SUMMER MUSINGS: On the perils of subjective opinions in High-End Audio (dCS v. GoldenSound).

Every once awhile here in audiophile-land we see our share of drama.

There was MoFiGate a couple years back when vinyl collectors panicked about DSD256 data corrupting their precious analog remasters, Tekton (Eric Alexander) v. Erin recently due to legal threats for calling into question a speaker design, we've seen silly hyped Pono/Neil Young claims a decade ago, and of course the painfully prolonged MQA episode which was just a mess (as summarized years ago).

Well, in the last week we have something a bit different; the dCS v. GoldenSound lawsuit threat due to unhappiness about a YouTube DAC review from late 2021. I'm not going to rehash the stuff here because there were clearly many missteps in dCS's communications as explained in GoldenSound's video and here's the dCS response where the company "fully acknowledge that some of the emails shared by GoldenSound were unacceptable and we addressed and acknowledged this in subsequent communications".

I trust they'll figure it out between the various players on the two sides. As with the domestic conflicts of others, I'm not particularly interested in the details as to who said what unless personally involved. Likewise, some of the technical details regarding the external clock, DSD resampling, seem to be side distractions from the concerns around the review; no need to spend time with these minor digressions.

Instead, I was more curious about that original dCS Bartók DAC/headphone amp YouTube review by GoldenSound that came out on December 31, 2021. What was it that made dCS or their representatives so upset? Is there something about the review itself we can/should learn from?

For those who have not seen it, here it is:

As you're perhaps processing what was said in the video, let me lay down a few of my beliefs; where I'm coming from as an audiophile hobbyist who is aiming for high-fidelity audio reproduction as the ultimate goal:

1. I'm all for the "little guy" and I would consider my blog and writings within this cohort of indie audiophile writers/reviewers. But that doesn't mean I believe the little guy is always right (in fact, I believe many independent opinions are likely wrong). While we have the right to free speech, we still need to be prudent about what to say and when, depending on our confidence that the comments can be backed up by facts.

Internet hobbyists and participants in discussion forums probably have a bias towards supporting David over Goliath which is usually not a bad thing since thoughtful dissenting voices probably have a tendency to be drowned out by larger financial interests and can benefit from a bit more grass-roots support.

2. For a company like dCS to be threatening a lawsuit to shut the little guy down might be necessary I suppose, but only as a last resort. Just as we have the right to free speech in liberal democracies, companies can also exercise their rights in the court of law if claims are wild, crazy, dangerous, or otherwise burdensomely damaging. But I would imagine this is only if all avenues of reasonable communications have been expended and only in the most severe cases of defamation which I do not believed happened with GoldenSound's review. This has been a poor public relations move for dCS.

When corporations use lawsuits to threaten others into silence, some jurisdictions have anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) laws that help the little guy shut down such abusive use of the legal system. Since dCS and GoldenSound (GS) are in the UK, it would be interesting to know what rights GS could have used to defend himself if needed.

I trust that the above 2 points are straight forward and presumably most of us would be in agreement.

Looking beyond the David v. Goliath analogy and unnecessary legal threats, when it comes to the tension between the two parties, I don't think this conflict is as clear-cut in terms of whether GS should have said the things he said, or that dCS should not be rightfully unhappy about the video review. To me, this is a more nuanced conflict than the charges against MQA and that company's misrepresentations. This situation is also not as blatantly ridiculous as Tekton's threats against Erin's Audio Corner when Erin actually liked the sound of the speakers but reported on limitations of the design based on objective results.

In this case:

3. I believe GoldenSound's YouTube review of the ~US$15,000 dCS Bartók is an example of basically a subjective process with token objective measurements thrown in, and ultimately comes across as dissonant. This is perilous practice.

You see, historically, mainstream audiophile reviews (such as in Stereophile) separate the typically longer multipage subjective assessment and the objective results sidebar. I don't read Hi-Fi News enough to be sure, but I think they also do similar "Review" and "Lab" sections done by different authors. Typically, GoldenEarReviewer will inventively write about how much he loved the sound of Loudspeaker X and will at least say some nice things about it that the company would be pleased by (often giving thanks for the nice words in the Manufacturer's Comment if published). However, the author of the objective test portion (like John Atkinson of Stereophile) might find frequency irregularities, box resonances or difficult impedances and conclude: "I was surprised by the results because GoldenEarReviewer did not hear the measurable strong dip in the midrange of Loudspeaker X and liked it... Go listen for yourself."

So if ever questioned about the objective deficits, the subjective reviewer can easily plausibly deny hearing any issues "at my listening level, with my equipment, my music, my room, and my ears" with no other tools for reference, unaware of what the objective tester found.

With that, even though not ideal, everyone's probably somewhat accepting. The manufacturer can take pride that GoldenEarReviewer said some nice things they can now quote in their upcoming advertisements and ignore Atkinson's report. If there are technical faults, the more-objective reader might want to heed Atkinson's warning and complain that GoldenEarReviewer's ears are lacking in the comments section, then either look elsewhere or try it out at home to make sure the skepticism is unwarranted before purchasing. It's all predictable and everyone has learned what to do.

The weird thing about this review (and maybe others he makes?) is that GoldenSound tries to cover both subjective and objective bases; but doesn't quite succeed. He spends good money on the Audio Precision APx555 gear (probably something like $30k), he posts the results online for the dCS, he speaks about it at 4:55 in the video with a graphic reference, but explains the results as only "this unit's working fine, it's measuring as expected". He also acknowledges that the results are consistent with Stereophile's measurements.

However, if you watch the video from start to end, there's an uneasy dissonance to the review when he talks about the DAC's sound quality in a way that highly contradicts the objective performance data, and to me is simply not believable. Here are some of his negative claims about the Bartók's performance:

- "Dull, really dull". "It sounds like they've tried to make something really refined and hi-fi and gone too far. And as a result it's become smooth, real smooth, too smooth." (6:05 - love the Emmy-winning dramatic vocal intonation and hand gesturing here! 🤣)

- "This sounds like the Chord Qutest but with better sound stage. The Qutest is 10% of the price of the Bartok. The Bartok doesn't improve on the resolution of the Qutest..." (6:40)

- "Perhaps the most egregious example... is I can play Skrillex loud and it's not even fatiguing" on Sennheiser HD800S headphones. "That just shouldn't happen." (7:10)

 - "Unfortunately this isn't just limited to the treble though, this is something that's present across the whole frequency range, everything just sounds a little bit too soft. Leading edges are just hidden... And so in 'AOK' by Tai Verdes, the drum kit just sounds blunted... muffled... like there's a pillow between you and the drums... Leading edges of the guitar are kind of hidden away... Initial strum just sounds way too quiet." (7:55)

-  "This I think is really going a step too far. It is too smoothed over. It is not a slightly laid back DAC, it's a *really* laid back DAC." (9:18)

- "No amount of changing digital sources, no amount of upsampling, no amount of changing the configuration internally, has fixed the fact that this is really soft - that it just sounds really really laid back." (10:20)

- "It always just sounds too soft. It just doesn't deserve this price tag, it does not sound good enough to me." (10:45)

- Soundstage is smaller that Chord DAVE and HoloAudio May supposedly. But the device is a "low energy sounding DAC, it's very relaxing to listen to, but I'm not sure I want to be quite that relaxed or chilled out all the time". (12:15)

- Using "Moth To A Flame" (Swedish House Mafia & The Weeknd): "In energetic electronic tracks like this, this DAC does not do very well. It just sounds very flat, it sounds very dull..." (12:30)

[As an aside, I noticed while going through this video, GoldenSound seems to promote stuff like Digital-to-Digital conversion hardware as maybe improving audible jitter and provide better upsampling as if these change the sound significantly. Then there are videos with click-bait titles like "Why you can't trust audio measurements" which presents nothing someone with experience doing measurements would not already be well aware of. IMO, a video about "why you can't trust subjective audio reviewers" probably would have vastly more information to show.]

So guys and gals, what he's saying then is that he has a US$15,000 DAC here which measures very well across multiple tests and domains (certainly within the audible frequencies). It has a few digital filter options, all capable of reproducing an impulse with no hint of dynamic or temporal anomaly as shown in Stereophile (what leading edge issues? output voltage good, what's this "softness"?). Frequency response is flat with no hint of high-frequency dips (what dullness?). Very low noise floor. Channel balance looks excellent with low crosstalk (should be good for soundstage, dependent much more on the speakers/headphones/room, right?). Distortions extremely low (not sure if anyone looked at intersample overs on this unit?). Basically no jitter anomaly to worry about.

And yet GoldenSound hears all kinds of subjective issues including "dullness", a "laid back" sound, "low energy", etc.? This, friends, is Golden Earism at its finest or worst depending on how you view the value of these subjective descriptions! In summary, these supposedly audible effects then are why:

"There's nothing here which is standing out to me as this is it's best feature... Everything is either not great or just okay." (14:30)

"The only time I would go for this is if you are explicitly looking for something very laid back, very soft, and that's your thing. Other than that, give this a miss." (15:12)

While I can appreciate but do not promote luxury High-End DACs, are you really sure, GoldenSound, that your words reflect a reasonable assessment of the sound quality? Are you sure these things you supposedly hear in sighted listening are the fault of the DAC? Are you sure that you are not biased in some way? If this DAC sounds so bad, why don't you prove it? Why not use that Audio Precision as a tool with much higher frequency accuracy, dynamic range, and temporal resolution than human ears to show us what's wrong here; why did you buy the AP if not intending to use it as a tool to explain anomalies and satisfy curiosities like the extreme differences between what was measured, and what you reportedly heard?

Not only would evidence improve the credibility of what you're able to hear, but it would also educate fellow audiophiles and demonstrate to dCS that their sound quality is subpar. Otherwise, as it stands, this review is nothing more than multiple vague subjective gripes that add nothing to our understanding. Even worse, by not being able to rationally integrate the objective data while expressing such dramatic subjective perceptions, you've made it confusing for viewers who might know a thing or two about objective-subjective correlations in DAC performance.

Imagine if you're a hi-end car reviewer and got into a Ferrari 296 for a drive. You've been given Car And Driver's data on acceleration, you've also personally measured an impressive acceleration from 0-60mph in 2.4 seconds at the track. After driving it for awhile, you publish your review, and surprisingly based apparently only on subjective "feel", you tell everyone on YouTube that this is a slow car, there's no excitement to the ride, no kick when you floor the accelerator, too smooth like you were driving a luxury sedan rather than a hi-end sports car. How do we think Ferrari would feel about such a review? Isn't this in a way what effectively just happened?!

Ferrari would not care because obviously the reviewer has lost touch with reality, everyone would have a good laugh, and then ignore the guy; his reviewing days are over. The problem with the audio "High End" though is that it's a small industry served by a few publications, and for decades, hobbyists have been fed inconsistent subjective nonsense and sold snake oil to the point that almost any subjective opinion seems plausible. With some financial resources (or loans), anyone can spend big money to acquire gear, start a YouTube channel (like this guy) and the relatively few audiophiles excited by this stuff will check out the insane products asking ridiculous MSRPs (like this) or sell his "experience" to create a client system sounding like it's marred by poor room acoustics. This is the nature of audiophile YouTube channels these days.

I don't know how many times the Bartók video review was watched when dCS became concerned, but with >60k views currently, it would not be surprising to hear that many interested in buying this DAC would have viewed it and felt a bit concerned about the opinions expressed by a man who presents himself as simultaneously having "golden ears" capable of hearing significant anomalies and who poses as one who has fully measured with his Audio Precision gear!

Pick an appropriate lane, do things right, and do it well.

If it's subjective reviewing you're doing, then you can basically say whatever you want because this kind of reviewing is all testimonial, opinion-based anyways. We all know this. IMO this is a less credible tier when it comes to sound quality assessment because you'll always find different opinions as discussed a decade ago. To me, subjective reviews can be good to ascertain look-and-feel, notable features, convenience, quality of workmanship, but unless similar sonic impressions are supported by multiple reasonable reviewers, by themselves, each reviewer's opinion has little significance.

A hi-fi audio reviewer is not judging art (unlike say restaurant/food, music, movie critics, or even oenophiles judging the taste of wine); hi-fi audio sound quality at its core is transparency which is not about added taste, but ultimately finding a system achieving Zen-like purity of absence.

There are extremely subjective guys who just openly admit that they embrace fantasy - check out this fellow's faith-based, "magic", child-like belief system that "should be nurtured". He's obviously a sales person and biased towards selling Playback Designs DACs, Fischer & Fischer speakers, giving Daniel Hertz stuff air time, and seems to think this stuff makes sense. How about this audiophile reviewer who also runs his paranormal channel communicating with spirit families in cemeteries using a phone app? Fascinating stuff! Hours of entertainment! 😱

If it's objective testing, then your standards are higher. One cannot just go around making up flowery prose like a subjective reviewer as if that is equivalent to the data one measures. Use technically defined language, and if you can't, at least try to break it down into the world of scientific principles. Make sure to double check on the measurements. If there are anomalies found, make sure to chase them down to confirm before publication. Know that others will also be evaluating and could produce counter-evidence which is fine and objective consensus can ultimately be found. Be curious because all that we hear can already be explained by detecting the physical electrical or acoustic properties. The audio products we buy are all based on mature scientific principles even if how our minds perceive still holds some mystery in the neuroscience realm.

Since terminology is well defined and concepts can typically be numerically expressed, collaboration with other technically-minded audiophiles can often be done. The measurement-based results can expand understanding, move high-fidelity reproduction forward, and can expose nonsensical scam products for what they are.

If you want to do both - writing reviews with subjective impressions and objective testing - then express your understanding with internal consistency. GoldenSound seems to be presenting himself as someone who is capable in this way; this is admirable and I think more reviewers should be encouraged to do this. But the standards need to be higher if something does not make sense. If you're reviewing a Ferrari and every measurement says you should be feeling some g-forces and you don't, well, you should be checking your own sensory system first before complaining about the car on YouTube!

And so it is with this dCS Bartók review. As a viewer, I cannot believe the deficits GS claim to hear as presented in the video because the objective evidence literally is screaming at us that his subjective claims are suspect wrong. A reviewer who is adept at objective analysis needs to give us evidence - maybe give us a hi-res AMPT-like recording or a sample of the anomaly (I've tried to do this sometimes) to allow the audience to gauge for themselves - don't tell me what you heard, show me if it's a big deal. Objectivity applies to everyone and we should be able to hear the "pillow between you and the drums" for example if that's what you're going to claim.

At best, the sound quality assessment in this review is woefully incomplete and more evidence needed to be presented before making these severely critical remarks about the product. At worst, this is just another ego-driven Golden Ear strutting his "skillz", consciously or unconsciously putting out a controversial video to make a mark as an "influencer" through clicks.

I don't know if people who buy dCS equipment would care about YouTube reviews, but if I were dCS, I'd understandably be annoyed if I felt that this review might have had a negative impact on sales or reputation. Regardless, dCS should still have communicated their concerns better, and threatening a lawsuit around what amounts to subjective opinion (even with GS displaying objective pretensions) was not the wisest move.

To end, I find it fascinating when reviewers like GoldenSound express the intent of their subjective opinions in ways like this:

"It's my job to try and tell you how something sounds - to describe it as accurately and thoroughly as I can so that you can make a decision for yourself, whether it's up your alley." (13:08)

Seriously GS, do you think you've done anyone a service with this dCS video? Was this review actually "accurate" (and consistent with other listeners' experience)? If it is accurate, by what standard - or is it just "accurate" for yourself? Apparently, your accuracy is not consistent with the measurements from your AP machine, right? Why not? Were you able to give dCS any concrete suggestions to improve the product's sound quality by the way?

It's easy for any subjective reviewer to claim he "loves" a product whether it's objectively any good, and by the same token, anyone can easily say how "poor" a product sounds with all the creativity and displeasing prose one can conjure up (or just ask ChatGPT for some colorful descriptions). Just as "respected" and well-known reviewers could virally advertise a product to the masses on YouTube these days, so too the magnification of the obverse can powerfully tarnish the reputation of a company's product. As audiophiles and as an Industry, to base reviews just on subjective opinions, and to put trust in testimonies only, has always been a perilous path for products designed through science and engineering.

Given that the dCS review was published in December 2021, I certainly hope GoldenSound's subsequent videos utilizing and incorporating his AP machine's data have improved over the years.

Disclosure: I have heard the dCS Bartók at one of the audio shows. From a sound quality angle paired with Audeze headphones, I certainly did not hear an issue with 'dullness'.

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I'm enjoying Alphaville's first album Forever Young, released as a 40th Anniversary Bluray this weekend (1984, DR13 when converted as 7.1 24/48 TrueHD). I was blown away by this album in the late '80s when I started listening to music as a teen and to this day consider this a synthpop masterpiece. As audiophiles, all these years we've been resold "remastered" albums, many of which just sound different because of minor EQ tweaks, or worse, loud dynamic range compression to the point of audible distortion in many cases (no thanks to mainstream magazines for not highlighting the issue).

These multichannel remixes of favorite albums are different and truly change the immersive experience in meaningful directions that can expand creative freedoms. Generally, I have no interest in remastered 2-channel efforts unless they're actually improving dynamic range (and even less interest in remastered LPs). But well-done multichannel remixes, these could certainly be of interest in providing new musical experiences!

Friends, I hope you're all having a great July and enjoying the music.