When Audio Reviews Face Legal Threats: dCS vs. GoldenOne

Check out this video:



Short summary:

Cameron (aka Golden Sound or @GoldenOne) reveals that dCS has threatened legal action over his negative review of their dac (Bartok), which our community should also attention to because it's about the ethics of such threats and their impact on honest product criticism in the audio industry.


Longer summary:

(Disclaimer: possible bias on my end through either my poor understanding and/or siding with Cameron's position)

1. Cameron first introduces the situation with explaining some background:
- Cameron published a review of the dCS Bartok DAC in Dec 2021 that was mostly negative.
- In Oct 2023, dCS expressed concerns about comments he made about their Lina DAC, which he clarified were taken out of context.
- Recently, Cameron received a legal threat from dCS demanding he remove or heavily amend his Bartok review within 10 days or face a lawsuit.

2. The he discusses dCS's specific complaints:
- dCS claims Bartok is not a DS dac, which is not true.
- dCS claims Bartok offers way more filers than his review finds (6), which are indeed more than dCS's own documents lol.
- dCS claims Cameron misdescribe clocks that Bartok takes from external clock inputs. --> He acknowledges and corrected this mistake.
- Cameron defends his statements about dsd upsampling and ultrasonic noise, supported by measurements and others' opinion.
- He demonstrates that dsd upsampling is indeed the default mode on factory reset, contrary to dCS's claim.
- He addresses other technical points raised by dCS.

3. Finally he adds some relevant thoughts, including:
- Cameron contrasts DCS's approach with more constructive responses from other manufacturers to negative reviews.
- He wraps up with emphasizing the importance of honest, unbiased reviews and commitment to serving consumers rather than manufacturers.


I agree with @SoupRKnowva in that this case deserves a dedicated thread.

 

This happened recently with Erin's Audio Corner and Tekton. Disturbing trend.

 

What comes next from dCS is what's important. The legal threat is a dick move - bluff? - but *could* be simple misjudgement from some corporate douche. Mistakes happen. Whether there'll be an excuse letter or not will show the true colours.

Rather baffling first commenters over at ASR:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...gure-lawsuit-over-a-review.55729/post-2029097:
"It is nice that Amir assists here, as one must confront this behavior from manufacturers, but I still don’t think that Cameron is a honest person, or at least he is deluding himself with all the supposed differences he hears and in the end it is just a smidgeon of almost inaudible difference above 20kHz."

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...gure-lawsuit-over-a-review.55729/post-2029102:
"Completely agree just another flimflam merchant but with an AP. Perhaps he should try the simple truth."

Really. That's the first you've got to say?

 

Thanks for posting this, its been nice to see the community come together in support of Cameron against behavior like this.

 

That video proving DAC filters make an audible difference really lives rent free in their heads, eh? FWIW I still don't think that it can ALL be explained by FR extension (hell my hearing tops out nowhere near 20kHz nowadays) but it's something. I could be missing the science behind that conclusion, but it's an aside to something much more important now, i.e. why the Bartok sucks.

 

Isn't the Tekton guy semi notorious for chasing after anyone who criticizes his designs?

 

Yeah, he went after Ron at New Record Day, too.

With regards to the original post, i do think old stodgy brands like dCS have a limited understanding of the innernets, and when a review isn't churned out by Stereophile or TAS (or the handful of online imitators like PFO, or 6moons, where it's also pay to play) they have a hard time with the fact that anyone who buys or borrows their gear can shit all over it. Luckily, they threatened legal action with very, very little basis for damage so my guess is (with some financial support from Headphones.com for legal costs) dCS is going to keep very quiet now.

Edit: Just basing this on the fact that nothing came from the shouting match between Erin's Audio Corner and Tekton. In some cases, the litigant benefits from hiring better lawyers because they convince the litigant to STFU.

 

FYI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation

 

Old farts get butthurt and overspend on lawyers. Not shocked.

 

I am personally curious with:

1) Whether any Bartok users in sbaf can send their unit(s) to sbaf dac measuring experts to see if @GoldenOne 's findings are replicable.
2) Supposing GS's results are replicable, what sbaf experts think about GS's claims countering dCS. Because sbaf is sorta free of agenda and FCOI, I believe our opinions may add additional validation power.

Btw, by dac measuring experts, I'm thinking of @purr1n @atomicbob @ultrabike or similar level wizards.

 

IANAL, but I've been lawyer-adjacent for various professional reasons in the UK and the USA. Anybody diving into this dispute needs to think carefully (better, ask their attorney) whether the benefit/risk is acceptable. Even though the law is more favorable to free expression in the USA than in the European countries I know (which include the UK), dealing with cease-and-desist letters is no fun.

 

That's very valid point, I think -- although I've never seen the 3rd party (objective) validations are legally punished unless things are inappropriately manipulated or falsified. But my observations are all within academic area. I am not an legal expert in industrial lawsuits, either.

 

Not a lawyer but I need to call the logic police on this whole thing for a moment.

I think the technical piece is immaterial in the end. Even if the review was shown to have factual errors (it seems to have had just one, which was corrected) the errors need to be negligent, and there must be damages.

Given how well defended GS's findings are, I think you'll have a hard time proving negligence on a technical basis.

But say you did. You'd still have to show how the review caused damage. Reading forums, I'm hard pressed to see how.

On the DcS forum it seems to me like people were not very receptive to what GS had to say. They note there was a lot of controversy on other forums, but also note most people didn't completely accept the review there either, and even "one guy posting it and swallowing every word...Mostly he was shot down in flames."

https://dcs.community/t/negative-bartok-review-that-i-simply-cant-understand/3641/16

If my timeline is correct, Golden Sound posted that Bartok review 2.5 years ago and DcS took nearly two years to complain, then after six months of back-and-forth the legal letter came. Why did they wait so long? Seems strange, especially when GS stated they were receptive to modifying their review.

This is a $20k DAC and they are saying one young Youtuber with 39.5k subscribers did them serious harm. They're sortof implying this kid has a great deal of influence over this kind of DAC buyer, which is a bit of a stretch in my mind since $20k DACs tend to be purchased by ORFAS folks who don't care what young youtubers think.

Assuming Bartok actually didn't sell well it's like if Apple blamed Tom's Guide for slow sales. It just doesn't track.

 

Off topic, but this whole drama reminds me of Amir vs. Schiit many years ago where the reviewer really seemed to have some agenda to bash a well-received manufacturer with spurious measurements with incorrect interpretations. Nonetheless, Schiit never appeared to consider lawsuits (I suspect @schiit always rule out such BS action from the beginning). Instead, Schiit attempted to live with ASR by sending them measurement-oriented gears for reviews (while protecting perception-oriented ones against from them), which I think worked pretty well.

Now in 2024, GS's claims don't seem as daunting as Amir did before, but dCS goes for more unethical choice than Schiit. Oh, well.

 

dCS has done more damage to their reputation than GS ever could.

I had no clue who dCS was before, but based on this they seem like a small outfit with inexperienced people. The way their VP of Marketing responded in terms of word choice and tone suggests someone that isn't accustomed to dealing with enterprise level issues.

Attacking your critics is a surefire way to make sure their negative opinions get amplified and suing them makes it look like they were right.

And even if dCS won a lawsuit, it's still a PR fail because down the road other reviewers may refuse to write about their products to avoid concerns they'll be sued for what they say.

 

Oh god, my brain cells... the.... that-woman-who-sings effect!

What in England are called Solicitor's letters don't require much in the way of logic or law. They are meant to scare.

Ahhh... Streisand. Barbera. Thanks brain cell!

 

Seems like companies need to think a lot harder about doing this type of thing in the days of social media, especially when trying it on an “influencer” or “creator” with a decently large following such as GoldenSound (I would say Cameron has a very good reputation in the audio community as well, which makes it that much worse).

These guys are burning their own brand/sales by pulling a dick move like this over a 3 year old video. This is clearly an emotional response from them due to something that likely would have had almost zero impact on them otherwise, but now is likely to have a much more significant effect on all their sales, not just one product. Tekton also felt the same backlash recently and this is nothing but a good thing for consumers.

 

Due to we are dealing with a company that don't want to lose their sweet profit margin on their crazy pricey equipment that look like audio jewelry for the OAFAS crowd, who most of their hearing is shot and their dicks doesn't work anymore.

After going to a few audio expos, anything from dCS was the super top tier crazy expensive stuff. I wonder how much less their stuff would be if they didn't use a dealer network. Their audio jewelry looks makes me want to puke.

I'm not shocked from dCS at all. I expected nothing less from a company that is aimed at snobs.

 

Anyone know if the old media (i.e. Stereophile, Absolute, etc.) have waded in? I expect them to fully back dCS as such companies are their bread and butter, consumers and the truth be damned

 

They’re currently crafting their response. You’ll see it in their magazines in 3-4 months.