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dCS Bartok DAC review on YouTube - GoldenSound

It's funny you only crawl out your cave on Saturdays but that apart you've never heard and there are no Googleable specs available on my other DACs. As stated, you've never heard my DACs and there's therefore no point in dialogue
 
Miller-8 said:
I googled the DACs you listed so I know how much they cost. Your reference Oppo Sonica cost £800 new and was reviewed by What Hifi in 2017 and was awarded 3 stars. Negatives they noted were:
  • Lacks dynamic subtlety and overall excitement
  • Clearer, more precise, more rhythmically adept rivals
  • Price
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You actually give credence to WHF reviews? Their opinion of Oppo doesn’t align with mine nor many others.
 
Juancho said:
It's funny you only crawl out your cave on Saturdays but that apart you've never heard and there are no Googleable specs available on my other DACs. As stated, you've never heard my DACs and there's therefore no point in dialogue
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It's Friday. None of your DACs have the reputation of, say, the Gustard X26 Pro, which is £1200.
 
Oh clueless one! Over and out. Enjoy time out the cave! BTW it depends where you are in the world what day it is.....
 
That being said if you have purchased said product or any product, you cannot give an unbiased review, its like claiming you are not effected by marketing.
 
garyi said:
That being said if you have purchased said product or any product, you cannot give an unbiased review, its like claiming you are not effected by marketing.
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Of course there's truth in that but I'm better placed than most. Firstly, I build and sell my own DACs with sophisticated power supplies and tube output stages. Clearly as a small cottage producer I'm limited to available chipsets and my added value is the power supplies and tube output stages. My top of the range model-The Beast-has totally separate choke regulated power supplies for digital and analogue sections along with a further power supply for USB /SPDIF i2s conversion plus the tube power supply. With massive power supply capacitance this does slam, dynamics and bass by the spadeload along with subtlety of course. Secondly, I bought my Bartok example second hand at a price that means I can quickly move it on if it doesn't impress or deliver superior performance. Thirdly, I have a bunch of clients who will come trooping along to hear the comparison and give me their forthright views. Fourthly, I have three different top flight valve amps-SE, PSE and push pull along with two solid state amps to try them with. Speakers are JBL S2 9800s, JR149s, and Troels Gravesen Illuminator 4s. The amps can be fed directly by the DACs using their volume control or via my own line of Satchmo preamps. Finally, on the repair side of my business I have had a stream of PS Audio, Denafrips and other highly reviewed DACs through the workshop-or clients bringing theirs along for demos, so have a good reference check.
 
Juancho said:
Of course there's truth in that but I'm better placed than most. Firstly, I build and sell my own DACs with sophisticated power supplies and tube output stages. Clearly as a small cottage producer I'm limited to available chipsets and my added value is the power supplies and tube output stages. My top of the range model-The Beast-has totally separate choke regulated power supplies for digital and analogue sections along with a further power supply for USB /SPDIF i2s conversion plus the tube power supply. With massive power supply capacitance this does slam, dynamics and bass by the spadeload along with subtlety of course. Secondly, I bought my Bartok example second hand at a price that means I can quickly move it on if it doesn't impress or deliver superior performance. Thirdly, I have a bunch of clients who will come trooping along to hear the comparison and give me their forthright views. Fourthly, I have three different top flight valve amps-SE, PSE and push pull along with two solid state amps to try them with. Speakers are JBL S2 9800s, JR149s, and Troels Gravesen Illuminator 4s. The amps can be fed directly by the DACs using their volume control or via my own line of Satchmo preamps. Finally, on the repair side of my business I have had a stream of PS Audio, Denafrips and other highly reviewed DACs through the workshop-or clients bringing theirs along for demos, so have a good reference check.
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Do you want me to clap or something?

Fact is you more than anyone will be biased, you make your own amazing DACs apparently. Maybe biased against said device more than for it.
 
garyi said:
Do you want me to clap or something?

Fact is you more than anyone will be biased, you make your own amazing DACs apparently. Maybe biased against said device more than for it.[/QUOTE
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Neither clap nor make trite, pointless comments. If it's good it stays: if it isn't qualitatively better it goes.

And with a five a five-fold price difference my clients aren't going to rush out and buy Bartoks either....
 
Lowgroove said:
I have recently purchased a Mola Mola Tambaqui so am not in the market for a Bartok, have no strong opinion on this DAC and my comments below are just an interest in the current state of reviewers.

I find this review very interesting as all other reviews I have seen have been so full of praise. I have respected the views of some of these reviewers and it would be quite a revelation to find that they have all been prepared to provide false and misleading reviews of such an expensive bit of kit.

Potentially it could be a case of everyone hearing things differently and the others liking the soft sound and Goldensound not liking it. However Goldensound went out of his way to say it is not just a case of not liking it - he believes it is poor.

I wonder if it is any coincidence that Goldensound's other negative comments I recall recently were aimed at MQA and that DCS seems to have a strong relationship with MQA? Maybe Goldensound may in future comment that the MQA implementation is too blame? in 2017 John Darko reported David Steven, Managing Director of dCS, as saying “The dCS and MQA teams have been in discussion, development and testing for almost a year. This is a unique and exciting implementation made possible by the flexibility and capability of our platform, as well as the fact that both companies have aligned philosophies, strong mutual respect and trust.”
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Unless you are in the camp of boycotting anything to do with MQA, it isn't really an issue here. DCS has an almost unique implementation of MQA in which the DAC treats MQA streams differently and separately from non-MQA streams. Non MQA files are treated-filtered with DCS regular system of DA conversion, MQA files get the MQA rendering-filtering.
 
Amber Audio said:
You actually give credence to WHF reviews? Their opinion of Oppo doesn’t align with mine nor many others.
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It matters more that there are a number of ordinary everyday listeners that value the Oppo. I enjoy reading and perusing mags but take all reviews with a pinch of salt for many reasons.
 
Del monaco said:
It matters more that there are a number of ordinary everyday listeners that value the Oppo. I enjoy reading and perusing mags but take all reviews with a pinch of salt for many reasons.
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Agree totally, I still sub to a couple hifi mags but learned long ago to try stuff out for myself. Forums help too, they weren’t around when I was getting into Hi Fi, it was mag reviews and word of mouth :)
 
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