Threatening to sue over a “bad review” is one thing.
Threatening to sue over a wildly inaccurate review accompanied by the “expert” opinion of someone that designs competing products using an entirely different design approach is another.
Imagine a reviewer posting a rambling “review” of a conventional speaker and discussing why cone speakers are bad designs coupled with “expert opinions” from a designer who specializes in designing planar and ribbon speakers.
Is this even dCS that have filed the complaint?
It looks like it was from the USA side?
Plus all these years later, why now ?
Something doesn’t look or feel right about this to me, as i can’t believe dCS would do this.
I would hope they would either just engorged it, or even better tried to look into why his results he got where what they where.
Anyway i hope dCS UK will quickly answer.
Here’s the thing - we are only seeing Cameron’s point of view here.
I can see this occurring if dCS has asked them several times to correct his review and finally they had to threaten legal action.
You’ll note how simple the correction was that Cameron admits he made (not even by reediting the video but via a “pinned comment”), and to me it shows that he didn’t even go through his own video to check for things that might have been inaccurate; rather he just sent an email telling dCS to tell him what he got wrong.
If you watch the video you’ll also see his snark on the filter issue where dCS is completely correct (there are not six PCM filters, there are in fact 42) but dCS made an error also (a factory reset causes the Bartók to come up in an upsampling mode of DSD as shown, not DXD as dCS claims.)
IMO this (and a couple of other points of disagreement in this case) are fairly inconsequential. This one for example strikes me as petty semantics. If you read the Bartók manual dCS lists 6 filters (+1 for MQA). Since “A different filter setting is stored for each sample rate” 6 filters * 7 sample rates gives a total of 42 filter settings:
This is dCS’s use of the terminology to describe their own product and picking a fight over it only creates an impression that it is not the points presented in their letter that are the real source of the beef here.
Regardless, dCS’s actions here come across as high handed, ill considered, unbefitting of any reputable company and (in my experience at least) quite out of character. John Giolas’ letter simply beggars belief, I can only assume he was having a particularly bad day.
I have no doubt whatsoever that the blowback on this will cause dCS infinitely more reputational damage than the original review ever could have. As a long standing customer and admirer of the company I sincerely hope that @davo45 will act swiftly to intervene, apologise and take the appropriate steps to stop this self harm before it goes any further.
I fully support dCS and hope they go whole hog in their defense and continue to use every legal option at their disposal.
Cameron’s flat-out lying for clicks about products, and people here of all places are coming to his defense.
It’s quite disappointing, but that’s the state of discussion on many Internet groups these days where people always want the big bad corporation to back down no matter what conflicts of interest the “reviewer” has because the YouTuber is always right. 
If dCS backs down I will be sorely disappointed and will likely look elsewhere in the future, because they won’t be in business long after people realize you can say anything you like about their products and they won’t defend themselves.
(Yes, the personal attacks were uncalled for, but the balance was on point despite his error about the default upsampling mode of the Bartók.)
It costs 2500 £, not on the same league… and alledgedly after the Bartok review was made
It doesn’t matter, it shows his “I’m just a poor reviewer being attacked by a big company act” is inaccurate.
I am reminded by this discussion a little of the following show I know from childhood. Don’t know if any of you know the Italian childrens cartoon show Calimero. A recurring theme in this show is that Calimero when he is sad considers himself full of self-pity to be a poor little chick and that it’s unfair that others that are bigger treat him in this way or don’t show more consideration.
To Cameron I would say: Please be an adult and solve your disputes offline and also consider your responsibility in how you decide to handle this and communicate about it to the outside world. It might be that dCS Americas / John could also have done things differently, but they are not some big evil company. Still these kinds of things are best resolved by way of personal contact i.e. a phone call or a video call. Escalating isn’t in anyone’s interest.
Oh geez a 2 year old review of the original Bartok - who cares. I saw this before I bought my Bartok.
Did it influence my purchasing decision? No.
Do I still occasionally view and enjoy reviews from Golden sound? Yes.
Should manufactures politely request publishers fix inaccurate statements? Yes.
Should the industry get involved in law suites over this sort of thing? I really hope not.
There is enough info on dCS floating from reputable sources and dealers to demo for anyone to make up their own mind!
I agree, it doesn’t warrant the amount of attention or indignation/negative energy we are seeing now. Keep calm and carry on.
As there are several topics concerning this
If dcs wants to fully defend themselves, they have to include email screenshots
Ah a new user, welcome.
I am very sorry, but it does merit attention.
More than 90% of the reviews of Jay’s Audio Lab, Stereophile and Guttenberg are positive, praising the equipment.
When I listen to gear, it is way below that number.
Makes you wonder.
Is there pressure on the reviewers financially or legally? After the mixed review of Bartok, dCS refused to send equipment for testing. Maybe understandable, but also a way to prune reviewers.
I liked the finish and the presentation of dCS. Bartok would be within my reach. But I want to see differing opinions and tests, pointing out strengths and weaknesses.
Given the excerpts of the letters and mails by dCS, they can at least be called intimidating. That’s a multi million dollar company with a lawyer at hand.
GoldenSound quoted the relevant sections, I have not seen evidence by dCS on their claims.
Can’t you just visit a dealer, and start listening for yourself, and be your own judge?
There are subjective and objective buyers.
Subjective buyers are more interested in how something sounds to them or makes them feel. Objective buyers are spec and measurement based, researching more and more data - and opinions - as input. I presume they are more influenced by online reviews vs in person experiences.
As far as I can tell all the negative energy came from dCs Americas’ John and the lawyer. I believe dCs as a company should be held accountable for the obvious bullying behavior it demonstrated, even if it were two people from it. A multimillion “small” company threatening legal action against an individual screams “I want to destroy you” any way you put it.
As far as this being needlessly public - time for some transparency in the review world. Steve Gutenberg never criticizes anything. That makes his words ads and not reviews. I’m pretty sure he does this specifically to not get cut off from suppliers and I believe this makes the industry worse overall.
any update on your very narrow eyed mud slinging view now that DCS CEO has investigated the matter more thoroughly and been forced to publicly apologise and fire someone
Wow, a brand new commenter who came here to trash dCS, what a shock. 
