DCS threatening Goldensound..What an industry this is

PYP · Wednesday at 6:49 PM

Synaxis said:
Hi Lee - not sure what the point of your post is.

I've based my comment on 30+ years in the corporate world - much of it dealing with C-level execs. In my personal experience no capable C-level exec would allow this to spiral the way it has into the train wreck it has become by mere accident (incompetence - maybe).

Hence IMO - having let it get to this point he's only sorry it went public. Or, he's a completely out of touch CEO who has no clue what his business - on a major issue and decision to go nuclear - is doing around him.

I stand by my opinion of the situation that could equally be right or wrong in my read of it.

As others have said, we will never know. However, this is a very small company and (in my experience) oddball employees usually act out in small ways before acting out in big ways. If you don't correct the small situations, you end up with a mess. And this is a mess.

It is hard to imagine, however, that a lawyer was involved. What competent lawyer would suggest this action? That would leave either the dopey guy who threatened the reviewer as a solo flyer or the CEO knew and didn't stop the bluff because he wasn't concerned (for me, hard to believe).

Seems they didn't pay the reviewer's legal fees but gave him a piece of gear instead. That doesn't look very good either.

A-Line · Wednesday at 7:30 PM

Ron Resnick said:
I just watched the Bartok review. Cameron says many times variously the DAC sounds smooth and soft and overly smooth.

Cameron is giving his subjective sonic impression of the DAC. I don't know what dCS is exercised about.

(I am surprised anybody would accuse a dCS product of being overly smooth.)

I found dCS, much like Esoteric, to be overly bright sounding.

At any rate, sounds like dCS is being handed their hat...just saying.

Ron Resnick · Wednesday at 8:03 PM

Al M. said:
They will undoubtedly ask WBF to take down this thread.

I am not aware that dCS contacted anyone at WBF about this matter -- to their credit. dCS did not contact me.

JiminGa · Thursday at 6:07 AM

Synaxis, DCS has 40 employees and has revenue of 8 million dollars. This is a tiny company and referring to “c level” in this context is a stretch. I was a CEO of a company with over 1000 employees and 150 million in revenue and I can tell you from experience that with a company that small anything is possible. No one here can say with any confidence what actually happened. I can definitely say it’s possible to blindside a CEO

adyc · Thursday at 6:13 AM

JiminGa said:
Synaxis, DCS has 40 employees and has revenue of 8 million dollars. This is a tiny company and referring to “c level” in this context is a stretch. I was a CEO of a company with over 1000 employees and 150 million in revenue and I can tell you from experience that with a company that small anything is possible. No one here can say with any confidence what actually happened. I can definitely say it’s possible to blindside a CEO

Surely not dCS has only 8 million dollars revenue with 40 employees. With these money, it was not enough to pay the salary, materials and R&D.

JiminGa · Thursday at 7:31 AM

That’s what is listed in publicly available sources. Leaving aside Japanese conglomerates and some of the multi company consortiums all of the companies we talk about here are VERY small businesses run by enthusiastic entrepreneurs not C level business guys/gals.

Synaxis · Thursday at 8:04 AM

JiminGa said:
Synaxis, DCS has 40 employees and has revenue of 8 million dollars. This is a tiny company and referring to “c level” in this context is a stretch. I was a CEO of a company with over 1000 employees and 150 million in revenue and I can tell you from experience that with a company that small anything is possible. No one here can say with any confidence what actually happened. I can definitely say it’s possible to blindside a CEO

Hi Jim - so it sounds like you are saying they are so small their "CEO" isn't worthy of being a CEO as they are just a small time company.

It also sounds like you are saying that they are a really small time company yet this not-really-ceo still has no clue what is going on in his company even though he admitted to being involved in getting a lawyer involved.

All around it sounds like you are saying dCS is a poorly run company? I would agree with that based on what we have seen them do in this instance.

Here is what we CAN so with "confidence" - dCS acted unprofessionally, tried to bully and intimidate someone, and brought in a lawyer who at best was questionable and went nuclear on something foolishly. AND the CEO was aware of this per his own admission.

Not a good look for dCS no matter how many of their friends try and defend them.

Al M. · Thursday at 8:18 AM

adyc said:
Surely not dCS has only 8 million dollars revenue with 40 employees. With these money, it was not enough to pay the salary, materials and R&D.

Yeah, that doesn't work. Math doesn't add up.

JiminGa · Thursday at 8:56 AM

DCS is not publicly traded so I don’t have access to any financial reports. I got my info from a cursory look at secondary online sources. Maybe they are off a little but it is still a small company by any measure. Perhaps someone here will take a deeper dive and let us know more. Just clarify a few points: CEOs are not worthy or unworthy based upon revenues. Some of the very best I’ve met come from challenging areas and small revenue streams. Conversely we all can site incompetent CEOs of billion dollar businesses. No one here knows if DCS is well run or not. We have no access to information about things like revenue growth, margins/profits, employee satisfaction and retention, market share etc. I freely admit I have no idea how well they are run. I don’t have any emotional attachment to DCS one way or the other. When something like this happens we don’t know if there is a culture problem at DCS or if there is a management issue at DCS if there are a couple of bad apples at DCS or if DCS has bad legal representation. With a company this small it’s unlikely they have full time legal but they might. I doubt it. All I am saying is none of us is competent to render judgment in the absence of more reliable information. I would hope everyone would be a bit more restrained in their judgements about others in their own personal lives. Stay calm. Control passion. Educate themselves. Follow the facts wherever that leads them

JiminGa · Thursday at 11:06 AM

Just checked Dunn and Bradstreet. DCS sales revenue is 9.26 million. They are a reasonably reliable source.

PYP · Thursday at 11:57 AM

JiminGa said:
Just checked Dunn and Bradstreet. DCS sales revenue is 9.26 million. They are a reasonably reliable source.

any mention of number of staff? One internet source put that number at far fewer than 40, but that may have referred to management only.

Although I'm critical of how they handled this small matter (they made it into a bigger concern through mismanagement), if their staff is spread out geographically it is obviously more difficult to observe weird behavior.

For me, after all was said and done, the offer of equipment to smooth it all over was suggestive of management that does not understand optics (and it seems the offer was before they finally got on the phone with the reviewer to discuss what had happened). Just my personal opinion and I can see how folks see it otherwise.

wil · Thursday at 12:31 PM

I am not in the audio business and so do not know anything , but a $9 million gross revenue figure sounds extremely low. If they have 40 employees at (say, only $50k average) that’s $2 million overhead there. Then they have to have office space and factory space. Show expenses, and on and on. They have dozens of retail partners. This is not a garage outfit.

Tuckers · Thursday at 1:58 PM

This thread is rapidly becoming unproductive. Participants are re-stating their positions, and counter positions ad nauseum.

JiminGa · Thursday at 2:55 PM

I agree. Lots of music to listen to.

Holli82 · Thursday at 3:35 PM

Tuckers said:
This thread is rapidly becoming unproductive. Participants are re-stating their positions, and counter positions ad nauseum.

hmmm.....seems to be a recurrent theme on a lot of forums now

ssfas · Thursday at 5:24 PM

What I said in my only post on this issue seems to have largely materialised, except that they got rid of the person who hired the lawyer, not just the lawyer. My foresight was not because I’m particularly clever, just that it’s the way things are usually done over here given Cameron and DCS are both thoroughly decent types.

Besides the fact that I’m the world’s greatest optimist and always believe good will come from the most dreadful and depressing circumstances, I sincerely hope and expect good to come from this storm in a teacup, with greater awareness by reviewers, manufacturers and consumers for the need for more accurate, informed an independent product reviewing.

I made some donations to Cameron‘s site to encourage him to keep up the good work and I hope others do as well.

Cameron is the only reviewer whose review directly resulted in me buying a product, the DAC that I’m listening to now. I thank him for that.

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DCS threatening Goldensound..What an industry this is

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