Is this the end of honest reviews?
Cameron Oatley, known as GoldenSound, reveals that he may face legal action from dCS, a high-end audio manufacturer, over a negative review posted in 2021.
The company says his 2021 review has false information, causing “direct economic and reputational damage.” And, if Oatley doesn’t do what they ask within ten days, dCS might seek “actual and special damages and punitive damages,” A.K.A. a seven-figure lawsuit.
Timeline of Events
Here’s how we got to this point:
In December 2021, GoldenSound put out a review of the dCS Bartók DAC, a high-end digital-to-analog converter costing about $15,000.
The review, which had both personal opinions and actual measurements, criticized various parts of the DAC’s performance and value. Yet, everything remained peaceful for two years.
Fast forward to October 2023: dCS finally pipes up, expressing concerns about the review to Oatley.
According to them, the review is “full of falsehoods.” So, they demanded GoldenSound to take it down.
Because of this, GoldenSound made the video private for a while and asked for details on what was wrong.
But when the communication broke down, GoldenSound put the video back up.
Now, here’s where it gets interesting. During this whole mess, GoldenSound had actually praised other dCS products, including the Lina DAC.
Another problem came up with GoldenSound’s leaked voice message about the Lina DAC and clock.
In this message, GoldenSound talked about testing if the Lina DAC might be doing extra digital signal processing (DSP) when connected to an outside clock.
He clearly said this was just something to test and that he had no proof that dCS was doing this. However, a small part of this message was shared online without this explanation, making it look like GoldenSound was accusing dCS of being sneaky.
GoldenSound explained what happened in his video response:
“I made it very clear that this was just a possibility that would be interesting to test. There was nothing suggesting this was actually happening.” he shares.
“This was the disclaimer that I said in that voice message: ‘Not saying that they are doing this, just to be very clear, and I don’t have anything to suggest that they are.'”
This miscommunication made things worse between the reviewer and dCS.
Suddenly, in May 2024, Oatley gets slapped with a letter from dCS’s legal team. They’re demanding the review be removed or heavily amended within 10 days. Or else, he may face a lawsuit with potentially seven-figure damages.
A few days ago, in July 2024, GoldenSound told everyone about the lawsuit threat in videos on his channel and The Headphone Show.
Only this time, he’s not backing down and won’t take down the review.
“I had repeatedly asked for information about what they thought was factually inaccurate about my review. I’d even taken the video down as a gesture of good faith.” he says.
“But it wasn’t until well over two years after the video was released and seven months after I’d asked several times, “Please tell me what is wrong, and I will correct it,” that they finally tell me what they had an issue with. And it’s through a lawyer with an attached threat to sue.”
Key Points of Contention
dCS’s legal letter listed several specific problems with the review, which GoldenSound talked about in his video response.
Here are the main points:
- Incorrectly labeling the Bartók as a Delta-Sigma DAC
- Misstating the number of available filters
- Claiming the DAC accepts a 10 MHz clock input
- Criticizing the DSD upsampling without proper context
- Misrepresenting the default upsampling mode
Incorrectly labeling the Bartók as a Delta-Sigma DAC
dCS said that GoldenSound wrongly called the Bartók a Delta-Sigma DAC.
But GoldenSound fires back, saying he never said it was a one-bit or PDM DAC. Instead, he says the term Delta-Sigma doesn’t only mean those designs.
To back his stance, he consulted industry experts, including Jussi Laako, the creator of HQPlayer, who agreed with him.
“To be absolutely certain, I asked, ‘Can you see any reason as to why DCS’ approach would not be fairly described as a delta-sigma design?’ To which he responded, ‘To me, it is a classical delta-sigma DAC design.’” says GoldenSound.
“He also noted the similarities between the operation of the DCS Ring DAC and the AKM DAC chips internally.”
Misstating the number of available filters
dCS said that the review got the number of available filters wrong.
In response, GoldenSound maintained that his description matched with dCS’s own documentation.
He points out that there are six different PCM filters described (seven if you count one that only shows up when playing MQA content). Plus, he wonders how dCS got to 42 filters, since all info, even dCS’s own, only talked about six filters.
Claiming the DAC accepts a 10 MHz clock input
Now, GoldenSound admits he goofed on this one, mistakenly stating the DAC had a 10 MHz clock input. But here’s the kicker – he’d already corrected this error in the video description prior to dCS’s legal action.
“This was incorrect. I was mistaken about this, and so I pinned a comment to the video and amended the description to clarify this.” says GoldenSound.
“Had this been pointed out seven months ago when I’d asked for the information several times, I would have corrected it then.”
Criticizing the DSD upsampling without proper context
dCS takes issue with GoldenSound’s criticism of the DAC’s DSD upsampling performance.
But GoldenSound isn’t backing down.
He showed measurements comparing the ultrasonic noise between PCM and DSD output. And, while he knows DSD64 has challenges, he says other products that cost the same or less have dealt with these problems better.
Misrepresenting the default upsampling mode
There’s also a big argument about the DAC’s default upsampling mode.
This time, GoldenSound fights back with video proof.
Here, he shows that when reset to factory settings, the Bartók defaulted to DSD single-speed upsampling mode.
“We go to audio setting, set this to F3, change the unit settings, so map to set it back to 2 volts just to be sure, and I’m going to put it on DXD, so PCM upsampling.” he explains.
“Now, if we factory reset again, we can see the filter has reset, the map has reset, the output voltage has reset, it is back to DSD.”
Industry and Community Reactions
The audio community’s response has been… well, let’s just say dCS won’t be winning any popularity contests anytime soon. Many see this as a heavy-handed attempt to silence criticism rather than address genuine concerns.
In support of GoldenSound, Andrew Lissimore, Headphones.com’s CEO, also announced that they would stop working with dCS because of this.
dCS’s Response to the Controversy
To their credit, dCS has tried to clarify their position via a statement in the dCS Community.
David Steven, speaking for dCS, clarified that there was no explicit threat of litigation in their May 2024 letter. Instead, they just wanted GoldenSound to correct any false statements and let the readers know about them.
“The word litigation was not used in the correspondence to GoldenSound. All dCS asked for in the letter was for GoldenSound to correct any false statements in the review and notify readers and listeners of these corrected statements.” he says.
“The deadline for GoldenSound to respond to dCS was also waived by me as I sought to resolve this constructively and privately.”
The letter also addressed issues of dCS trying to monopolize reviews. For this, the company stressed their long-standing support for independent reviewers.
Yet, the company also took responsibility for some missteps in their handling of the situation. Steven acknowledged that some emails sent by a dCS colleague to GoldenSound were unacceptable.
He shared, however, that a sincere apology was already offered to GoldenSound in a virtual meeting on November 1st, 2023.
Finally, dCS tried to make things better by reaching out to content creators.
What Does This Mean for Audio Reviews?
This situation brings up serious questions about the future of audio journalism and product reviews. If companies can use legal threats to make reviewers change or remove bad reviews, how can we trust what we’re reading?
This also isn’t the first time we’ve seen this kind of legal pressure in the audio world.
In fact, just recently, the speaker manufacturer Tekton Audio allegedly threatened legal action against reviewer Erin’s Audio Corner over a negative review.
Such cases show a worrying trend of companies using legal threats to control what people say about them.
For consumers, the potential consequences are huge.
Honest, unbiased reviews are really important when thinking about buying expensive equipment. If reviewers start holding back because they’re afraid of being sued, we lose a really important source of information.
This isn’t just about protecting reviewers – it’s about preserving the integrity of the entire audio community.
While dCS says they’re just trying to fix mistakes, the way they’re doing it has started a bigger conversation about balancing company rights and reviewer freedoms. And, as this problem unfolds, it might force everyone to rethink how the audio industry deals with critical reviews and measurement-based tests.
Update
July 17, 2024: dCS releases an official apology
dCS has just issued an official apology regarding the controversy with GoldenSound via its community website. Here, Steven admitted that their earlier message had wrong info and confirmed that an ex-worker had sent emails they shouldn’t have about a “seven-figure lawsuit.” He said he was very sorry for upsetting Cameron Oatley and made it clear that dCS won’t sue.
To make things better, dCS has agreed to meet Cameron at their factory on July 25th to talk about tech details and clear things up. As a nice gesture, the company plans to give Cameron a dCS Lina system to use or give to charity. At then end, Steven also hinted at a potential collaboration on headphone audio development ideas with GoldenSound.
Denial doesn’t cut it, dCS. Except for the 10 MHz clock issue, you did not refute any of Golden Sound’s measurements with actual data. Worse yet, you clearly took offense at Cameron’s subjective judgment of the Bartok, calling it defamatory even though you couldn’t demonstrate any intent to tarnish your reputation. You most certainly did threaten legal action even if you hadn’t used the term per se.