Dutch & Dutch 8c Review

[MZKM]

It’s not in a spreadsheet. I don’t even know what language it is. It’s probably easy for someone who uses it. But even Christian said they’d have to do some weighting (and not a simple average of averages like we know can easily be done in excel).

Gotcha.

Also, just so no one else is confused. The Horizontal Reflections portion of the Early Reflections in the standard is correct:

The Rear Wall bounce is the issue being discussed.

 

[MZKM]

I would add the Neumann KH420 to the list.

I don’t have high hopes, it’s good but not great.

 

[napilopez]

Hey NL that is pretty impressive that you got such good measurements without an NFS. Great work.

Honestly, the 8C was easier than many speakers to create a spin for. As I'm sure @hardisj can attest to, it's a lot easier to measure a speaker when the reference axis is centered on the speaker. You don't need any complicated rigs to prevent the speaker from falling off your stand during vertical measurements .

Glad you brought that up because I meant to mention it a couple days ago.


I was under the impression that Amir had already told them about the issue. Not sure if I imagined that or if someone said he did. I wondered why it was still not taken care of, though, as it seemed like a long time to not have it taken care of so I sent an email asking about it. Here is the email I sent Christian:




And his reply below shows they didn't even know there was an issue. So, I guess that explains why it hadn't already been fixed.




I'll update the data once I get the updated template.

Might be useful to point him to this thread, where todd welti responded and clarified some of my rather wordy questions on these issues. Both how the rear curve is calculated and the average of averages, just so there's no doubt going forward. The rear curve in particular is important for a speaker with unique directivity like this =]

 

[Cadguy]

This is such a well written review that even a non technical person such as myself can get some basic understanding of the engineering that was used in this speaker. (My training is in the biological sciences). I wonder if this speaker would be effective in a large room with the listening position 16 feet away from each speaker? At that distance would the room's contributions undo a lot of the D&D 8's inherent qualities? Also would free space positioning several feet from the front wall then require adding a subwoofer?

 

[Vintage57]

I don’t have high hopes, it’s good but not great.

What about the distortion or lack thereof.

 

[Moonhead]

Thx for the insight Erin.

Any Gent know how these stack up to 8351B.

 

[ebslo]

I read some concerns about the measured distortion levels, and questions regarding what causes this, and to what extent this affects sound quality.

...

A $12,000 set of speakers shouldn't need such a discussion.

 

[Emlin]

A $12,000 set of speakers shouldn't need such a discussion.

Name me a $12,000 set of speakers that are measurably perfect. Or, indeed, any speakers that are measurably perfect at any price.

 

[ebslo]

Name me a $12,000 set of speakers that are measurably perfect. Or, indeed, any speakers that are measurably perfect at any price.

Surely there's room for speakers between "measurably perfect" and 10%THD at 96dB SPL. Indeed it seems most speakers fall within that range. Not to mention rated SPL is 106dB. Would you buy an amp rated at 100W max power that was -20dB SINAD at 10W output, at any price?

 

[sigbergaudio]

Thanks for the review, great frequency response and horrible THD I guess sums it up.

I think the result is interesting from a general point of view. Amir would slaughter speakers with far less THD than this, not to mention amplifiers with orders of magnitude less distortion.

If the DutchDutch "sounds excellent" despite these THD numbers, how relevant is the general THD/SINAD focus of this forum? Note that this isn't a comment on the performance of the Dutch specifically, but the general focus on THD in relation to the result of this test.

 

[Sancus]

A $12,000 set of speakers shouldn't need such a discussion.

You can only outspend physics so far, money isn't magic. Part of what you're paying for with these is something bookshelf sized that has this level of performance and directivity control. There are plenty of big floorstanders with ear-destroying SPL output, I mean the Revel F328Be are $16,000 and don't control directivity below 500hz. If low frequency distortion bothers you, there's always subs, the 8C even have a sub crossover built in, along with their DACs and amps. So you could easily add big subs and still be thousands of dollars less out of pocket than any number of high-end floorstanders that don't measure as well.

The only speakers I can think of offhand that may compete with these in terms of neutrality at a lower price are Genelec 8351B, and those require an even more expensive add-on to get full LF directivity control. And considering the studio version of the 8C at $9750, at least in the US, you could go either way on value honestly. Genelecs don't have all the convenience features these do. In markets where Genelec is cheap like Canada, however, I think they're very hard to beat.

I really don't see much to complain about these price-wise. You're getting what you paid for.

how relevant is the general THD/SINAD focus of this forum?

The speaker reviews started off not even measuring distortion at all, so it wasn't even considered a priority until some months later. I still don't think it is or should be considered as important as frequency response and directivity, those are 70% of what matters.

 

[Juhazi]

That beauty mark, bump at 400Hz in room response - to me it is clearly resonance/interference of side ports making the response cardioid. Look at what happens off-axis 300-400Hz.

I wonder if making ports triangular or semilunar instead of rectangular would help... I remember the DIYaudio thread by Martijn "keyser" that lead to D&D

 

[pierre]

Late to the party:

I also find a score of 7.3 which can jump up to 7.7 with 1 PEQ. There is not much to correct so I think only the first one is relevant.
This is the best speaker measured so far. It will be better than Genelec 8361 because it dips lower.

EQ for Dutch Dutch 8C computed from ASR data
Preference Score 7.4 with EQ 8.1
Generated from http://github.com/pierreaubert/spinorama/generate_peqs.py v0.6
Dated: 2021-03-06-07:35:38

Preamp: -0.8 dB

Filter  1: ON PK Fc 10463 Hz Gain -1.66 dB Q 0.58
Filter  2: ON PK Fc  2423 Hz Gain +0.84 dB Q 3.68
Filter  3: ON PK Fc   407 Hz Gain -1.53 dB Q 5.70
Filter  4: ON PK Fc 11990 Hz Gain +0.71 dB Q 9.48

I had some trouble to generate the score because there is no -6 db point in the measurements that is used to compute the lfx components.

Thanks Erin for the data and the review. Great work!

 

[napilopez]

If the DutchDutch "sounds excellent" despite these THD numbers, how relevant is the general THD/SINAD focus of this forum?

Imo, it's just very different evaluating speakers to other components. For amps/dacs/etc, sinad and stuff is useful because you know you're getting your money's worth, and interpreting the data is usually simpler. Better SINAD is better. More importantly, it seemed to be the initial goal was largely to help stop people being ripped off by poorly performing products with high costs.

For speakers, there are too many other factors, and both FR and directivity are much more important than distortion. To the point where I very often feel distortion measurements in speaker evaluations actually distract more than they contribute.

-------------
(Separating this because I don't mean this as a reply to sigbergaudio )

A lovely snippet from Dr Toole's book for those who haven't read it, one I've bookmarked for all those times I'm tempted to blame something on distortion that is more easily explained by directivity or FR(emphasis mine):

"Contributing to the mismatch between perception and measurement is the fact that such a technical measurement totally ignores masking. Included in the numbers generated by the measurements are distortion components that are partially or completely masked. Some of what is measured is inaudible. The numbers are wrong.

The result of this is that traditional measures of harmonic or intermodulation distortion are almost meaningless. They do not quantify distortion in a way that can, with any reliability, predict a human response to it while listening to music or movies. They do not correlate because they ignore any characteristics of the human receptor, itself an outrageously non-linear device. The excessive simplicity of the signals also remains a problem. Music and movies offer an infinite variety of input signals and therefore an infinite variety of distorted outputs. The only meaningful target for conventional distortion metrics is “zero.” Above that, somebody, sometime, listening to something, may be aware of distortion, but we cannot define it in advance."

He does then goes on to describe an "extremely rare" case where IMD did matter (a coaxial speaker), which was identified thanks to a listening test. Traditional distortion measurements are not useless for evaluation, but perhaps better suited for identifying an audible problem rather than as a predictive performance metric.

I'm personally of the opinion that a speaker should aim to lower distortion only insofar as it does not compromise more important design goals -- in this case, creating a relatively compact full range cardioid speaker. Here's part of a post Martijn Mensink made a couple of years ago when people asked about soundstage network's distortion results:

Now on to distortion. The 8c is a relatively compact full-range loudspeaker that offers low distortion at normal and somewhat elevated listening levels. At high levels distortion can become audible on some program material. This is the price we choose to pay for a cardioid radiation pattern in a speaker this size. However, 96 dB at one meter at a single frequency from a single speaker is very loud. In practice, in rooms with some reflections a pair of 8c’s can be played quite loudly and they do actually sound clean at quite high levels. But if you’re into very loud music, they certainly have their limits.

So yeah, they're not the best for uber loud listening, but that was a sacrifice they knew they were making. Imo, a very worthwhile one.

 

[kaka89]

@hardisj Great review. D&D's cardioid is a passive design, however there is a side wall settings in the app to adjust the distance from the side wall. Could you help me understand how this is done and can this be measure?

Thanks!

 

[Mnyb]

So the distortion is mostly in the bass then ? If it where smack dab in the 1-4kHz region it would cause more concern?

The sad dealer and demo situation makes it impossible to demo stuff like this where I live , so thanks for the review.

I never heard a modern speaker with good directivity control so i’m Really curious about it .
Living in a European house with a smallish living room the SPL capacity may be sufficient for me.

 

[sigbergaudio]

I'm personally of the opinion that a speaker should aim to lower distortion only in so far as it does not compromise more important design goals -- in this case, creating a relatively compact full range speaker. Here's part of a post Martijn Mensink made a couple of years ago when people asked about soundstage network's distortion results:

Now on to distortion. The 8c is a relatively compact full-range loudspeaker that offers low distortion at normal and somewhat elevated listening levels. At high levels distortion can become audible on some program material. This is the price we choose to pay for a cardioid radiation pattern in a speaker this size. However, 96 dB at one meter at a single frequency from a single speaker is very loud. In practice, in rooms with some reflections a pair of 8c’s can be played quite loudly and they do actually sound clean at quite high levels. But if you’re into very loud music, they certainly have their limits.

So yeah, they're not the best for uber loud listening, but that was a sacrifice they knew they were making. Imo, a very worthwhile one.

Designing speakers will always be a game of compromise, and this certainly seems like an informed choice between different design goal as opposed to a bad result due to ignorance. And the choices made also makes sense. So again my comment was not meant as a negative comment towards Dutch, more a comment on the validity of THD.

From my perspective keeping THD will always be a design goal, but any graphs presented must be interpreted in the context of the design. Blind comparison of measurement results (which seems to be a pasttime for some on ASR) isn't necessarily meaningful.

 

[Matias]

However, 96 dB at one meter at a single frequency from a single speaker is very loud.

While this is true, the problem is that the distortion is already very high at 86 dB...

 

[Pearljam5000]

Does anyone know which drivers are used in the 8C?

 

[TimVG]

Since literally no reviewer, or user has ever mentioned audible distortion in practical tests of these speakers when used within its contraints, this discussion is rather academic. Excellent pionts have been raised by @napilopez and @Kvalsvoll