What the heck? Is dCS closing down for one negative review?

dCS Products
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I stunbled upon this video this morning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7NxRFT6FiI

In a nutshell, dCS is threatening to sue a reviewer upon false statements on its product. Among which are: the number of filters, the type of DAC, the default upsampling mode after reset (!), and last but not least, a misleading bit of a voice message that has been put on Twiter by a third party unrelated to and without the conscent from the reviewer himself.

What the heck?

As a consequence, “a dangerous precedent” for the independance of the reviewing community, and to me, the dCS company shooting themself on their foot, as we say in France.

I see no bias in the arguments expressed on this video, and inspite my deep appreciation of dCS and their product, I can only view that dCS is trying to suppress a negative subjective review of one of its product over objective arguements, for no serious reasons.

I did not like Goldensound’s Bartok review; no, the Bartok is not smooth, even less likely to be too smooth. On the contrary, it is dynamic, lively. I know that, I have owned one for more than two years now, and I am not considering anything else, except perhaps its big brother, one day when I am rich…

But no one deserves to be treated like this.

I request that dCS be very clear on this matter, and state publicly on why exactely this review puts its reputation and its existence in danger.

Otherwise, I suggest that dCS publicly appologise for this overreacting conduct. My opinion is, that there is among dCS staff an illadvised person that let this happen…

Please dCS, trust your customers; they have the final word over your products. Please respect all the reviewers, espacially those who criticise your products. Rest assured, I am confident that dCS customers can make the difference between subjective appreciations of a product and honeyed appraisals designed to flatter the audio compagnies.

Please back off and appologise before it is too late

My best Regards, Diego Sanchez

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Hello Diego, I think we agree on this issue. Discussion of it is now spread across 3 threads: this one, “Delete my account” (where I posted), and “Negative Bartok review that I simply can’t understand”. Perhaps someone could combine them all?

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This is extremely unfortunate for all. Golden Sound, DCS, and us the consumer. I highly value both Golden Sound and his really in-depth and informative reviews and I have had nothing but praise for DCS products and the company itself over years for having their products. I think they are outstanding in many ways. I have had a Bartok and thought it was wonderful and would buy one with the Apex upgrade today.

I hope these guys can work this out quickly. I would hate to see our hobby get polarized and people start taking sides with reviewers and manufactures etc. Its not helpful to us the Buying public. We have enough stuff to research and get through before we spend out money and would hate to see angst and agendas introduced by any side enter into the enjoyment of the hobby by have these things spill out into the forums. It seems there may be more to this than what is apparent on the surface I don’t know? In any case DCS and Golden, I would encourage you both to take this off line, settle it and simply report back to us all that you guys have resolved your concern and are cut off all the potentially negative chills something like this can add to the Hobby.
Respectfully to both!

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Hi,

There must be a reason behind that…I wrote not nice comments on this forum about Rossini dac that I compared to much less expensive products, naming these products…No one complained, neither dCS nor forum members…I also said a number of good or positive things…In a nutshell, I expressed myself freely and subjectively but with respect and balance…I am not in the audio business…I don’t sell anything and I don’t buy Shunyata cables :joy:…

dCS must have a specific reason for being defensive after this review, the guy is selling dCS competition gear may be ?

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Perharps. As a customer and for the sake of tranparency, I feel entitled to know these reasons if they exist. I don’t want to live in a world where subjective and negative reviews are threatened with a law suit, with alledgedly poor objective and/or irrelevant technical arguments.

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With all due respect. You didn’t think much of the review back then. Why care now?
I’m afraid we live in a world where far worse things happen than a reviewer receiving a legal letter. Instead of fixing things like an adult, he goes and whines about it online, because it will generate more money for his channel.
It is damaging to dCS and it should be resolved offline. I don’t even need to know about it and certainly don’t feel entitled to know all about it.

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I respect your views; they are not mine. Like you perhaps I indeed don’t care about this particular review; but I do care that they are allowed to exist, and not theatenend by a potential costly law suit. Of course I don’t think that dCS has done this to allow them to “whine and have more views on their channel”, but I do think that I support a company that have some kind of ethics, not to mention ethos. With this kind of behaviour, I feel like a customer with poor judgment, who accepts or let censorship happen from a powerful company whose interest is to have only good reviews of their products. I don’t want to believe this. I need to know that dCS does not indulge in this kind of behaviour.

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I respectfully disagree. dCS as I know it is not a very large company nor are they very powerful. They have done well enough to keep being relevant within the high end audio field and staying successful / keep existing for quite some time within this niche. I don’t pretend to know exactly why the dCS Americas representative would want to play the legal hand here, but please do remember that legal action is exactly that, legal. Don’t try to make this into some form of censorship or David vs. Goliath or whatever it is that this attention seeking and driven youtuber is making it out to be. Yes, dCS is a commercial company and they make money developing and selling products that are generally seen as very high quality. As far as ethics are concerned I hope they treat their suppliers and employees well and take care for the environment. Not sure how a legal letter from the US representative implies anything about the way dCS UK as a company do business. You have to wonder who is more powerful here and threatening to ruin whom.

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The Goldensound review has 48k views so far - to be going up unfortunately - ( nearly as much as Steve Gutenberg apprasail of the Bartok, 13th notes Hifi has 13k views, and there are numerous positive feedbacks with over 5k views); so far; dCS revenue is estimated à 7.5 million $ (source); not among the richest, but powerful enough to me… Still, this is a very bad move from dCS America, and I hope that the motherland company will respond with pacifying words.

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Deleted by poster

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There is now a message on the forum from David Steven on this matter.
As I thought there is more to the story and nuance is a good thing. Hopefully the pitchforks and indignation can be stored away.

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This is very unfortunate indeed, first that this has been publically issued by one of the party, and second that the other party bound one request (a loan for reviewing the Lina DAC) with another one (correcting inacuracies of an outdated review). This should have been independant, and having one contitionnal upon the other was a strategic mistake. I feel sorry for dCS.

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It seems there has been ample opportunity to resolve any issues in a friendly way. Apologies were made. One can’t help but wonder why Golden Sound chooses to publicly make these kind of statements and present a selectively quoted version of events. With most happenings it is prudent to ask oneself, qui bono, who benefits? dCS has nothing to gain by escalating the situation. They are dependant upon media to talk about their products.

I think it’s malicious. Just look at the comments of people under these videos, it’s really disheartening to see how easily people can be manipulated.

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I suspect that most of these people would definitively not want to afford a dCS product anyway! dCS chose to build state-of-the art DACs that are not for everyone’s purse, or, not everyone is insane enough to break the piggy bank for a dCS product (except guys like me:)

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Why? It gets click and attention.

Most people had never heard of Cameron before this.

I don’t know how it gets resolved, but I think dCS’ response today is everything I need to close the issue for me and to stop commenting further.

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Damage has been done, and there is no other statement that dCS can do to calm things down, I agree. Can anything else be done? Maybe, it is not my call anyway. I just want to chill out and listen to some good, smooth, not too smooth music… :slight_smile:

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Why would anyone pay attention to any online review of a product? Making a purchasing decision based on what someone else thinks about a product is nuts and not a way I would waste my time.

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Goldensound has reponsed to dcs

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The very moment when the new business is revealed, and there is a competing DAC on the table (yes, because those people keep their fans happy by telling them that a 3K dac is all you want, and those who pay more than that are fools), the show is over.

I think this young man is really passionate with what he’s doing: now (and even a couple years ago: don’t tell me that the new dac was conjured out of thin air in a second) he’s part of the business and he must understand that he has obligations, both legally and ethically.

Of course, the obvious conflict of interest reduces to zero the value of any review he makes (or made) about dacs and headphone amplifiers.

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Beyond that, this is even marketing at this point.

The dCS response indicates in the end they did the right thing.