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Dutch & Dutch 8c Review

richard12511

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Great interview. Watched the whole thing. The multi sub auto integrating speaker has the potential to be one of the biggest leaps forward for music reproduction. It's something I've really wanted for years. I wish I had more knowledge of speaker design, but I could imagine something like the Grimm LS1 with detachable sub modules. All the sub modules/speakers can talk to each other and work out the integration in a fairly automatic way. Maybe even leveraging existing solutions like Audiolense.
 
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Emlin

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Great interview. Watched the whole thing. The multi sub auto integrating speaker has the potential to be one of the biggest leaps forward for music reproduction. Impressive how quickly @Ma It's something I've really wanted for years. I wish I had more knowledge of speaker design, but I could imagine something like the Grimm LS1 with detachable sub modules. All the sub modules/speakers can talk to each other and work out the integration in a fairly automatic way. Maybe even leveraging existing solutions like Audiolense.

I share your enthusiasm, but they are not even Roon (not that I want it) ready yet. Someone will do it, but I don't know who. Probably not D&D.

Why didn't they do the simpler wired between speakers version first, and then do synchronisation when they had cracked it (and Martijn suggested that it might not be this year even)?

I don't know, but I wish them well, though they seem to be still over-promising.

But let's see...
 
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muslhead

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I have no word of a D&D increase and was referring to inflation in the wider economy. It seems that prices of almost everything have been going up rapidly in the NYC area, faster than official inflation figures would indicate.
ok, that is what i thought but wanted to confirm
 

TabCam

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Great interview. Watched the whole thing. The multi sub auto integrating speaker has the potential to be one of the biggest leaps forward for music reproduction. It's something I've really wanted for years. I wish I had more knowledge of speaker design, but I could imagine something like the Grimm LS1 with detachable sub modules. All the sub modules/speakers can talk to each other and work out the integration in a fairly automatic way. Maybe even leveraging existing solutions like Audiolense.
Easy to read up on speaker design and even into experimenting. It is the difficult, far less travelled rod as it is full of pitfalls, unexpected side effects and in the end quite costly due to driver unit(s), woodworking and other costs.

I like Accourate/Audiolense, but those also have a very steep learning curve. It is however a way to take the room out of the equation!

The multi-sub solution is even for existing manufacturers quite problematic, see Arcam/Dirac still not delivering on their multi-sub solution!! Looking at D&D, I doubt they can find an easy solution.
 

Digital_Thor

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So... why did they not address the breakup at around 1600-1800hz in the midrange? Because it simply does not matter anyway?
 

kaa

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@hardisj Recently came across your blogs and very informative reviews. Thank you! Do you have plans to review the Buchardt A700? I am curious to get the objective data and your subjective opinion of the A700 comparing it to the 8c.
 

bo_knows

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@hardisj Recently came across your blogs and very informative reviews. Thank you! Do you have plans to review the Buchardt A700? I am curious to get the objective data and your subjective opinion of the A700 comparing it to the 8c.
Hi kaa,
FYI...
I think Erin is taking some time off from the forum.
 
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Cadguy

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It's interesting that the musician prefers the warmer sounding ATCs for home listening and also for listening to his own performance. I wish the two hosts had not interrupted him so often.
 

Trouble Maker

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Sorry if this or something along these lines has already been brought up, I haven't read the entire thread.

It strikes me looking at the nearfield response that this could be a great 'bookshelf' even with just he mid/high, without the rear low frequency. But this is with the assumption that the cardioid response is primary achieved passively through the side slots and not with some actives cancelation via the rear LF drivers. Then separate subs could be used for LF area. This could control some size and cost of the speaker itself. The common wisdom also seems to be that subs should/will usually be ideally in a different place than the speakers, so this also enables that. Of course this may start to negate the ease of integration that this speaker seems to have. I guess there's no reason you can't do subs with this to achieve the same end, but then maybe your mostly not using the rear firing LF units.

I'm mostly excited to see this tech trickle down to some speakers I can realistically afford!
 

Frgirard

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Sorry if this or something along these lines has already been brought up, I haven't read the entire thread.

It strikes me looking at the nearfield response that this could be a great 'bookshelf' even with just he mid/high, without the rear low frequency. But this is with the assumption that the cardioid response is primary achieved passively through the side slots and not with some actives cancelation via the rear LF drivers. Then separate subs could be used for LF area. This could control some size and cost of the speaker itself. The common wisdom also seems to be that subs should/will usually be ideally in a different place than the speakers, so this also enables that. Of course this may start to negate the ease of integration that this speaker seems to have. I guess there's no reason you can't do subs with this to achieve the same end, but then maybe your mostly not using the rear firing LF units.

I'm mostly excited to see this tech trickle down to some speakers I can realistically afford!
The cardioid on the Dutch is between 100 and 500
Hz
Some time read the specifications on the web avoid to fire the comet.
 

Trouble Maker

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The cardioid on the Dutch is between 100 and 500
Hz
Some time read the specifications on the web avoid to fire the comet.

I will assume there is some language barrier here and/or I didn't explain above clearly enough.
So I'll try to explain my thought process a little better.
I should have also stated that I was looking for comments about why this would or wouldn't work. To expand my understanding.

Yes, I generally understand the region and purpose for cardioid in these speakers.
This (cardioid) is achieved passive (via the side slots)?
If so, the rear LF drivers are only there for only for LF, it's not to achieve cardioid response (in the 100-500hz range).
But my understanding on some speakers that are actively achieving cardioid via using the rear drive as cancelation in this range.
If my understanding of a)how these achieve cardioid is correct and b) looking at the near field driver the MF and HF can cover from 80~100hz and up.
Then these speakers could be made without the LF drivers. And the LF area could be covered by subs.
This would reduce the size and cost of the speakers. And move the LF to subs which are likely less expensive than the LF portion of this speaker and have better flexibility for placement in room.
 

617

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I will assume there is some language barrier here and/or I didn't explain above clearly enough.
So I'll try to explain my thought process a little better.
I should have also stated that I was looking for comments about why this would or wouldn't work. To expand my understanding.

Yes, I generally understand the region and purpose for cardioid in these speakers.
This (cardioid) is achieved passive (via the side slots)?
If so, the rear LF drivers are only there for only for LF, it's not to achieve cardioid response (in the 100-500hz range).
But my understanding on some speakers that are actively achieving cardioid via using the rear drive as cancelation in this range.
If my understanding of a)how these achieve cardioid is correct and b) looking at the near field driver the MF and HF can cover from 80~100hz and up.
Then these speakers could be made without the LF drivers. And the LF area could be covered by subs.
This would reduce the size and cost of the speakers. And move the LF to subs which are likely less expensive than the LF portion of this speaker and have better flexibility for placement in room.
I believe you are correct. The DD has a crossover frequency of 100hz lr4, and if you look at the sonograms, it becomes omnidirectional at that frequency.
The LF drivers are essentially subwoofers in a small sealed enclosure.
Cardioid bass is a thing, especially in PA systems. There is some evidence that different bass dispersions (dipole, cardioid and Omni) interact with rooms differently but in practice the room is always the dominant variable so you might as well use the Lignment with the greatest headroom, which will never be cardioid or dipole.

You may look at the genelecs to see another approach to a small cardioid enclosure although now that I think about it, I don't know how they work exactly.

The inclusion of subs for the DD is driven by the a few factors. One is that the processing on board enables pretty sophisticated bass integration. The other is that without the subs, this would be a very underwhelming speaker. Even with an 8 inch driver, that woofer is being asked to do quite a lot, and the design arguably only works due to the quality of that driver. If you asked that woofer to also handle bass it wouldn't have enough output and the distortion levels would go from acceptable to bad.

I don't think we're going to see affordable cardioids any time soon unfortunately. Fundamentally it will always be a 3 way active system with a lot of driver excursion, a lot of power, a very complex cabinet in a speaker with less dynamic headroom than you would otherwise get with bass reflex. Obviously the performance is spectacular but it's not as cheap as putting a cardboard tube in a box.
 

Soniclife

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I will assume there is some language barrier here and/or I didn't explain above clearly enough.
So I'll try to explain my thought process a little better.
I should have also stated that I was looking for comments about why this would or wouldn't work. To expand my understanding.

Yes, I generally understand the region and purpose for cardioid in these speakers.
This (cardioid) is achieved passive (via the side slots)?
If so, the rear LF drivers are only there for only for LF, it's not to achieve cardioid response (in the 100-500hz range).
But my understanding on some speakers that are actively achieving cardioid via using the rear drive as cancelation in this range.
If my understanding of a)how these achieve cardioid is correct and b) looking at the near field driver the MF and HF can cover from 80~100hz and up.
Then these speakers could be made without the LF drivers. And the LF area could be covered by subs.
This would reduce the size and cost of the speakers. And move the LF to subs which are likely less expensive than the LF portion of this speaker and have better flexibility for placement in room.
You are correct, on the 8c the side vents use the rear wave from the front driver to cancel some of the output and control the directivity. The path length to the slot, and selective absorption inside ensure progressively less cancelation is required to match the naturally narrowing output from the front driver, so when added together you get the desired dispersion pattern up to the tweeter crossover. The rear subs are omni, the DSP just controls the frequency response, and delay to match the front drivers. The Kii uses the side and rear drivers to actively cancel the unwanted dispersion, to get to the same goal, it sounds a lot more complicated, using DSP to control the phase and delay. I think the side drivers are shaping the front midrange drivers output, and the rear drivers are shaping the side drivers, but there may well be some overlap, the 4 bass drivers sum output below the cardioid frequency to improve displacement where it's needed most.
 

Purité Audio

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D&D did make for a time the 8M, no cardioid and no twin bass drivers, it sounded as you would expect pretty much like the 8Cs just a little less clear and without the bass extension.
A nice enough speaker but save up for the 8Cs.
Keith
 

Puddingbuks

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D&D did make for a time the 8M, no cardioid and no twin bass drivers, it sounded as you would expect pretty much like the 8Cs just a little less clear and without the bass extension.
A nice enough speaker but save up for the 8Cs.
Keith
I have the 8m and think it would be a nice cheaper alternative for the 8c. Bass reflex, with the 8 inch driver it has reasonable bass output.

What’s a shame is that the 8m has a subwoofer output, but it’s not controlled by the dsp. Altough the manual clearly states this. Because of this, no crossover point can be selected so subwoofer out is full range. This makes integration hard and doesn’t take the bass load of the 8 inch driver which would probably perform even better when the lowest bass was cut.

What’s even worse, is that Dutch & Dutch doesn’t respond to questions about this issue. No reply at all. Sad.
 

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youngho

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I have the 8m and think it would be a nice cheaper alternative for the 8c. Bass reflex, with the 8 inch driver it has reasonable bass output.

What’s a shame is that the 8m has a subwoofer output, but it’s not controlled by the dsp. Altough the manual clearly states this. Because of this, no crossover point can be selected so subwoofer out is full range. This makes integration hard and doesn’t take the bass load of the 8 inch driver which would probably perform even better when the lowest bass was cut.

What’s even worse, is that Dutch & Dutch doesn’t respond to questions about this issue. No reply at all. Sad.
Could you use a MiniDSP product like the SHD?
 
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