Dutch & Dutch 8c Review

[nastypoker]

My related experiences below fwiw.

Issue 1: experienced identical problem recently. Told it was an amp failure, going through resolution process currently with D&D support.

Issue 2: my power rocker switches exhibit the same arcing sound/behaviour and have done since new. Demo units were the same. Both sub 1k serial numbers.

Issue 3: never experienced any sound quality issues.

Well this is not good news if multiple 8c's are having effectively catastrophic amp failures.

How far in the process are you with D&D? Shipping the base board with electronics is fairly easy but I would rather not ship the whole speakers for obvious reasons. That is if they will even offer a repair to a non-direct consumer.

 

[Dialectic]

In the past, some users with circuit board failures were able to order replacement modules from D&D for user installation. I have never had any issues except with the cabinets of an extremely early pair of 8Cs.

 

[aro03]

Well this is not good news if multiple 8c's are having effectively catastrophic amp failures.

How far in the process are you with D&D? Shipping the base board with electronics is fairly easy but I would rather not ship the whole speakers for obvious reasons. That is if they will even offer a repair to a non-direct consumer.

I would not want to presume that our experiences are representative of the 8c population. That said, I would be interested to know if there is a common failure mode. I hope to run them for many years more without requiring amp replacements.

I’m about to receive a replacement board on Tuesday, so hopefully that fixes it. Swapping over is a simple job. Support have generally been very responsive and helpful, but have had limited bandwidth recently due to external factors. Follow up politely, and I’m sure they will help you.

 

[nastypoker]

Fingers crossed. It would be good if you can update this thread and I will do the same when I have some news.

As my issue 3 is affecting both speakers, it seems more likely to be a digital signal issue with my source rather than the speakers and I hope to confirm this by tomorrow.

 

[Dialectic]

I would not want to presume that our experiences are representative of the 8c population. That said, I would be interested to know if there is a common failure mode. I hope to run them for many years more without requiring amp replacements.

I’m about to receive a replacement board on Tuesday, so hopefully that fixes it. Swapping over is a simple job. Support have generally been very responsive and helpful, but have had limited bandwidth recently due to external factors. Follow up politely, and I’m sure they will help you.

What is the current cost of a replacement board from D&D, if I may ask for the forum?

@Purité Audio, do you know of any professional users who have experienced amp board failures in the 8Cs?

 

[Purité Audio]

I think I have had to arrange or replaced myself four boards and that is from some what seventy pairs of 7-8 years.
So pretty low failure rate, obviously only my experience.
Keith

 

[AudioJester]

I think I have had to arrange or replaced myself four boards and that is from some what seventy pairs of 7-8 years.
So pretty low failure rate, obviously only my experience.
Keith

Were they in warranty period?

 

[Purité Audio]

I believe Alex an engineer and a very early adopter had a replacement board which he installed.
Keith

 

[jeffme]

I think I have had to arrange or replaced myself four boards and that is from some what seventy pairs of 7-8 years.
So pretty low failure rate, obviously only my experience.
Keith

I'm a huge fan of what D&D is doing, but having 4 out of 140 (2.8%) customer-delivered boards fail is a pretty high rate in the current day of manufacturing and testing, especially for a $15K proudct. Am I missing something here?

 

[Dialectic]

I don't think 2.8% is a high failure rate in this niche market. Many of the 8Cs' users are professionals who drive the loudspeakers hard for long hours; this failure rate includes those types of failures, in addition to failures under warranty.

The 8Cs have been almost 100% trouble-free for me over six years. The two problems I had cropped up shortly after I got my (very early) pair, and both problems were resolved rapidly. I've had my current pair with absolutely no issues since summer 2018.

I've had more troublesome failures in almost every single other high-performance audio device that I've owned, including an RME ADI-2 DAC that abruptly failed because of a defective op amp and a Genesis loudspeaker with a midrange that exploded after a failure in a passive crossover component.

 

[Soniclife]

Are there any validated failure rates for any loudspeaker on the market? I've never seen any, bet they would be interesting.

 

[muslhead]

I'm a huge fan of what D&D is doing, but having 4 out of 140 (2.8%) customer-delivered boards fail is a pretty high rate in the current day of manufacturing and testing, especially for a $15K proudct. Am I missing something here?

I agree this is disappointingly too high, especially since it is a $15k product. Some people have set a very low bar happily ok with a 2.8% failure rate (if that number is representative of the population)

 

[Se7enAtx]

Not sure if this is the best place to post, but there are not many places to discuss the 8C's with actual owners. I am having some technical issues and I am hoping someone can advise what to do next.

Purchased some very early 8C's (serial no. <400) a few months ago. Used very occasionally with no issue. Moved them to their proper location recently and am having problems.
My set up is as follows:
Windows 11 Laptop > USB > MiniDSP SHD Studio > AES to speaker 1 and then thru to the other.

Issue 1:

One of the speakers will not boot up properly. All the LEDs on the back remain lit and I can't see the speaker in the ascend app. I can access it through the RMS page http://8c-XXX:10000/ and did a firmware update to 2.4.53 and it made no difference. I eventually got it working by power cycling a few times. I can use the speaker and leave it on and it will stay working. If I turn the power off, it may or may not work and can take 30 mins of power cycling to get it to click into a working state.

I contacted D&D and a support guy got me to install some software that allows them to remote connect and he said "We checked your 8c's last Wednesday and again just now. On Wednesday everything seemed fine, right now the amp of the XXX doesn't respond.".

I haven't had any more contact from them since this message so not sure if they will advise further.
It seems like the amp is not powering up correctly and I have no idea if this is terminal or something I can fix? I am quite handy with electronics and a soldering iron etc.

I have tried factory resets and firmware rollbacks but nothing has changed/fixed this issue.

Not sure if it is related but I tried to use Spotify connect and the sound quality out of the "bad" speaker is awful. Crackly and stuttering. The "good" speaker seems to work fine with Spotify connect.

The only difference to the previous set up is the laptop. I am using a different one now.

Issue 2:

When pressing the power button on the back of each speaker, if I do it slowly I can hear arcing/sparking or something similar. It does not sound good but it is the same on both the working and non-working speaker. Is this normal for these speakers?

Issue 3:

When I get the speakers working, whenever I am listening to anything, there is the occasional crackle. It is related to the sound being made and does not happen when there is no sound being played. I am fairly sure this did not happen when I first bought the speakers. It happens to both speakers, not just the bad one and can happen every 5 seconds if the music is the right type and the sound level low enough to hear it clearly. It is ruining the enjoyment of these speakers and am not sure what to test next. I have the latest SHD drivers installed. I am waiting for a 3.5mm to XLR cable tomorrow so I can check how they handle analogue inputs to try and narrow down the cause.

If anyone has any advice on what I can test next to help fix these problems, I would be most grateful.

Thanks,

All

Not sure if this is the best place to post, but there are not many places to discuss the 8C's with actual owners. I am having some technical issues and I am hoping someone can advise what to do next.

Purchased some very early 8C's (serial no. <400) a few months ago. Used very occasionally with no issue. Moved them to their proper location recently and am having problems.
My set up is as follows:
Windows 11 Laptop > USB > MiniDSP SHD Studio > AES to speaker 1 and then thru to the other.

Issue 1:

One of the speakers will not boot up properly. All the LEDs on the back remain lit and I can't see the speaker in the ascend app. I can access it through the RMS page http://8c-XXX:10000/ and did a firmware update to 2.4.53 and it made no difference. I eventually got it working by power cycling a few times. I can use the speaker and leave it on and it will stay working. If I turn the power off, it may or may not work and can take 30 mins of power cycling to get it to click into a working state.

I contacted D&D and a support guy got me to install some software that allows them to remote connect and he said "We checked your 8c's last Wednesday and again just now. On Wednesday everything seemed fine, right now the amp of the XXX doesn't respond.".

I haven't had any more contact from them since this message so not sure if they will advise further.
It seems like the amp is not powering up correctly and I have no idea if this is terminal or something I can fix? I am quite handy with electronics and a soldering iron etc.

I have tried factory resets and firmware rollbacks but nothing has changed/fixed this issue.

Not sure if it is related but I tried to use Spotify connect and the sound quality out of the "bad" speaker is awful. Crackly and stuttering. The "good" speaker seems to work fine with Spotify connect.

The only difference to the previous set up is the laptop. I am using a different one now.

Issue 2:

When pressing the power button on the back of each speaker, if I do it slowly I can hear arcing/sparking or something similar. It does not sound good but it is the same on both the working and non-working speaker. Is this normal for these speakers?

Issue 3:

When I get the speakers working, whenever I am listening to anything, there is the occasional crackle. It is related to the sound being made and does not happen when there is no sound being played. I am fairly sure this did not happen when I first bought the speakers. It happens to both speakers, not just the bad one and can happen every 5 seconds if the music is the right type and the sound level low enough to hear it clearly. It is ruining the enjoyment of these speakers and am not sure what to test next. I have the latest SHD drivers installed. I am waiting for a 3.5mm to XLR cable tomorrow so I can check how they handle analogue inputs to try and narrow down the cause.

If anyone has any advice on what I can test next to help fix these problems, I would be most grateful.

Thanks,

Ally

If you're based in the US, please contact us directly at [email protected]

Given the age it's hard to tell what sort of service your particular speakers have been in but there's nothing on the 8c that can't be serviced or resolved.

 

[Purité Audio]

I'm a huge fan of what D&D is doing, but having 4 out of 140 (2.8%) customer-delivered boards fail is a pretty high rate in the current day of manufacturing and testing, especially for a $15K proudct. Am I missing something here?

Electronics do fail, usually either at the beginning of their life or at the end, what is important is that D&D replace any faulty equipment instantly and without quibble.
Keith

 

[nastypoker]

If you're based in the US, please contact us directly at [email protected]

Given the age it's hard to tell what sort of service your particular speakers have been in but there's nothing on the 8c that can't be serviced or resolved.

I am in the UK. Currently waiting for a response from what I assume is the NL based D&D office.

This morning with everything "cold", the speaker booted up twice without issue. Makes me think that taking the electronics out and putting them back has knocked some connection or loose solder joint back into position. I will keep testing every day.

 

[Pearljam5000]

What's the average failure rate of other pro monitors brands?

 

[Purité Audio]

Only the manufacturer would have that information, I can say that of the ‘long-term’ brands we have stocked D&D has the lowest failure rate by some margin.
Keith

 

[aland]

Only the manufacturer would have that information, I can say that of the ‘long-term’ brands we have stocked D&D has the lowest failure rate by some margin.
Keith

So Kii and all other brands that you have stocked are then at 5-10% failure rate..? That would be bad, really bad.

 

[goat76]

What's the average failure rate of other pro monitors brands?

I don't know the average failure rate of other monitor brands, but it seems to be pretty high for D&D just based on how many faults are being reported here at ASR. We have seen amplification failures, cracked cabinets and update problems among a fairly small user base.

The warranty time of just 3 years is simply not good enough for a monitor that will cost you $15.000, I hope they have an extended warranty for customers using these monitors in studios, and that they are fast to solve problems when they occur.

 

[Dialectic]

I'm surprised that ASR users find this failure rate to be unusual. Other types of products often have similar or higher failure rates.

I've had early failures in laptops (a Dell and a Macbook Pro), smartphones (Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 7), and, most recently, a high-dollar refrigerator. The $13K refrigerator failed in 18 months with no possibility of repair and no replacement models in stock, and I practically had to sue the manufacturer to do anything about it. The regional head of repairs for this manufacturer told me, in a candid moment, that the failure rate for this model of refrigerator is 100% within two years.

In this light, a failure rate of 2.8% (which may amount to only one amplifier module failing in each speaker) strikes me as low. I did experience the cracked cabinets issue, and it was resolved with the mid-2018 redesign of the 8Cs.