Article: Dutch & Dutch 8c Loudspeaker Review

[mitchco]

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[mitchco]

4 hours ago, PeterG said:

Some great interesting stuff here, but very hard to put these into context.  What do they cost?  How do they compare to the usual suspects near that price point, such as B&W, Focal, Sonus Faber, etc?  Who should buy them?

 

Thanks. I believe you now have the cost. I did not have a cost in my region and forgot about persuing one... Oops.

 

They don't compare to the usual suspects is the point of my article. This is next level loudspeaker engineering that takes into consideration room effects, that other manufactures do not...  Amongst the other points made in my conclusion.

 

Anyone wanting real accurate sound reproduction that is verifiable with measurements, is who should look into these as serious contenders. That and if you are looking for an "all in one" system.

[mitchco]

2 hours ago, Daverz said:

Why did I have to google for the price of the speakers?  I assume the price listed at the site below, $6295, is per speaker, not per pair.

 

https://legendaryproaudio.com/product/dutch-dutch-8c/

 

Another review that's excellent on the technical issues.  It's just sad that Mitch doesn't like music (I'm joking, of course, but a bit ruefully.)

 

Re: price - see my response to PeterG...

 

Thanks, but not understanding your comment...?

[mitchco]

1 hour ago, Emlin said:

Hi Mitch. How were you controlling the volume (and mute) on these? The Kii has the Control which seems very convenient. Did you try the web browser "app" for this? If so, is it adequate?

 

Emlin, I did try the web app volume control and worked fine - no audible issues that I was able to discern. However, I am using JRiver's internal 64bit digital volume control as I spend most of my time in JRiver selecting tunes I want to listen too. Mostly listen at reference level or background music level... so don't spend much time adjusting the volume. My wife liked the Kii Controller, but I found I never used it. Old habits die hard...

[mitchco]

1 hour ago, esldude said:

Mitchco, I love the way you do your reviews.  I'd say this one is super, but all your articles and reviews are. 

 

Very interesting times with speakers like the Dutch&Dutch and Kii Three's around.  Hopefully the opening salvos in a barrage of such devices soon to be available.   

 

 

 

Dennis, coming from you, thank you, I really appreciate it!

 

Yes, I hope so! I feel folks are missing out on how good speakers can sound when they can be tuned to one's room and voiced for a neutral response. It really makes a big difference!

[mitchco]

@Emlin Ah, I see what you are saying and understood. I am hoping that Martijn @mensink can drop by and comment on the roadmap for the user interface. I know he was on his way to Beijing, so maybe a bit before he can comment...

 

@Em2016  Thanks! Good question. Yes, I understand Roon integration is being developed, but I am hoping like above, Martijn can join the conversation and comment on the streaming roadmap...

[mitchco]

5 hours ago, sixman said:

Fantastic review - as you always deliver Mitcho. Enjoyed reading it!

 

Couple of questions - when you talk about positioning the speakers close to the back wall - it looks like one is actually up against a glass window. Does glass - as opposed to a traditional wall surface - effect the sound in any way?

 

Also, as well as getting rid of dac/pre/amplifier/cables etc - does this system mean you can ditch unsightly room treatments as well?

 

 

Thanks! Given that the subs output 100 Hz and below to the front wall, whether it is glass or drywall will make little difference. Well, wrt room treatments, it depends. The lower the frequency you go, the less room treatments have an impact, unless you stuff the room. So really, for all intensive purposes with these speakers you don't need bass traps. 

 

Depending on how lively your room is will depend on whether you ditch the room treatments or not. In the article, I reference industry guidelines for studio control rooms and critical listening rooms, which there is a spec for decay time based on the volume of the room. Mostly it is a range.  Even with a few broadband absorbers on the back wall and heavy acoustic drapes on the front wall, my room is at the upper limit of the spec for being almost too lively, but the response is smooth across the frequency range. It's late now, but I will post the decay time of my room tomorrow.

[mitchco]

7 hours ago, CJH said:

Is digital input max 24/192 with internal processing at 96kHz? No mention on their site.

CJH

 

Good quetion for Martijn @mensink 

 

2 hours ago, gcoupe said:

I see that the D&D speakers actually have a fan in the base to help cool the electronics. Did this ever kick in during your testing, and did it cause any distraction/negative impact?

 

Yes the fan kicked in, but I never heard it from the listening position. I could barely hear it with my ear right by the speaker/stand with no music playing. It is very quiet.

[mitchco]

1 hour ago, christopher3393 said:

Thanks for the review, Mitch. Very promising. Looks like only a 2 year warranty ( https://dutchdutch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/8c-Manual-English.pdf, p. 15. Not clear if this has to be sent to Netherlands, but looks like it. The weight involved is going to be challenging for shipping. I wonder how good their packaging is?

 

I am glad you liked it! The packaging is excellent, double thick cardboard boxes with foam inserts that float the speaker. I believe there is a dealer network, but, it is unlikely that the whole speaker would need to be shipped back to the Netherlands unless there was physical damage to the cabinet or drivers. The electronics panel has 6 screws on the bottom and 3 cables to unclip to be able to remove the panel and ship. So in the unlikely event that the loudspeaker needs servicing, it is more likely that it would be the electronic panel that needs shipping, which is small and weighs less than 5 lbs.

[mitchco]

22 hours ago, mitchco said:

Depending on how lively your room is will depend on whether you ditch the room treatments or not. In the article, I reference industry guidelines for studio control rooms and critical listening rooms, which there is a spec for decay time based on the volume of the room. Mostly it is a range.  Even with a few broadband absorbers on the back wall and heavy acoustic drapes on the front wall, my room is at the upper limit of the spec for being almost too lively, but the response is smooth across the frequency range. It's late now, but I will post the decay time of my room tomorrow.

 

Just following up and posting the RT60 or REW decay time for my room. This is with 4 x 2' x 4' broadband absorber panels on the back wall, 2 more on the left side wall, that you can see in the room pic. 2 x bass traps on the left, in front of an unused fireplace. Keeps the metal from rattling and the cavity from resonating. Heavy 20 oz velour acoustic curtains. Thick carpet with double underlay between the speakers and couch.

 

While I get a nice flat response for reverb/decay time, it is at the top range of recommended reverb (i.e. decay) time for my room. volume.  Top range is 400 ms. Meaning, while the room has an even decay time over a broad frequency range, it is still a lively room. You can hear it on the sub recording above in Rihanna's voice about 3 seconds before the video ends...

 

[mitchco]

12 hours ago, PeterG said:

 

Interesting question in two ways, starting with the "reference".  Now that you push me, I see that I do not mean reference in the literal sense--I mean that a reviewer needs to put us in the ballpark of how he is defining "good".  The answer I was looking for would be something like--"beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so you should listen for yourself, but the 8c's are good competition for other stand-mounts in the $5-10K range such as....Of course you'll need to buy an amp for those".  Virtually every professional review does this, including your own.

 

Back to your assertion that the room is the biggest instrument.  That may be the answer to the big question--maybe the 8c's are not in the big leagues in a good room, but jump to the front of the pack in a problem room?  I am not asserting that either of these things is true

 

I also do not accept the idea that these are unique in the way that matters most--i.e. there's more than one way to skin a cat.  I'd really like to know how a person might evaluate the 8c's and a headphone amp (as Mitchco has done) against a price comparable combo of amp/speakers/room correction, or just amp/speakers in a typical room.  The whole area of room correction is fascinating, important, and debatable--let's have the debate!

 

Big picture--I think CA's guest reviewers bring a welcome fresh take.  Mitchco has written a terrific piece that we never would have read elsewhere.  But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.  There are certain things that every review should include.  Price and performance against some defined competition are two of those things.
 

 

 

Peter, as you may or may not know, I am big into digital room correction. You will find four articles here on CA, plus a book. 

 

I understand what you are saying. Based on the directivity and voicing of the 8c's, I would say that super smooth, tilted response would sound similar to the Revel Salon2's.  If one overlaid the frequency responses measured at the LP, they are quite alike...

 

The issue is that many speakers are still voiced using a flawed approach, as mentioned in the soapbox section and elsewhere. Sean Olive and other studies have shown that there is no correlation between price and frequency response.   When it comes to speakers, frequency response is the determining factor for our subjective opinion of sound quality. This makes it harder to compare to other speakers...

[mitchco]

7 hours ago, JR_Audio said:

Hi Mitch. Wow, another great review from you. Congrats on that. I enjoyed every paragraph you have written. I am familiar with both speakers (Dutch & Dutch 8c and Kii THREE) and do agree with many points you have described. But for most, it is great to see such thorough review of speakers with the focus, how they behave at home, and not mainly in anechoic chambers. Juergen

 

Thanks Juergen!  I appreciate you giving my articles a read and your kind comments! Yes, I am amassing a nice little library of in-room measurements. There are some interesting correlations... In the end, it is all about how speakers sound in a home environment. More to come... Thanks again.

Cheers, Mitch

[mitchco]

@heycarlos Thanks for your kind words. It was a long time ago... At that time, most studios had a soffit mounted pair of Urei 813 time aligns or Westlake's were very popular. For near fields, Yamaha NS-10M, JBL's of all sorts from 4312's to 4401's to 4406's to 4311's and on it went -  it was all West Coast sound where I was...  I had Tannoy NFM-8 which were really nice, but they still had not worked out the odd midrange bump of their dual concentric design.  Auratones (horrortones!) were everywhere and far from being fidelity - used to check how your mix would sound over a car radio ?

 

Relative to the nearfields back in the day, none compared at all to the 8c's. Nearfields sitting on the mixing bridge were typically free field and always lacked bass. Also the industry was just catching on how controlled dispersion was a big deal as most speakers from that era had narrowing directivity as frequency increases. So during final mixdown, the artists and producer would take turns sitting in the mxing chair as that was the only place where to top end balance was correct...

 

Really wish I had the 8c's back then!!

[mitchco]

@M DeBoard Thanks for your comments. I know it is counter intuitive, but if you look back in the Setup. Config and Calibration section, you will see a slide entitled, "Perceived versus measured spectral balance." What it is showing is while the steady state, in-room measurement is a sloping or tilted response from 20 Hz to -10 dB at 20 kHz, is actually perceived by our ears/brain as a "flat" or neutral response.

 

If you follow the links in that section to Dr. Sean Olive's and Dr. Floyd Toole's research, there is quite a bit of science behind this, which correlates this perceived versus measured spectral balance. This research has been repeated several times, with many participants in controlled subjective listening tests, and the results are consistent. As noted in the slide, a measured flat in-room response is not the preferred target. Our ears would "perceive" that is way too bright. I have tried that a number of times and would agree.

 

I have a drum kit in the same room as the speakers and often play along. With the speakers calibrated to sound perceptually flat (i.e. in-room measured response from 20 Hz to -10 dB at 20 kHz). The spectral balance sounds tonally neutral to my ears, not too dull, not too bright, but just right ? While most speakers can't match the sheer output of a live acoustic drum kit, the cymbals do not sound rolled off at all and match the tonal balance when I put sticks to cymbals on my kit. In the listening results section, I wrote a couple of paragraphs on this comparing to a recordings of cymbals and bells. Definitely does not sound rolled off.

 

Hopefully that reconciles the discrepancy between the measured in room response versus what our ears/brain perceives.

[mitchco]

5 hours ago, dc655321 said:

Nice review, @mitchco.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on the acoustic/electric design of the rear-facing subs of the 8c, as it's unclear to me if the subs are designed to also produce or contribute to the controlled (cardioid?) radiation pattern. From the video clip you shared, it appears to my eyes that the subs are out of phase with each other. I could be deceived about this though given that only a small piece of the bottom driver is visible.

 

Given the recommended proximity to the front-wall, the subs will pick up some boundary gain. They will also radiate half of their power around the enclosure (less so if significant radiation-shaping is in play). Do the enclosed back-waves also contribute here? Add to this recipe the blending of the subs with the mid-range speaker and the result is that I'm both super-impressed and super-confused ?

 

A little help, please?

 

Thanks! Here is Martijn's (the designer of the 8c's) explanation from Gearslutz:

 

"The tweeter and midrange on the 8c's are acoustically aligned. They are both delayed to be aligned with the subs, so you get what is often called a virtual point-source. The two subs get the exact same signal. The bass works best when the 8c is placed relatively close to the front-wall. Then the wall and the speaker become a single system, with a hemispherical radiation pattern (this matches well with the cardioid radiation pattern above 100 hz). 

When the 8c is placed right up against the wall, the 'reflection' against the wall is not really a reflection, it is perfectly coincident with the direct sound from the drivers. When there is some distance between the 8c and the wall, the acoustic center of the combination of the woofers and the wall (the point from which the sound appears to emanate) shifts a little towards the wall. With the presets we add a little more delay to the tweeter and midrange to again align them with the bass, so the result is still a virtual point-source with both flat amplitude and phase."

 

If you look at the near field measurements I took of the 8c's in the Objective Measurements section, one can see that indeed the direct and reflected sound are coincident. The result is a virtual  point source with both flat amplitude and phase, as shown by my measurements.

 

Hope that helps.

[mitchco]

Thanks @m3lraaHnevetS Let me look into it...

[mitchco]

On 9/11/2018 at 12:27 PM, joergchm said:

Quick but hopefully not silly question to all proud 8c owners(since I can’t find any description in the specs):

 

Do the speakers turn on (by music signal) and off (after some time without signal) automatically ?

 

Not at this time... But a good question for Martijn @mensink

[mitchco]

 Hi @Emlin  I reached out to Martijn @mensink and he said he would try to answer the q's today or tomorrow...

[mitchco]

 Hi @Emlin  I reached out to Martijn again. I have seen part of his travel schedule and could be a while  May I suggest you reach out directly to Dutch and Dutch at their website, Facebook or twitter contacts.

[mitchco]

On 10/29/2018 at 3:48 AM, Demetrios said:

Hello Mitchco,

 

Thanks fot this review.

A question about DSP : it's easy now tu use softwares like Dirac or to build convolution filters to match your room. 

What is, according to you, the best way for the D&D 8C : use the internal DSP or a soft like Roon with a convolution filter ?

 

Thanks,

Arnaud from France.

 

Hi Arnaud,

 

Can you take measurements? I would suggest trying the on board DSP first. If you can get ±3 dB tolerance in the frequency response using the on board DSP, then you have achieved studio control room frequency response accuracy.

 

If not, then yes, external DSP control can be used to achieve the goal. It would be nice if the external DSP correction is from about 500 Hz on down and leave the natural voice of the speaker alone above 500 Hz. Even in my problematic room ratio room, I was able to achieve ±3 dB accuracy with the on board DSP.

 

Good luck!

Mitch

[mitchco]

8 hours ago, hifi_swlon said:

Mitch seemed impressed with Phantoms and their measurements?

 

...

 

Hi @hifi_swlon Yes, they had a very nice midrange up to about 4 kHz and then got way too bright for me. Also the bass quality is different. Don't know how best to describe it, but certainly no cabinet sound.

 

Here is an overlay of the D&D and Phantom Gold frequency response measured at the listening position:

 

 

 

One can see a smoother and flatter low frequency response of the 8c due to is unique passive cardioid design and DSP . Then both perform more or less equal from about 300 Hz to about 4 kHz - like I say, nice midrange and directivity. Then from 4 kHz on up, the Phantom simply has way too much high frequency energy for my ears.

 

Of course, I can easily apply external DSP. But that can be applied to any speaker... So what can the speaker do itself? Unless something has changed with Devialet, it is a shame that they don't at least have a treble or tone contour control. But then that leaves the bottom end peak and dip...

[mitchco]

Great review by @Kal Rubinson and measurements by @John_Atkinson at Stereophile for the 8c! Excellent to see a good correlation of both subjective listening and objective measurements when reading both articles. This speaks to the robustness of @mensink design and engineering acumen that results in a neutral sounding package regardless of set up and room. Leading the pack IMO.

 

One item of note Kal is your comment, "The treble was smooth and open but somewhat under-stated,
Read more at https://www.stereophile.com/content/dutch-dutch-8c-active-loudspeaker-system-page-2#ju5uiVG81a5oqZ2E.99

 

Sure, not only agree with you, but prefer that as most other consumer speakers sound overly bright to my ears. Typically measuring +5 dB hotter starting anywhere from 2 to 4 kHz all the way up to 20 kHz as compared to the wonderfully neutral sounding 8c.

 

Overly bright to my ears is what I hear going on at audio shows. I don't know if loudspeaker designers are not using the latest design and engineering best practices ... Or not understanding the science that a neutral sounding speaker will measure flat in an anechoic chamber, but an in-room frequency response measurement will have downward/sloping tilt of ~20 Hz to -10 dB at 20 kHz, which is perceived as neutral sounding to our ears. By this measure, and as the science shows peoples preference, it turns out that most speakers are designed to be too bright sounding. But D&D "gets it" 🙂 

 

Thoughts?

[mitchco]

You mean something like this:

 

And zooming from 1 kHz on up with the Kii on one channel and D&D on the other:

 

 

As I have demonstrated in this article using binaural recordings, it is amazing how frequency response accounts for almost everything (except directivity differences) where two different loudspeakers with similar/same frequency responses can sound almost the same or indistinguishable...

 

[mitchco]

@detlev24 Thanks for your kind words and comments! Given I like large, high efficiency loudspeakers with horns, I like your reference choice 🙂

 

Re: Generally, I would like all manufacturers to be more transparent and more accurate with the data they release!

 

Totally agreed! Especially since there is a standard for loudspeakers measurements called, "CTA-2034-A Standard Method of Measurement for In-Home Loudspeakers". The standard is publicly available and free to everyone.

 

"This standard describes an improved method for measuring and reporting the performance of a loudspeaker in a manner that should help consumers better understand the performance of the loudspeaker and convey a reasonably good representation of how it may sound in a room based on its off-axis response and how this response affects the consumer’s experience."

 

It is well worth the read and embodies the accumulation of work by Floyd Toole, Sean Olive and others in a industry acknowledged standard. It offers a standard report format that consumers should demand to see for any given speaker purchase. Sometimes referred to as "spinorama" report. The only place I know that informally catalogs similar reports is: https://speakerdata2034.blogspot.com But given the science of designing and measuring loudspeakers, that has been proven over and over again, even since Floyd's spinorama paper from 2002, it seems very few speaker manufacturers have cottoned onto this.

 

I hope consumers put more demand on loudspeaker manufacturers to produce these reports, especially the new CTA 2034 A standard (from 2015 to be updated by the end of this year) format where it is clear to see the speakers on and off axis response and especially the predicted in-room frequency response. 

 

Cheers!

[mitchco]

8 hours ago, anaudiopro said:

Your review just made it VERY difficult for me to decide on the 8c's or the Kii's. I am a mixing/mastering engineer. Would you favor one over the other for that task?

 

Oh boy. Well, in post 107 above, just using the the onboard DSP one can almost make them identical from a spectral balance perspective. Both have excellent cardioid technology and polar responses, state of the art. As you can see I am avoiding the question 🙂

 

As others have stated, it is all about preference at this level of performance. Personally, I would be happy with either. The "perceived" difference I heard between the two systems I have a hard time trying to qualify and quantify what it is, but to my ears, it is there. I don't know objectively what it is, but the Kii's sound "dryer" than the 8c's to my ears. It is hard to describe. The 8c's sound familiar to me compared to other speakers, whereas the Kii's does not sound like any other speaker I have heard. The 8c's have slamming dual 8" subwoofers that seem just slightly under damped to give them that thump whereas the Kii's sound over damped with no sound to them at all. I wonder if it is because of Bruno's current feedback loop... Whatever the difference, it is quite small and could not say if I could reliably pass a blind test.

 

Which one would provide the best translation in the studio? At this level of performance, it really is preference. Both are incredibly linear sound reproduction devices. I hope you can get a chance to hear both.