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Yup, I think there's the psychology of being "special" at play in reviews like these. That the reviewer possess some "unobtanium" whether it be special hardware or legendary recordings in hand to give them special insights into the performance. Taken a step further, the idea of possessing a pair of "golden ears" (whether said out loud or implied in writings/conversations) also suggests that the person believes they have something special or unique to offer. I think it's important to just be honest with ourselves and others when it comes to subjective reviews where the person - their ears, perceptual ability, cognitive ability - are the "tools" used for evaluation. Sure, some folks have phenomenal hearing, but in their late-70s? I don't think there's anything wrong nor would it be rude to question JVS' abilities since he's over 79 years old now (it says so in his LinkedIn profile). Surely, at some point we must all accept that we may have gained wisdom in age, but the price has been letting go of physical prowess including those "golden ears" we may have once possessed. [Also discussed here.] Regarding Peter McGrath's private recordings, I did hear some of them once a few years ago before the pandemic when he came to do a demo on the Wilson Sasha DAW locally. They were well recorded classical tracks but of course bitdepth-reduced and downsampled to fit in the 24/44.1 container so they decoded to 88.2kHz. Honestly, I suspect they could have sounded just as good if not better downsampled to 16/48 with iZotope RX 10 , MBIT+ dithering. 😉 Many many well-recorded classical pieces out there; no need to lust after McGrath's private collection, even the original 24/88.2 or 192kHz or whatever. 😆

Yep. No. :-)

Bye bye PV. Don't let the door hit you on the way out... I'm guessing just a matter of time before the other groups have nothing to talk about and die off with end of Tidal support. Assuming the Lenbrook-HDTracks streaming even sees the light of day in Q4, likely be pretty boring in these MQA groups :-).

I've wondered why Lindberg is so stuck on MQA. I believe his recordings are all DXD so why not just distribute to Tidal his material downsampled to 24/192 or other hi-res variants? I guess he must actually believe that his downsampled 24/44.1 MQA encodings when decoded and lossy-resampled to 24/352.8 must really be something special! This misplaced devotion to MQA is simply silly. Game over... There's nothing to be gained for Lindberg or his company 2L to persist as a representative for MQA.

Nice post @garrardguy60. I agree with the perspective of the journalistic culture. Usually I don't think there's a need to communicate with the manufacturer unless there's some agreement to do so. Journalism demands reporting of facts and opinions independent of industry influences in the case of product reviews. Having said this, I've sent an article preview once for an SMSL product. The company reviewed the article for technical errors and had nothing to add even though there were clearly short-comings mentioned in the review. I respected the company for not demanding that I change anything and they accepted the conclusions. On a related note, @The Computer Audiophile presented a preview of the MQA article published here to the company and Bob Stuart before going online because we all knew this would be contentious. I'm glad Chris took that job on as the publisher and I'm sure this was not an easy discussion for him, but had to be done. If there are situations I'm not sure about, I've always felt that manufacturers have been able to direct me to the engineering team to clarify technical questions. People like Matthias Carstens of RME, Ivan Khlyupin of E1DA, John Yang of Topping, Uli Brueggemann of AudioVero around room acoustics, the ex-engineering team at Oppo, Charlie Hansen of Ayre (RIP), etc. have all been accommodating to answer questions even though I don't send full articles for review prior to publication; they've been helpful for questions that have nothing to do with their products as well. Heck, even had a reasonable E-mail exchange with Mark Levinson despite my strongly negative views on Daniel Hertz products. The way I see it, reviewers will have to figure out what's best depending on what we're saying and how confident we are. If the opinion is clear, presented rationally with evidence, then I don't think there's much a manufacturer can do or say other than provide their evidence to the contrary, we can then dialogue as gentlemen. I think the Tekton v. Erin episode is an example of how bad this looks for the company when they try to fight against evidence! If I'm making a strong statement that could damage the reputation of the product/company, then I make sure I'm pointing out the evidence or rationale for such opinions. If I have no evidence, then my opinions must be commensurate and softer because I cannot be sure whether it's the device to blame, or my own limited human perceptions. Since I don't hold the subjective opinions of others strongly, I too must make sure the reader can tell the difference between the facts I want to present as a reviewer which are important to note, as opposed to mere perceptions which I invite the reader to hold loosely and consider when they listen for themselves. One more thing, I'm thankful for audiophile friends I can also bounce ideas off of, collaborate with, and just generally to review articles before publication as a "peer review" on the occasions when needed. Important especially to make sure the tone of the article isn't too harsh and what I'm saying resonates!

Excellent comment @ray-dude. It's the Wild West out there when it comes to anyone being able to publish anything. It makes it all the more important for the viewer/reader to start with caution and over time to assess the motivations and character of the individuals putting stuff out based on their previous content. Indeed, having an extra layer of editorial oversight can help deal with drama like this. Just read about the "peace offering" of some free hardware. Wow, I guess GS is going to be rewarded for what I consider to be simply a really bad review... Such is the world I guess. 😕

😆 @The Computer Audiophile, I think I figured out a few years back that the "big bucks" wasn't going to come doing audiophile-related consumer content. Eventually, honest discussions will piss everybody off... Including other little-guys as well! Seriously, I think GoldenSound means well and is trying hard to make a name for himself but there's some maturation that needs to come (at least based on this Dec 2021 work). I don't know if he has another career; my tendency is to hope that all those YouTube creators have something else and these are mainly side projects so there's no financial desperation whether it works out or not. So what was the intent to raise money for his purchase of the AP again? Anyhow, I hope he's using it conscientiously these days and tones down the questionable "golden ear" rhetoric.

For the record, my take on this dCS v. GoldenSound brouhaha, specifically about the quality of that subjective review: SUMMER MUSINGS: On the perils of subjective opinions in High-End Audio (dCS v. GoldenSound).

I agree Chris. After watching his initial video from Dec 31, 2021, I certainly recommend being a bit more cautious about jumping to conclusions about which party is right/wrong in this case. This is a very different situation from MQA or the recent Erin vs. Tekton legal threat IMO. Personally I'm not that interested in the subsequent letters and interchange between GS and dCS. Rather, this gets at the heart of what these kinds of reviews represent and what confidence a reviewer has when claims are made. Fascinating case study...

I don't understand these business people. Continuing to use and doubling down on the bankrupt "MQA" name with nothing to show except for fluffy graphics and I guess creative names as they're aiming to release SCL6 is suicide! IMO they should have started fresh. Like MLP (DVD-A) got rebranded as TrueHD by Dolby (Bluray) and started life anew without letting consumers associate the codec with the failed previous product. I also don't understand why they need people like Mike Jbara around (connections with Warner Music?). Not sure I love the name, but just starting fresh with the new AIRIA wireless codec without mention of MQA or their silly claims about time-domain performance I think would have simply been a better move!

Hey Chris, I don't disagree. There's often no right/wrong. I think it also depends on the nature of the listening "experiment". Often audiophiles tend to think of blind testing as a mechanism to finding out "which sounds better" - usually the newer/fancier/more expensive/highly celebrated one then becomes the "right" product. This might not be unreasonable and my recent online blind test (results just published with DACs) has that element to it because the price differential is an important consideration being explored. However, blind listening to me most of the time is not "which is better" or "did I choose the 'right'/luxurious/expensive one?", but first about "is there even an audible difference?!" if I take away the pre-existing biases about brand, price, or reputation. That's the question I usually would be asking when running ABX listening between different filter settings, DACs, between different cables and tweaks. If I can convince myself that I hear a difference, then I'll ask the question "which one sounds better". This is why in my tests, I always ask listeners to tell me "how much difference do you hear" along with ranking preference. We can absolutely accept that different listeners will have different preferences when there's demonstrably a difference in sound. For me, blind testing and measurements are particularly meaningful to help distinguish snake oil as per discussions of Synergistic Research in this thread; there's an ethical element that is clearly distasteful about such products promoted by questionable individuals (ahem... Ted Denney). If the advertising materials make no sense, measurements find nothing, and blind listening is negative, well then we better walk away.

Of course, enjoyment is the #1 factor one should buy a product! Nobody should stop anyone from enjoying or buying what they want. (So long as it's all legal... 😁)

Correct, our subjective assessment is a combination of the actual physical sound + mental projection/"imagination". Since the psychological factors that affect how we imagine what we hear is affected by things like brand names, price tags, bling, advertised suggestions, perception of luxury, etc. this is why we need blind listening (among other controls like volume level). This way we can try our best to isolate "the sound" and whether there is a meaningful difference. I don't think there's anything complicated here. Nor are there deep fundamental issues with using blind listening tests.

@Iving, good summary and congrats on being able to sort the samples C-B-A! @krass: Actually that C-B-A order is not based just on cost. It's actually also the objective performance sequence as well with the Apple DAC clearly worse in terms of noise performance and higher nonlinear distortions than the Linn Majik's Wolfson DAC chip which in turn was worse than the Klimax's "Katalyst" architecture based on the AKM4497. Since both price and objective performance pointed to that order, the fact that blinded listeners also chose that order (especially the headphone listeners to a very significant degree) I think is a nice demonstration that indeed the attention Linn paid to the Klimax has resulted in a "better sounding" machine. Whether we believe the asking price represents "good" value of course is contentious and whether an objectively similar-performing DAC at a much lower price would be "non-inferior" to the sound quality of the Linn Klimax can be tested.

Well folks, time to unblind: PART I: "High-End" DAC Blind Listening: Devices Unveiled! Sample A = Apple USB-C dongle - ~$10 Sample B = Linn Majik DS + Dynamik Power Supple - ~$3,000 when new Sample C = Linn Klimax DSM/2 - ~$20,000 when new Both Linns used much better cable, streamed over ethernet from Roon than the Radio Shack wire for the Apple dongle played back on a laptop over Windows 11 in Foobar. 105 responses. Thanks everyone. Analysis to follow... How did you do?