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Who's Heard the Dutch & Dutch Speakers

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Using this (flat) speaker and measurement technique, a theoretically perfect (according to Toole) in-room response would show a smooth 1dB/octave (10dB) fall off between 20Hz and 20kHz. The modal resonances in this untreated room create some large deviations from this ideal at the bottom end, most notably the really big peak at 36Hz. By applying some filters in the 20Hz to 200Hz region, you can compensate for these modal peaks to get a pretty close to perfect in-room response.

This chart shows the measured (uncorrected) response for one speaker, the 1dB/octave target, the filters required to map the measured response to the target and the predicted response with the filters applied. The "after" measurements confirm that the measured response with the filters in place is pretty close to the predicted response (and the target).

Left%20Predicted.jpg


Right%20Before%20and%20After.jpg

Excellent description of what's going on. Thanks.
 
Just came back from a listening session, funny how people talk about all but the sound of the 8Cs, at least for me it is amazing. Unfortunately it is no just place it anywhere and it sounds great, it turns out stands are important, equal distance to the speaker as well but you are rewarded with amazing sense of where the music was recorded and how. Magnificent speakers.
 
Just came back from a listening session, funny how people talk about all but the sound of the 8Cs, at least for me it is amazing. Unfortunately it is no just place it anywhere and it sounds great, it turns out stands are important, equal distance to the speaker as well but you are rewarded with amazing sense of where the music was recorded and how. Magnificent speakers.
Perhaps the sentence could be completed with...when set up correctly?
 
Just like any decent system / speakers

Absolutely! I loved my Suesskind Progress, the best speakers I have heard in 30 years of avid speaker collecting but I was shocked when I heard them in a bigger room, they just sounded phenomenal. But the room was 7X5m and it was a man cave, not my living room. They gave the Harbeth 40.2 Anniversary a serous run for their money, the guy who owns them was not happy :)

But the D&D 8Cs allows for stunning sound without your room looking like Star Trek/ Blake's 7 command room. Still that MAN301 is untouchable as a source, I am mad. I cannot afford the 8Cs let alone them both. I could live with the INT202 and the Mutec 3+ USB as reclocker though ;)
 
Nice follow up demo today with Lee, the MiniDSP SHD and 8c’s.

Tried the rca and usb inputs as I’ll need to run the LP12 via the rca inputs. No discernible difference. 8c’s were run via the digital out/AES.
 
It’s done via an adaptor. I’m sure Lee will explain. The adaptor I saw today was very well built, and the combo sounded perfectly fine. It was good enough for me to confirm my ordering of the SHD.
 
I didn’t think the shd had aes out? At least not the 3 pin that looks like xlr. Or is it done coax to aes or something?

It doesn’t have AES out, but it has coax out and you can adapt that to AES using a passive impedance transformer, like this one from Neutrik.

The digital-only SHD Studio model has AES in and out.

IMG_1062.jpg
 
Well quite, yes. Some consider listening to music on speakers as being an alien concept.

Best to listen in your own space of course but the measurements tell you a fair bit - they can certainly guide whether it’s worth a demo or not, especially with actives where the partnering kit is built in.
 
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I did just that. I had an extended home demo (three weeks), first impression was a bit strange then I realized I was so used to the room "singing along". Soon came to the conclusion that these were the best speakers I had ever had at home!

Put an order in after a few days and can't wait for delivery. Right now I have a pair of PMC AML2 actives which in themselves are great speakers but just not right for my particular room.
 
I did just that. I had an extended home demo (three weeks), first impression was a bit strange then I realized I was so used to the room "singing along". Soon came to the conclusion that these were the best speakers I had ever had at home!

Put an order in after a few days and can't wait for delivery. Right now I have a pair of PMC AML2 actives which in themselves are great speakers but just not right for my particular room.

I think that is the most important aspect of these kind of speakers. They sound odd at first, until you realize they've eliminated a kind of "fuzz" added to the sound by the room interaction in conventional setups. We think of that fuzz as some kind of natural warmth, but it's actually just a type of distortion we are used to and expect.
 
I am not sure that I would call room interaction a distortion. It is, after all, how we naturally hear things. Having said that, it is a matter of taste (or dogma?) as to how much room interaction is a good thing. If we want no room interaction than we need to listen to speakers in an anechoic chamber or outdoors. If we want maximum interaction than stick them in the bathroom! Both will sound unnatural to our ears but one will be better for analysis.

In a similar way speakers are now designed which allow for full interaction with the room or, in the case of the D&D, partial interaction. Neither approach necessarily distorts the sound, that being down to the quality of the drivers and cabinet etc, but they will sound very different to our perception of the sound. Which is right? That is down to taste, whether we want to hear every detail of the recording, whether we want to replicate the concert hall and even down to our room, number of listeners at one time, not to mention whether we want to tune the system with careful positioning and DSP. Perhaps most importantly the type of music genre one listens to.

Some of these attributes seem very difficult to achieve in one system. I like detail and precise imaging but only if with an illusion of real musicians playing music in a real place (subject to recording of course). I don’t think either approach can be called distorted, although strictly speaking we would have to listen in an anechoic chamber to actually hear what the speaker is doing, and believe me that would be very unpleasant and, ironically, appear to us as distorted.

It’s great to have a choice and the D&D are superb at one end of the scale, but inevitably, not so good at the other end. There is no correct approach and FWIW my advice for anyone buying a new pair of speakers is try the different approaches from omni to cardioid and decide what you are trying to get from your speakers and where on the spectrum your preferences fall.
 
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