Negative Bartok review that I simply can't understand

dCS Products
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I can’t overstate that last sentence enough.

I hear so many people who aren’t audiophiles say “You only say that sounds better because it’s more expensive.”

No, if I could find something cheaper that sounds as good as better, I would have bought that.

If a $200 Topping sounded better, why in the world would I have purchased a Rossini Player and Rossini Clock, then spent even more on the APEX upgrade? Do I care about the cool cases dCS gear comes in? Not really (though they do look good and I appreciate they put into them what they did, I would have a hard time purchasing a WADAX DAC even if it was revelatory in its sound quality.)

I don’t show off my system to anyone. I am even reticent to let people know what I do have unless I have to or it’s a vendor-specific forum such as this one. If it’s for “bragging rights” I’m amazingly bad at bragging. :smile:

I spend the least amount of money to get the audio quality I desire; it just so happens that I have to spend what I need to within my budget in order to achieve the results I want.

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Well said Bill.

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YouTube “helpfully” informs me that the THS video now has over one quarter or a million views.

It’s sad to see a brand I love and respect negatively impacted this way but if I look at the matter objectively, I think it is largely a self-inflicted wound. Hopefully all sides will do better in the future.

I listened to some jazz this evening on my Rossini Apex and it sounded wonderful…

R

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One can only hope the video in question will be removed in the near future and replaced with another that gives a more balanced view of how dCS now working with this part of the community.

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It’s been a while and I think almost three weeks have passed since this reviewer visited dCS. I would have expected the video would have been removed already and don’t understand why the video is still there. Even on his own website it is still prominently on the front page, with only a small textual update. Why keep this damaging video up when all has been resolved?

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Well it might be that the dialog is ongoing and the last word hasn’t been said yet, however that doesn’t really explain the lack of any substantial update from their side since then. I can’t help feeling it supports the notion that the video, even if it was originally posted in good faith, has been a super-effective click generator (over a quarter of a million hits as of today) and GoldenSound are in no hurry to amend it or take it down.

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Why would this be your expectation?

Why would you think a media outlet would agree to take down a review?

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I don’t think August is referring to the review itself but to the video “Manufacturer threatens lawsuit over negative review”. They have added a link to David Stevens’ post of 17th July but not made any updates or amendments since.

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My comment here is not directed at dCS, but in general:

Media outlets amend factual errors, not opinion pieces.

My expectation would be that nothing is taken down, as a dis-incentive for this kind of behavior. I further expect the entire record to be available, and for it to be, over time, rightly overshadowed by positive reviews reflecting the outstanding work of dCS’s engineering team.

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For the original review I would concur, but not for this video in my opinion. But as Struts says it’s probably given him a lot of views and clicks which he seems to be savouring instead of putting this to rest.

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I agree with you Peter on minimal system investment levels required to reasonably appreciate a Bartok level DAC. I have around $90K at MSRP in my system not including my Bartok with headphone amp (it’s a non-Apex 2.0, connected to a dCS Rossini Clock via Nordost Valhalla BNC 75 ohm cables).

My next two intended upgrades are a Rossini Apex DAC and Magico 2023 S3 speakers. Once there, I expect to be done for a year or two. Perhaps until dCS introduces the ‘Rossini replacement’ based on the new Varese technology, which I imagine has been firmly on the product roadmap for some time.

I also agree with others commenting on this thread that electronic music is artificial and thus a poor choice for such an evaluation. Personally, I listen mostly to jazz, some rock and classical.

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Electronic music vibrates your ear drums and stimulates the brain (or not, depending on your preference) through exactly the same mechanism as jazz and classical music.

IMHO, “There are only two types of music…”

: )

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There are many aspects of system performance that electronic music (Dance / EDM / Trance) highlight very well. Bass, impact, speed, staging and detail to name just a few. Obviously timbre and tone are probably better defined using simpler mixes and acoustic instruments. A good system will play all types of music well.

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I think it should, although I’ve noticed I hardly play any rock or metal anymore the better my system has become. I can still enjoy it in the car for instance, anyone else have this experience?

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“What kind of music do you have here?”

“Oh we got both kinds…”

:rofl:

I’m afraid my music choices don’t really count … Rammstein, Infected Mushroom, Daft Punk, Yello, Jarre, 80’s Hip-hop…

I’ll hand in my badge at the door as I leave shall I?

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After waiting on the sidelines for almost a month, I still haven’t seen indications that dCS really fully understand the problem.

Anyone that is a fan of dCS products should be expecting more from the “update” post than it provided. It should be iron clad from the wording that dCS is committed to transparency and to avoid any appearance of review manipulation. In my opinion the update failed to do either.

dCS has always worked with, supported and encouraged independent, subjective reviews of our products. We accept that subjective opinions will be positive and negative and have had our products reviewed independently for over 30 years.

This is the best worded part of the update. But when dCS says the “work with” reviewers that should only be either when the reviewer contacts dCS or when the material being communicated is transparently available to everyone (such as a press release). As I will explain further, it sounds from the dCS expects to continue to have back-channel communications initiated by dCS that if again are brought to light could have the appearance of review manipulation.

In May 2024, my colleague in the USA instructed a lawyer to communicate with GoldenSound in an attempt to reach a resolution. I was aware of this letter and my intention at this point was to reach a solution by mediation or another process – not to instigate a seven-figure lawsuit.

This seems to imply the problem is simpily the dollar amount. Anything printed on a law firm’s letter head is an escalation. When dCS says “I’m not your mommy or your therapist” then it is dCS that has selected to terminate any hope of constructive communication. Then using that choice on the part of dCS to escalate to a law firm just makes the appearance of this situation that much worse. To an outsider this looks like a precursor to imply a SLAPP (Startegic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) action should be expect if review manipulation is not successful. dCS already make an amazing product, it doesn’t need to behave in a way that potentially looks like review manipulation!

Both dCS and Cameron have reflected and accept that were technical elements in the review and our communications that both of us need to discuss fully and clear up for all. The technical details of the points discussed in the original video and our responses are something that both dCS and Cameron are very keen to clear up

This sounds like more back-channel communication and it sounds like Cameron is a potential sock-puppet that will only be speaking the dCS “clear up” language from now on. It completely invalidates what he has to say about dCS from this point forward.

To retain Cameron as an INDEPENDENT reviewer, it should be clearly transparent and public all the communication with him. A partner such as an authorized dealer is someone that should be very keen to clear up content/communication. An independent reviewer’s impressions should be their own and the company should be responding in a public way to that.

Once again I’m truly sorry to Cameron for some of the communications he received – this is not how we wish to do business or who we are, and I will be thoroughly reviewing our internal processes when it comes to any disputes or contentious issue. I personally will be more hands on in this area, learn from this and ensure our actions and communications across the company are reflective of the values we strive to meet.

This again is not a promise to give reviewers independence and keep any communication with them open to the public to provide transparency. If the ex-dCS employee knew his communication had to be made public because it involved an independent reviewer, he probably wouldn’t have said what he did and it wouldn’t have escalated to this point.

as a step toward repairing our relationship we are sending Cameron a dCS Lina system that will be provided for Cameron

Why would you say this?!?! Again, a PARTNER such as an authorized dealer is someone you have a relationship with. An independent reviewer keep a professional distance rather than a relationship with the subject they are trying to provide an unbias review of. Now that dCS has admitted what they did, how do I avoid wondering if Cameron is possibly unconsciously biased in the hope of getting the next reward from dCS in the future?

Overall, it seems like dCS has operated is the majority of information about dCS products come when a customer visits an authorized dealer. A side-effect of this business model is when youtube reviews post “incorrect” or non-conforming information on youtube, they are the only source of the information on that platform. dCS’ “fix” for that seems to be to aggressively back-channel corrections but then dCS no longer has trusted independent reviewers. Instead, what they created is the appearence of youtuber partners that differ very little from authorized dealers as a source of customer information.

If dCS needs there to be a source on youtube that dCS controls the correctness of then dCS should just create their own youtube channel. This has the advantage that the statements made from the dCS channel is clearly labelled as having come from dCS and provides a much more clear line of division with reviewers so the appearance of independence is preserved. This entire situation probably should have ended with a response video from dCS directly posted by dCS to youtube and then left it to the reviewer to accept the public feedback or not on their own terms. But regardless of what the reviewer did, true fans of dCS that are confused should have had that confusion easily cleared up back in 2021 by the dCS video. It is just dCS selected to never make such a channel or video.

I feel like trust in dCS is eroding and the update / “apology” does not really address core issues that need to be fixed.

By the way, I want to give a shout out to James Cook @ dCS for his excellent list of things not to do. I tried my best to follow them.

Hopefully this feedback is helpful to dCS in taking their next step. If not, I’m sorry but I did try.

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I was hoping we weren’t going to have to go over this issue again (and again).

I do not expect nor care if dCS responds any further to this topic.

My purchasing decisions are based only on A/B comparisons in my own set-up. (speakers might be the only exception) Why anyone would pay any attention to a online review of a audio product is beyond me.

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Your reply is long and I’m not sure I completely understand all your points.

I will try to break it down a different way. When it comes to a large purchasing decision there tends to be four sources of information about a product:

(1) Information direct from the manufacture themselves

(2) Information from an authorized partner of the manufacture

(3) Information from independent reviewers

(4) Information from sock-puppets which function as another form of partner but is hard to tell apart from an independent reviewer by design

Each of the first three play very different but important roles for some customers when attempting to make an informed purchasing decision. It is critical the reviewer is able to establish themselves as independent from the manufacture such that they are clearly neither part of group #2 or group #4. The information that came to light about the communications that dCS has with “independent” reviewers create doubt about all dCS reviews as it presents the possibility that they are the result of review manipulation.

The correct way for dCS to respond was by expanding the reach of group #1. They should have just created their own YouTube channel and their own response video. This would have gotten what they felt needed to be said available to customers immediately back in 2021. That would also make sure that members of group #3 don’t end up looking like group #4.

I agree, dCS behaved badly. Once all the facts surfaced however, they apologized and took corrective action.

There was an update provided but at no point did they apologize for review manipulation. Instead the update dances around the appearance this situation creates. It seemed implied that GoldenSound is an isolated issue without actually providing proof. At this point it isn’t clear what other reviews maybe tainted by the ex-employee when using a law firm to reach out to so-called “independent” reviewers.

Even worse, the update states dCS will continue to initiate contact with reviewers for the purpose of having a “relationship” which may go as far as providing free equipment that the reviewer can keep. United States law makes this awkward in a couple ways. The “reviewer,” to comply with the FTC, must disclose they are being given the product for free which makes it look more like a paid endorsement than a review. Also, when giving someone in the USA a gift (or gifts in the same year) with a value totaling over $18,000 then it must be declared taxable income for that year. So the reviewer is further incentivized to do what it takes to keep the gifts coming so some of it can be sold to cover the tax. Or dCS is paying the tax increase such that it is literally a paid endorsement. Such paid endorsements from a relationship partner stop having the value of being a group #3 source as they are neither independent or a review at that point.

I do hope the author of that video chooses to remove it and replace it with something more balanced.

sigh Ok. We are back to censorship of the review in part or in whole. The review help increase exposure to dCS so I personally would prefer it remain up than be taken down. Several reviewers when censored will just take the entire review down than compromise their integrity.

The video description already has “CORRECTION: The Bartok cannot accept a 10Mhz clock input, it only accepts word clock inputs”

So, which additional item dCS finally communicated 2 years later via a law firm is still important enough to censor to risk the entire review removed forever from youtube?

Should we even discuss the irony that the Bartók APEX official specifications still TODAY says it has 6 filters while dCS ha demanded the review be manipulated to say 42 filters?

Here is an actual quote from the official specifications:

Filters: PCM mode: up to 6 filters give different trade-offs between the Nyquist image rejection and the phase response. DSD mode: 4 filters progressively reduce out-of-audio band noise level, plus Filter 5 which has an improved transient response

Feel free to take a look here:
https://dcsaudio.com/product/bartokapex#:~:text=105dB0%2C%2020Hz%20%E2%80%93%2020kHz-,PCM%20mode%3A%20up%20to,-6%20filters%20give

There has to be a point in which letting a independent review be independent means not censoring them all. The right way to handle this is to provide customers with more information rather than censor it. Instead of taking away from dCS discussion on youtube, the corrections should come through a dCS official youtube channel.

However, if reaching out to reviewers to demand “corrected” information really is still the way this needs to proceed then dCS products should be considered unreviewable as even dCS can’t remain consistent with dCS demands of correctness (as shown by the official specifications page).

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Hi @fluke,

You make a lot of good points, but in addressing the subject of the thread I think you focus too narrowly on the “industry food chain” and ignore important parts of the wider ecosystem.

If I look at my own purchases and the influences behind them, these have changed considerably over the 40-or-so years I have pursued this hobby. Correct, 40 years ago most of the information I based my audition/purchase decisions on were “independent” reviews, mostly by the contemporary mainstream audio press. I learned which journalists whose judgment/taste were in line with my own and which weren’t, often the hard way, and then sought to dealer audition where I could.

Today my main sources of information are completely different. Although I still subscribe to Stereophile and Hi-Fi News and still listen at (and to) the dealers I trust, my main influences are other customers, either through forums or fellow customers I have met IRL along the way. This of course is no guarantee of independence, “on the internet nobody knows you’re a dog”, but again, through paying close attention, being source critical and through empirical test one slowly learns to stack rank the various opinions. So I would suggest at least at least three (for me) important additions to your list:
(5) Online forums and the experiences of other paying customers (caveat emptor)
(6) Fellow customers met IRL at shows, dealer events, via online forums and other means.
(7) Own (previous or current) experience with the brand.

Correctly identified, none of these last three stakeholder groups have any “skin in the game”, in contrast to (1) sales (2) commissions/margins (3) clicks/subscriptions (4) the aforementioned plus freebies/accommodations/concessions.

PS I see your previous post in this thread is your first on the forum, welcome! Out of interest, are you a dCS customer yourself, or has your interest been sparked by the GoldenSound controversy? Most of the folks here are firmly in group (7) so have a slightly different perspective on this to potential customers in all the other groups.