GoldenSound and dCS: factory visit & latest news

It’s been a busy few weeks here at dCS, but we know some of you will be keen to hear the outcomes of our recent meeting with Cameron Oatley (GoldenSound), following a situation that unfolded in July 2024. Below is an update with some comments from myself and Cameron.

On Thursday July 25th Cameron Oatley (GoldenSound) visited our factory in Cambridge, UK, where he spent several hours with myself and members of our production and engineering team.

This meeting was long overdue and both of us agree should have taken place months, if not years before.

The purpose of the meeting was to reflect on the regrettable situation that took place in July 2024 and gain a better understanding of each other’s work and approach. We were also keen to understand how dCS could better co-operate with online content creators such as Cameron.

The meeting took place following direct conversations with Cameron and headphones.com over phone and email, and subsequent steps taken to address damage caused by the unacceptable and unauthorised behaviour of a dCS representative in the US.

We were aware that our US representative had made unacceptable comments in an email to Cameron. We believed our representative had apologised for these comments.

From speaking with Cameron in July 2024, following the publication of videos posted by Cameron and headphones.com, it became clear that our US representative had not given me complete and accurate information regarding his interactions with Cameron. Cameron also revealed that no apology was issued. Once this came to light, our first step was to build a full picture of what had happened.

That investigation revealed that the US representative’s handling of this situation was unacceptable. It was not in line with our desire to resolve our technical differences with Cameron in an amicable manner. We trust our senior dCS representatives to behave with courtesy and professionalism at all times.

Unfortunately, in this instance, our representative did not behave in a way congruent with dCS’s company values. We believed that a full apology had been made to Cameron but this was not the case. We were also led to believe that all attempts to meet with Cameron and discuss our concerns regarding the review and a subsequent video clip shared online had been exhausted. This was not the case either. Thirdly, we were not aware of an email threatening a lawsuit sent from our US representative to Andrew Lissimore at Headphones.com. If we at dCS had been given a full picture of the timeline of events and all communications or lack of, we would never have authorised the sending of a letter from our legal representative in the US to Cameron.

As mentioned in our statement from July 2024, this US representative has resigned from his post at dCS. Since that time, he has taken full responsibility for his mistakes, and has issued formal apologies to Cameron, to dCS as a company, and me personally. We are deeply sorry for how Cameron was made to feel and that this issue was not resolved sooner.

Going forward, myself and the team in the UK will be taking a much more active role in working with online content creators, irrespective of where they are based or who they work for. We have also introduced new measures to improve our internal processes and ensure that any disputes which arise are resolved in an appropriate manner.

Back to the outcomes of our face-to-face discussion. Before meeting with us, Cameron had asked if he could film some behind-the-scenes content during his visit. We agreed to this and he was given a tour of our production area, where dCS products are assembled and tested. Footage from this tour will feature in an upcoming dCS factory video, which will be released by GoldenSound soon.

Cameron also spent a good deal of time with myself and our Technical Director, Andy McHarg, discussing the design and development of digital audio components, how to measure digital audio components, and the limitations of AES17 and commercial test equipment when it comes to revealing a product’s true performance capabilities, something which both are interested in exploring and providing further information on for the benefit of the audio community as a whole.

We discussed, for example, that if a DAC (or DAC IC) has been optimised to perform well under certain tests under the AES17 protocol, this does not guarantee excellent performance in the real world.

For example, the real performance of the output stage is typically not taken into account as a typical piece of test equipment is designed to be as benign a load as possible, which will not necessarily be the case in the real world. Other approaches to optimisation can apparently measure well but sound worse in our opinion.

We then spent some time discussing our approach to measurements. We explained why dCS prefers to take a holistic approach to measurements, where we do not optimise for a particular test signal, but instead use our expertise to determine which technical aspects to optimise for where it matters most – real-world listening.

This conversation lasted much of the day and both of us agreed it would be better explored in more in-depth content such as whitepapers or videos, ideas we are now exploring.

We also shared our thoughts and experience on psychoacoustics and neuroscience – or to put it another way, why overly simplified measurements, single metrics used in isolation, or attempts to judge products based on whether a single value is higher or lower – can often be misleading and correlate poorly with subjective sound quality.

After discussing these topics, we both felt we had a much better understanding of each others’ positions regarding Cameron’s original 2021 Bartók review.

When it came to discussing the Bartók review, and subsequent points raised by Cameron, dCS accepted that our manuals need to be improved with regards to the number of filters in dCS products. Cameron rightly pointed out that there are 6 filters selectable at a given time, however what is unique about dCS DACs is that rather than simply re-using these same 6 filters for all sample rates as most DACs do, at higher sample rates, dCS DACs have entirely different sets of bespoke filter options, totalling 42 filters available to dCS owners . We acknowledged this is not currently clear, and we agreed to revise our documentation to reflect this, both to avoid confusion and to highlight what we believe is a uniquely beneficial design aspect of our products.

We also acknowledged that our factory reset state is not consistent across our DACs and software versions – something we will address – but this is all low-level detail. Most importantly, we spent extensive time discussing topics that we both care deeply about – measurements and audio performance – in an amicable and constructive manner. Cameron also made time to share some of his thoughts on how manufacturers can better engage with online content creators, and we will be giving much thought to his suggestions.

Ultimately, we agreed that we share a common goal of promoting the value of measurements in audio and the importance of marrying the subjective and objective in reviews.

In terms of takeaways from Cameron’s side, he commented:

“I’m very glad to have spoken with both David and Andy in person, and only wish this had happened sooner. Given the evidence of misconduct and deception that has been uncovered it’s clear to me that likely none of this unfortunate series of events would have occurred had the truth been given to David and I’m glad that we’re now working to move things in a positive direction.

My visit to dCS was interesting and insightful, with some aspects that were quite a surprise to me and I’m looking forward to showing in the factory tour video, but also the chance to sit down and speak with Andy about a number of topics pertaining to both the Bartok video and some areas that I’ve been interested in exploring further for some time.

There were some points discussed where we agreed communication and clarity of documentation would benefit from being improved such as on the topic of filters, both to avoid similar misunderstandings in future, but also because there are other aspects of dCS’ product design which aren’t explained in available material, but I think many would be very interested to know about, such as the fact that when in use with an external clock the dCS DACs sync other components such as the display controller and power supply to that single reference clock, which is rather neat!

Andy also provided some input and advice regarding standardising the scale of certain measurements such as the Y axis alignment of filter attenuation tests, something I’d iterated on in my own testing before, but will be doing so again as Andy’s reasoning was compelling.

He also provided some input on some potential new tests such as checking for whether a DAC is resampling and altering the digital data in a manner that is not a true fixed integer rate of the input (usually done to improve jitter, but at the expense of potentially harmful alteration to the signal in other ways).

I’ll have a post on my site discussing these and some other changes in the next few weeks.

We also discussed working together on some material or papers discussing measurements and their use in audio, where they are powerful, where they are limited, and where they are misunderstood, and I am very much looking forward to that.”

dCS is a small, family-owned business that tries to be at the forefront of digital audio. We love what we do, we put our hearts into it, we take huge risks, we innovate and create and when you design and develop products that are state-of-the-art, it is way harder to be successful without fair and honest subjective reviews and empirical measurements of your products to back those up.

We will always accept reviews, be they positive or negative, and will never seek to influence a reviewer’s opinion. All we look to ensure with regards to reviews is that our products are equipped with the latest spec software, that they are setup properly, measured correctly, and that their functionality and technology is accurately described.

As MD of dCS I have to accept responsibility for what happened recently to Cameron but I’m determined to learn lessons, make changes and find a way forward that benefits everyone in high end audio and truly reflects what dCS is about.

We respect Cameron and his work and we hope that we can both now move forward from this and continue doing what we each do best.

dCS

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