dCS threatens with a 7-figure lawsuit over a review

[Multicore]

Yes, crazy. Something is severely broken in music industry. It may as well be just missing technical knowledge on mastering side.

UI defaults might be a factor. Imagine... (harp sound effect)

The Normalize button pops open a dialog with a selector for algorithm and a level parameter textbox. The default algo is Peak and the level is pre-filled 0 dBFS. You have to 1) know you should change that, and 2) remember to change it every time.

 

[Human Bass]

Another update from dCS

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

Lol, dude really lied to his boss about something super easy to check. Oh well, classic FAFO.

 

[WalterW]

Cameron already did this with the same analyzer...

At least the YouTube title says it is the dCS Vivaldi, which is the TOTL and costs about 50k, so it would be interesting in it´s own and the most expensive DAC ever measured by Amir AFAIK. But my guess is still that a $100 Topping DAC does not score worse.

 

[firedog]

Hi

Allow me to respond to your post, I cut in two parts,
Part one:


I agree. Not much to add

Then these:


I disagree:

We are talking about an audio product whose primary function is to "do" audio: When you have a $100,000 DAC that performs no better than a $100, one. You must admit that, on the function side... There is a disconnect... That is not "stellar"
I could take your argument of longevity and stability, if you offered proofs. There is none, only speculation that they may last 25 years. I have a still working $99 DAC, a DACBOARD, IIRC working after 5 years... Are there accelerated aging tests of dCS vs, say an SMSL or Topping? That would show the dCS topping the Topping in this regard? I can thus advance that of these cheapies, is as likely to "provide a lifetime of enjoyment", a speculation, like yours...

Now if we're talking about jewelry...this is subjective. then, anything goes... It is an opinion, not a fact.

The outrage is to me not "faux"... Why buy something that is so expensive for performance that can be attained at 1/1000 the price?

The darn dCS lineup is overpriced and the company marketing, B.S. , my conclusion.

Peace.

I disagree: the function of such products is to a) look beautiful and expensive; b) reproduce audio; c) bring prestige and status to the owner.
I’m pretty sure the overall measurements of the unit are good - so it does (b) just fine. Points “a” and “c” are also accomplished. Part of that is the high price. It’s an essential part of the appeal. And realistically, a large part of the price is the cost of the looks and cosmetics - the looks and cosmetics of such a piece can easily reach over 50% of the cost to build, and thus add into the seriously high price at retail. That’s a large part of what you are paying for.

People who buy this aren’t interested just for pure performance. That’s not enough to get them to buy.

In addition, under subjective listening the looks of the unit and the reputation of the company will pretty much always result in highly positive results. That’s why the units uniformly get glowing reviews in the audiophile press. They objectively sound fine, but they always sound wonderful and exceptionally good in sighted listening sessions.

 

[Purité Audio]

That and a 60 point margin.
Keith

 

[firedog]

That and a 60 point margin.
Keith

Yes, that’s part of the system.
Anthony Michaelson (sp?) who founded Musical Fidelity, once said that in a traditional marketing chain where there’s Manufacturer cost plus markup>distributor(s) cost plus markup>retailer cost plus markup: the cosmetics of a high end piece can be the source of as much as 70% of the price at retail.
Those individually machined one-off knobs cost a lot to make, and the mark up from cost at manufacturer to retail is huge: possibly quadrupled or more.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

I disagree: the function of such products is to a) look beautiful and expensive; b) reproduce audio; c) bring prestige and status to the owner.
I’m pretty sure the overall measurements of the unit are good - so it does (b) just fine. Points “a” and “c” are also accomplished. Part of that is the high price. It’s an essential part of the appeal. And realistically, a large part of the price is the cost of the looks and cosmetics - the looks and cosmetics of such a piece can easily reach over 50% of the cost to build, and thus add into the seriously high price at retail. That’s a large part of what you are paying for.

People who buy this aren’t interested just for pure performance. That’s not enough to get them to buy.

In addition, under subjective listening the looks of the unit and the reputation of the company will pretty much always result in highly positive results. That’s why the units uniformly get glowing reviews in the audiophile press. They objectively sound fine, but they always sound wonderful and exceptionally good in sighted listening sessions.

Did you buy one?

 

[tmtomh]

The letter is pretty good so long as it is truthful. One reason to not quite believe it is entirely truthful is this line



Generously I could see that as a statement of David Steven's aspirations but speaking more literally, as we technical people often try to do, I'm inclined to reply: Actually, this is who you are, dCS, because it is what you did.

I hope that Steven's "thoroughly reviewing our internal processes" will be successful and that nobody needs to be punished. But in my experience, and this is especially true in SME, culture flows from the top.

I think dCS' letter is very good and as much as one could expect. I agree that culture follows from the top, but to me it seems truthful and credible that the offending dCS employee acted (or in the case of the never-sent apology, neglected to act) on their own with the actions that are called out as such in the letter.

Seems like a good resolution to me.

 

[JSmith]

If one wants to show off, one can show off a Rolex, a Lamborghini etc., nice speakers for sure. But who does one show off a DAC to? Most wouldn't know or care what that even is.


JSmith

 

[Galliardist]

As someone that owns a Rolex looking at the Batman now that prices have somewhat gone down and it's possible to actually get one in an AD, this is complete BS without context. Even if an automatic watch is calibrated, it depends on the angle of the watch, temperature, altitude, etc. The bps of a quartz crystal is just so much faster than that of a automatic/mechanical watches, unless you're talking about a Spring Drive Seiko. To be honest you should be talking about Grand Seiko Hibeat and Spring Drive movements as well as Rolex if talking about automatic/mechanical watch accuracy.

Watch Accuracy: Rolex vs. Casio - The Truth About Watches

"Any cheap quartz keeps better time than a Rolex." Wrong! BUT astounding watch accuracy is available in a range of movements and prices.

thetruthaboutwatches.com

So, here are some examples of Rolex watches achieving equal or greater accuracy against some low cost quartz models. No, I expect this not to happen, or at least to be very far from the norm, in the real world. I wouldn't normally start on something like this, and I certainly won't ever have a Rolex - I'm not in that wealth bracket and bought some high priced Marantz equipment as my one luxury item, as it were - but the statement that a Rolex will never run as well as a cheap quartz watch requires context as well.

But if we want to know performance, we have to both measure a device, whether a DAC or a watch, and we also have to understand the operating conditions, tolerances and environment. A simple example in audio happens here for me all the time: Amir is measuring using US versions of products fed with US standard power. 60Hz noise should not be an issue in Australia for the trivial reason that our power runs at 50Hz.

I absolutely agree with your remarks, because of those two words "without context".

 

[Galliardist]

They objectively sound fine, but they always sound wonderful and exceptionally good in sighted listening sessions.

Or maybe not, as in the case of this very thread!

 

[AndyLu]

If one wants to show off, one can show off a Rolex, a Lamborghini etc., nice speakers for sure. But who does one show off a DAC to? Most wouldn't know or care what that even is.

Expensive high end audio is a niche market. This forum is a teeny tiny group of people (in the grand scheme of things) who franticly discuss such niche things. Basically people in this forum also do a sort of 'showing off' ("Look I bought this $100 brand X DAC which measures miles better than that $1000 brand Y DAC!").

I am sure that someone who buys such an expensive $50000 DAC has some 'niche' friends too in a teeny tiny circle he can show the DAC off to. Keeping up with the (niche) Joneses does not only exist in the Rolex and Lamborghini circles.

 

[Robin L]

Thanks. That is a SINAD of 106 dB for the 0dBV measurements. So competent but not state of the art.

I don't understand the a-weighted SNR or 96 dB. If true, that is not good. We have headphone amps producing that SNR for just 50mv, not 0dBV (1 volt).

I've got a headphone amp (Topping L30) that measures 94 db @ 50 mv, set me back all of $150.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

I do get a kick out of the many folks here who think they can speak to the motives and state of mind of audiophiles who buy expensive gear. Or for sports car enthusiasts or mechanical watch enthusiasts.

 

[AndyLu]

I do get a kick out of the many folks here who think they can speak to the motives and state of mind of audiophiles who buy expensive gear. Or for sports car enthusiasts or mechanical watch enthusiasts.

Care to elaborate?

 

[solderdude]

In addition, under subjective listening the looks of the unit and the reputation of the company will pretty much always result in highly positive results. That’s why the units uniformly get glowing reviews in the audiophile press. They objectively sound fine, but they always sound wonderful and exceptionally good in sighted listening sessions.

In this particular case the subjective evaluation was not very glowing which was the biggest issue. In order to influence the review dCS went nitpicking on some minor 'technical aspects'.

Agreed with the rest. I figure Cameron was 'subjectively disappointed' perhaps expecting more at that price tag ?

I'm sure the rest of the press was all positive about this device... and rightfully so it seems (build quality and story around it). Of course we all know how important it is for reviewers that make a living of reviewing that a review must always be positive.
VFM is not a decision factor with these types of devices.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

Care to elaborate?

Sure. Multiple people who make it clear that they would never never buy an expensive DAC such as the one that was reviewed because you get nothing in the way of objective improvement or audible differences are very quick to speak to he motives of those who do buy DACs like the one in the review.

And they mostly ascribe the motive of status. Or other fairly demeaning motives. And yet if they were to actually communicate with these audiophiles and ask them why they would buy a $10K or $30K DAC (as I have asked) you would likely find, as I have, that it is invariably based on the firm belief that they are getting substantially better sound quality.

I think they are mistaken about the differences but I don’t think they are lying and secretly harboring a desire to up their audiophile status. Where is the status anyway without the firm belief in better sound quality?

And those audiophiles think that we “true believers in measurements” are just as “delusional” as the ASR regulars think they are.

And before anyone goes there I am not advocating that their beliefs are of equal standing or credibility as those that are rooted in science. But the demeaning speculation and attitude towards those “subjectivist” POVs are ridiculous.

And here is the thing. Calling them delusional and claiming they are dishonest and buy expensive gear just for status undermines the opposing POV. If someone is taking an opposing POV if mine and assert false motives to me and claim I am delusional I can easily dismiss their perspective as ill informed. OTOH if one addresses the differences honestly without the attitude and ridicule one might actually give someone else cause to re-examine their beliefs

 

[kemmler3D]

Yes, crazy. Something is severely broken in music industry. It may as well be just missing technical knowledge on mastering side.

I don't really agree with this. You can get a few intersample overs just by using a normal amount of compression and converting to lossy formats, but it should not be audible. It might produce some extra THD for a couple milliseconds maybe once or twice per song.

If the recording is compressed enough to produce audible distortion from intersample overs, I think you would need to see peaks clipped for tens of milliseconds at a time, a really atrocious result and not something I've actually seen in the worst cases. Even someone who has never mastered an album before would probably notice it sounded bad and back off.

 

[spandy]

Shame on dCS for acting this way, whether backtracked now or not. Likely this will scar for those on the receiving end of their harassment.

On one hand I'm glad these hyper expensive audio products exist for those that find value in more than objective performance. But the time of claiming this value extends to all aspects of fidelity seems to be fading away with every measurement. Believing that this hyper expensive product is comprehensively better than the cheaper class of products is proving incorrect and that will be hard for people to cope with. We (as people) do not like to feel foolish for spending "unwisely", even if it's only considered unwisely by others. If a $15k DAC brings you joy then you do you. I'll continue to rummage the lower shelves for equally impressive audio gear. Thanks to Amir and those here that publish measurements for us.

 

[Whoareyou]

I do get a kick out of the many folks here who think they can speak to the motives and state of mind of audiophiles who buy expensive gear. Or for sports car enthusiasts or mechanical watch enthusiasts.

Yeah, having a friend who actually buys this kind of stuff, and talks to you about it, wouldn't help with that. Would it?
Ok, this was cross posted with your response, and I agree with what you said above. Every piece of equipment was auditioned and was selected for both sound and other desired qualities. Do I agree? Not necessarily, but it's not my equipment and it makes both of them happy.