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Who's Heard the Dutch & Dutch Speakers

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Why should you have to pay $120 a year for a volume control?! That is ridiculous! roon made a complete dogs breakfast of my own collection of classical rips when I tried it, I am not interested in Tidal which it does do, or MQA, but I am a Qobuz user which roon doesn’t do. So roon is not a good solution for people like me.

What would be a good solution for people like you?
 
Why should you have to pay $120 a year for a volume control?! That is ridiculous! roon made a complete dogs breakfast of my own collection of classical rips when I tried it, I am not interested in Tidal which it does do, or MQA, but I am a Qobuz user which roon doesn’t do. So roon is not a good solution for people like me.

I’m sure there is some company out there who wants to reach a target audience like you, you just have to find each other. Obviously nothing to see here for you, move along now.......

.sjb
 
What would be a good solution for people like you?

Put a UPnP or OpenHome renderer inside it, so I could stream to it from the server software of my choice - J River, minimserver, whatever. I don’t want to do volume control at the sending end, I would want the speakers to get the original datastream to do their magic on, and while an app for volume is ok, it’s not ideal - you have to switch into it, your iPad might have gone to sleep, whatever, so a conventional infra-red type remote control would be more sensible. Even the ancient Squeezebox Touch has such a thing, so it’s not difficult. It is just frustrating that they’ve quite sensibly put ethernet connectivity into them, so they sit on your network like a printer, but then not made it possible to send music to them over the network. Other people would probably quite reasonably want them to be an Apple Airplay endpoint too. Then you could cast stuff directly from your iPad or your iPhone. The concept is great - a speaker that goes on your network, they just need to work it through. Buying another DAC to feed them is just silly. I suppose you could get a good bit of what I’m talking about by sticking an Auralic whatever round the back, but that would still leave the volume control issue, and be a bit restrictive in terms of control software. If you bought a printer would you expect to have to buy anything else to get it to print from anywhere on your network?

(BTW I am genuinely interested in them, I was just trying to get my head around how I would want to use them.)
 
I’m sure there is some company out there who wants to reach a target audience like you, you just have to find each other. Obviously nothing to see here for you, move along now.......

.sjb

There’s plenty here for me, I will stay and ask whatever questions I want. They are all reasonable. By all means don’t read my posts, or block me if it suits you.
 
I am genuinely interested in them, I was just trying to get my head around how I would want to use them.)

And I am genuinely interested in finding out if there is a way to make them work for you. There is a lot of stuff here. I doubt that there is a way to give you everything you want right now without some kind of compromise, not in terms of sound quality but in terms of duplicated functionality. Let me give it come consideration and I will get back to you.
 
And I am genuinely interested in finding out if there is a way to make them work for you. There is a lot of stuff here. I doubt that there is a way to give you everything you want right now without some kind of compromise, not in terms of sound quality but in terms of duplicated functionality. Let me give it come consideration and I will get back to you.

Sure thing. A decent USB to s/pdif converter could do - I would just use my existing laptop as a source - but which converter? An Aries mini could do, if I could tolerate the software and it can be connected. And I could repurpose an old iPad or phone as a remote volume so I would have a dedicated object rather than have to switch apps. So, question 1 is which USB to s/pdif converter would you suggest, and question 2 is something like an Aries mini any good and does it offer any benefits? Q3 might be could I use a Squeezebox Touch, which I have, and has rca and optical digital outputs. Depends how sensitive the 8cs are to source jitter I suppose.
 
I used a Weiss INT 204, USB to AES, properly dithered attenuator and remote , but expensive, the solution will be D&Ds own break out box, just as the Kii ‘control’ really fulfilled their potential , and Roon for single source users.
Even does ‘DSD’ whatever that is.

Keith
 
Sure thing. A decent USB to s/pdif converter could do - I would just use my existing laptop as a source - but which converter? An Aries mini could do, if I could tolerate the software and it can be connected. And I could repurpose an old iPad or phone as a remote volume so I would have a dedicated object rather than have to switch apps. So, question 1 is which USB to s/pdif converter would you suggest, and question 2 is something like an Aries mini any good and does it offer any benefits?

I tote around a bag full of cables, adapters and other accessories which I use for home demos. In this bag is an Arcam irDAC which I use when calibrating 8cs, but sometimes also to play music while warming the speakers up. It has USB and S/PDIF inputs, RCA analogue outputs but also a coaxial S/PDIF output. I do not use the DAC section at all, but it is quite handy for adapting the USB and optical outputs from my MacBook to a coaxial S/PDIF input. There are better options available from the likes of M2tech and Audiophillio. Musical Fidelity used to make a decent one too. The ideal device here would be a USB to AES converter, but those are hard to find. Coaxial S/PDIF and a 75 Ohm to 110 Ohm impedance transformer works perfectly well.

Also in my bag is an Auralic Aries Mini. This provides local streaming via UPnP, Windows file sharing and Roon, and Internet streaming from all of the best places. It can also be used as a server. I have a small SSD installed inside mine with a few hundred albums on it. Also very handy and very easy to hide. However, if you are interested in Auralic as a front end for the 8c then you should at least consider stepping up to the Aries G1 or maybe even the Aries G2. Both of these have AES outputs so there is no need for an impedance transformer.

The USB to S/PDIF adapters mentioned above will all do a good job of cleaning up a noisy or jittery USB source. Some of them may actually sound better than the Aries Mini, but it is difficult to be sure without comparing them side-by-side.
 
Put a UPnP or OpenHome renderer inside it, so I could stream to it from the server software of my choice - J River, minimserver, whatever. I don’t want to do volume control at the sending end, I would want the speakers to get the original datastream to do their magic on, and while an app for volume is ok, it’s not ideal - you have to switch into it, your iPad might have gone to sleep, whatever, so a conventional infra-red type remote control would be more sensible. Even the ancient Squeezebox Touch has such a thing, so it’s not difficult. It is just frustrating that they’ve quite sensibly put ethernet connectivity into them, so they sit on your network like a printer, but then not made it possible to send music to them over the network. Other people would probably quite reasonably want them to be an Apple Airplay endpoint too. Then you could cast stuff directly from your iPad or your iPhone. The concept is great - a speaker that goes on your network, they just need to work it through. Buying another DAC to feed them is just silly. I suppose you could get a good bit of what I’m talking about by sticking an Auralic whatever round the back, but that would still leave the volume control issue, and be a bit restrictive in terms of control software. If you bought a printer would you expect to have to buy anything else to get it to print from anywhere on your network?

(BTW I am genuinely interested in them, I was just trying to get my head around how I would want to use them.)

UPnP integration is probably on the development schedule somewhere, but Roon integration will arrive first. I expect that Dutch & Dutch is also considering other IP-based integrations like AES67. If the UPnP integration happens, I would expect this to be in the form of a UPnP renderer. Both UPnP and Roon have mechanisms by which the volume can be controlled by an app while the actual attenuation is performed inside the receiving device. Right now though you would need an external streamer to send music to them via UPnP. That could be a computer running suitable software or a purpose built device like the Aries Mini. If you want the convenience of controlling the volume from inside the streamer’s app, your only option right now is to use external volume control.

Auralic streamers and the better software options have very good digital attenuation these days. However, if you would prefer to minimise the use of the external control, then one option would be to set the maximum required level using the volume control inside the speakers and then make small adjustments using the external control.

When I received my first pair of Kii Threes, I used an Auralic Aries (the full Aries rather than the Mini) as a front end for them. At that time, the Kii Control was still in development, so I used the digital volume control inside the Aries instead. When the Kii Control finally arrived, I compared the two and concluded that the Kii’s built-in volume control had a slight edge over the Aries, at least over the range I use. I know that you are not a fan of the Kii Three and obviously we cannot draw any reliable conclusions about the 8c based on listening to the Kii Three, but they were really close. The Aries Mini, G1 and G2 all have essentially the same volume control.
 
The Mutec MC-3+ USB is another option. I used one between an Aurender X100L and Devialet (USB to AES-EBU) with good results.

Cheers. But €999 to convert USB to s/pdif just so you can get a relatively small amount of data to a device that has an ethernet port? Would you pay that to print to your printer from your laptop?
 
The Mutec MC-3+ USB is another option. I used one between an Aurender X100L and Devialet (USB to AES-EBU) with good results.

I would hope that the output on the Aurender and the input on the Devialet are already of high quality. Does adding the Mutec in the middle noticeably improve on direct USB connection here? Or did you need to use the USB input for something else?
 
I would hope that the output on the Aurender and the input on the Devialet are already of high quality. Does adding the Mutec in the middle noticeably improve on direct USB connection here? Or did you need to use the USB input for something else?

plus it seems to me way over specified for a straight USB to AES interface. 5 inputs, 5 outputs, 4 word clock outputs, reclocking, up/downsampling, virtually all unecessary when one would just want to send some bits unaltered to the speakers.

Maybe the Project Stream Box S2 would be worth a look for some people. DLNA network bridge, USB to s/pdif, Tidal, roon, £600, .. alas no Qobuz so it's out for me though.
 
plus it seems to me way over specified for a straight USB to AES interface. 5 inputs, 5 outputs, 4 word clock outputs, reclocking, up/downsampling, virtually all unecessary when one would just want to send some bits unaltered to the speakers.

Yes, but I can see other uses for this box and the Hydra one. I also know a bit about Aurender and I know Devialet very well. Hence my interest.

Maybe the Project Stream Box S2 would be worth a look for some people. DLNA network bridge, USB to s/pdif, Tidal, roon, £600, .. alas no Qobuz so it's out for me though.

The Stream Box S2 I found on the Internet does not appear to have a coax output. It has optical but then you would need another box, in this case just a simple and inexpensive media converter. Are we looking at the same model?
 
The Stream Box S2 I found on the Internet does not appear to have a coax output. It has optical but then you would need another box, in this case just a simple and inexpensive media converter. Are we looking at the same model?

Oh so it does, or doesn’t, you are right, it would be useless. My mistake. Pretty much everything else that describes itself as a streamer has optical and RCA outputs so I assumed, wrongly, that it would too.
 
Oh so it does, or doesn’t, you are right, it would be useless. My mistake. Pretty much everything else that describes itself as a streamer has optical and RCA outputs so I assumed, wrongly, that it would too.

There are other Stream Box models which do have suitable outputs, but if Qobuz integration is a must have feature for you then you would be better off looking elsewhere.
 
It looks like you are within easy reach of us. If the aesthetics pass muster, I would be happy to offer you the same home demo that Nagraboy just had.

My wife is open to further investigating these speakers. I’ll be in touch to further discuss the best way of sorting this.

Thanks so far for your insightful answers to the questions on here.
 
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