables are ugly, even the prettier ones. It's worse when there's no way to hide them, as is often the case when you position speakers optimally. It's the same with acoustic treatments. I'm lucky that my better half is supportive of the hobby, although if we ever move, there's a 95% chance she'll insist on finding a house with a space which can serve as a dedicated sound room.

 

[solderdude]

It'd be super good if Amir could measure this dCS DAC.

Cameron already did this with the same analyzer...

 

[Galliardist]

How cheap do you have to go for that to be true? Less than $100. And on the other side of it you get that accuracy with $20 quartz watches.

More expensive than that. What the comparison actually depends on is sample variance as much as price. You are guaranteed better accuracy from a $20 quartz watch than the specified performance of a Rolex, of course.

 

[IAtaman]

Now Cameron can focus on what's important for audiophiles.... can he reliably tell the Lina apart from say ... an E30-II (with similar-ish filter settings) in a witnessed well performed blind test focussing on audiophool properties (not on single 'tells' at a specific point in a recording)

Ha!

Funny cause it's true.

 

[DarkKoala]

One more reason to avoid dCS. I visit them at Munich High End and found them extremely unpleasant.

 

[amirm]

Sorry if this doesn't add much to the broader issue, but I found Cameron's comment about the Bartok sounding soft with electronic music to be a curious thing.

I wouldn't believe a word Cameron has said about the sound of said dCS DAC. No way would that DAC sound soft or anything like it.

 

[YSC]

I wouldn't believe a word Cameron has said about the sound of said dCS DAC. No way would that DAC sound soft or anything like it.

Same for me, but I do support him from being unreasonably sued, reviews should be open minded and just let them be, if poor reviews, be it subjective non-sense or science based, can be sued, then I would suggest they pay up for every positive review, even for customer feedback in their own forum.

 

[Tell]

I wouldn't believe a word Cameron has said about the sound of said dCS DAC. No way would that DAC sound soft or anything like it.

Yeah it was a weird review to watch. He had the measurements already but they didn't coorelate with what he was saying, and he didn't even show them during the review, just went on and on with subjectivity.
I really don't under stand that guy, but I guess it all might have to do with him working for headphones.com where they sell those expensive gear aimed for the subjectivity crowd.