Magazines and negative reviews

[mick]

John,
I think you have pitched your dac just right. At around the 500 euro mark,which is a psychological price point, people will buy it knowing it is very reasonably priced. A fancy case with bells and whistles would add cost and bring it into another price bracket. A piece of equipment as small as the dac,which is going to be attached to a pc or mac will probably be hidden behind other gear. The dac is well built and looks fine. Almost all of the testing of gear on the ' building an Audio Pc' thread has been done using JKDACS. They have been able to show up subtle changes and not so subtle changes to sound quality by trying OS on USB2 and USB 3, linear power supplies, the list goes on. It should be appreciated for what it is probably the best sounding dac anywhere at anything near it's price and a lot dearer as well.

[Rocker]

John,

That review reads very positive. The case is something you could look at, perhaps a better case option for €50 more while keeping the current case for the standard model (for those of us who are not concerned by lots of nondescript electronic boxes near their hi-fi).

[jkeny]

Thanks guys - yea I know the case is a point of debate - I even started a thread about it here some time back - so I'm not surprised by criticism of the case in reviews.

It's more the report about the charging that I have issue with as it is incorrect & will put a lot of people off - it's the main concern that people have when they hear the word battery -if it's not foolproof & no hassle they just don't want to know.

Actually, after reading it again, I find this paragraph pretty damaging & annoying as it is also incorrect:

It’s a source of pride for many manufacturers to show what their components look like under the hood, after all that’s where all the magic happens. I find it extremely suspect that John keeps it hidden. It’s conjecture to posit that those internals are hidden to protect less than stellar parts, manufacturing, etc. But you might argue that conjecture becomes evidence when discovering that my unit arrived with a malfunction. Specifically, the unit only charges when connected to a PC USB, but not when connected to a wall-wart that meets John’s exact specifications (no wall-wart is included with the DAC and one must be purchased separately per the stated specs).

[Fran]

I take it you've been back on to stereomojo - I'm surprised that they wouldn't publish a correction.

Fran

[jkeny]

I wrote to the author 3 days ago but haven't had a reply so I wrote to Stereomojo tonight for inclusion of a manufacturers comments in the article. Will see how this turns out.

[Diapason]

Hmmm, I probably shouldn't say too much lest I be accused of bias, but there's a "snide" tone to that review that I find very unbecoming. Yes, you always have to read between the lines with reviews, but I got the sense early on that he didn't want to like this product, and was almost annoyed that it sounded so good. Maybe I'm reading too much into it. In any case, I certainly agree that the paragraph you've quoted above is very damaging. Not cool.

[tony]

John personally I would just ask if they would consider a right of reply. Don't beat yourself up to much over it and let it go if not(Can see why they may not want to get into the hassle of allowing that as it opens up a potential can of worms). It is a good review the guy has bought the dac and has been ultimately very positive about it with regard to the most important aspect.How it performs.

[jkeny]

Yes, Si, I think he has a love/hate relationship with it. Part of it is explained by his misunderstanding of the charging & believing he has a malfunctioning DAC, part of it is because in his many emails to me he revealed that he wanted to use it connected to his iPad (which I wasn't aware of, initially) & I said that I needed to change the firmware to enable this.

So I think in reading that review there is an underlying tone to it that considers the DAC great sounding but flawed in every other way - it reads kind of schizophrenic to me - I love it, I hate it, :)

[Ivor]

It strikes me that the guy isn't actually qualified to review the DAC.

[nige2000]

It strikes me that the guy isn't actually qualified to review the DAC.

Now i didn't want to say that
might as well say it as think it i suppose