ErinsAudioCorner

[Jdunk54nl]

You don't have to go wireless microphone either. You could get a lavlier microphone that plugs into your phone and can then record your audio that way. Or one that plugs into a field recorder that you wear on your body. They are usually much cheaper than the wireless interfacs.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/Lavalier/ci/8535/N/4028759631

https://www.amazon.com/Rode-smartLav-Lavalier-Microphone-Smartphones/dp/B00EO4A7L0

 

[Willem]

First of all I want to thank and praise you for what you are doing. I also think the audio is pretty decent, but at the same it could be better, and audio is one of the most important and yet most neglected parts of videos.
I use speech recognition software a lot because of an rsi problem when typing. For that, a high quality speech microphone is important because with anything less the error rate rapidly increases. For the last six months my wife and I have also been video calling/conferencing and teaching online a lot. To be honest, we have been quite shocked by the bad audio people have for that, with inbuilt microphones in laptops that suggest that people are sitting in an indoor swimming pool. No one came anywhere near the audio quality that we have on our side, and for teaching in particular that is important. Our microphone of choice is a Sennheiser me3 stage microphone, and the trick of such microphones is that unlike inbuilt laptop microphones it sits about an inch from your mouth so there is only very little input from the room's acoustics. On top of that it is, of course, a very good microphone. It is part of a Sennheiser wireless ecosystem, and that would make it expensive, but you can also use it wired, and then it will cost rather less (though admittedly still not cheap at some $100-150). One impractical thing is that as part of the wireless system the plug has a special ring around it that sometimes gets in the way with soundcards or adc inputs, so you may either have to replace the plug, or buy an adaper cable from the wonderful people at Speechrecognition: https://www.speechrecsolutions.com/sennheiserME3FAQ.htm Of course, the microphone will be visible in the video, but I would not care. The sound will be incomparable to anything else done without an even more expensive cardiod on a boom and a boom operator. If you decide this is not for you, at the very least, as others have also said, have the microphone as close to your mouth as possible.
I am not quite sure how you are recording, but I would not record on the video camera, but separately, either on a portable digital recorder, or on a computer. You can alway lipsynch the video and the audio afterwards: a lot of video editing software allows you to do this automatically by using the substandard audio from the camera as a timing signal with the higher resolution audio from your recorder.
But once again, thank you Erin.

 

[AnalogSteph]

@hardisj

Your videos sound great to me. And it's the great info you offer that counts anyway..

I mean, don't get me wrong, I appreciate the information as much as anyone. But I'd say they generally sound "meh", definitely not "great". What kind of echo chambers are you guys listening in to not notice all the reverb? In my nearfield world, it sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb. It actually was my EQ'd JBL 104s in the office that were pushing me over the edge... I think they are slightly thin and with a bit too much treble "bite" still. That seemed to aggravate the issues just enough for me to become actively annoyed.

Oh, and I swear there was the occasional distorted peak every once in a while that my K+Hs don't seem to highlight nearly as much.

I really need to need to find something small enough to toss in the bag and lug to the office so I can take measurements there.

 

[hardisj]

I took delivery of the incredible Dutch & Dutch 8C today to review. For those not familiar with these speakers, I encourage you to check out the website, because these are not your everyday bookshelf type speaker. Also, @napilopez reviewed these in this thread here.

Tyner Strub, President of D&D USA hand delivered these (he was kind of passing through my area) and helped me get them set up and walked me through some of the integration with REW for room correction purposes. I've got other fish to fry before I can start measuring these so I'll be doing a couple weeks' of listening. But I wanted to share because I'm excited.

Oh, and Happy Halloween, everyone!!!!

 

[MarsianC#]

YES! Even with the data avaiable atm, I'm glad to see a proper review.

 

[hardisj]

YES! Even with the data avaiable atm, I'm glad to see a proper review.

I think @napilopez did a really good job. I know you didn't mean that as a slight to him; just wanted to clarify, though.

I'll have to ask Napier and/or D&D what they think about laying this speaker on its side for ground plane measurements. Given the side vents are designed to cancel out the midrange's backward radiated sound. Not sure if blocking one vent will make an impact when the speaker is already laying on its side... I've never had to deal with that before. But, I'll talk to those guys and see what they think. If nothing else, I might have limited vertical response results but since those don't have a huge impact on the overall SPIN it might still be liveable.

 

[q3cpma]

I took delivery of the incredible Dutch & Dutch 8C today to review. For those not familiar with these speakers, I encourage you to check out the website, because these are not your everyday bookshelf type speaker. Also, @napilopez reviewed these in this thread here.

Tyner Strub, President of D&D USA hand delivered these (he was kind of passing through my area) and helped me get them set up and walked me through some of the integration with REW for room correction purposes. I've got other fish to fry before I can start measuring these so I'll be doing a couple weeks' of listening. But I wanted to share because I'm excited.

Oh, and Happy Halloween, everyone!!!!

View attachment 89365View attachment 89366View attachment 89367View attachment 89368View attachment 89369View attachment 89370View attachment 89371

As excited as you. My initial aesthetic disgust at the bamboo/white front combo is now gone with this one of the very sober studio version.

 

[richard12511]

I took delivery of the incredible Dutch & Dutch 8C today to review. For those not familiar with these speakers, I encourage you to check out the website, because these are not your everyday bookshelf type speaker. Also, @napilopez reviewed these in this thread here.

Tyner Strub, President of D&D USA hand delivered these (he was kind of passing through my area) and helped me get them set up and walked me through some of the integration with REW for room correction purposes. I've got other fish to fry before I can start measuring these so I'll be doing a couple weeks' of listening. But I wanted to share because I'm excited.

Oh, and Happy Halloween, everyone!!!!

View attachment 89365View attachment 89366View attachment 89367View attachment 89368View attachment 89369View attachment 89370View attachment 89371

Wow! Super excited for this review. Especially now that you can compare it to the F226be

 

[hardisj]

Well, these are the first set of speakers I've busted out iZotope's Imager to verify that was I was hearing wasn't wrong... the stage on the two songs listed in the photo below have things in them that stood out enough to make me question if what I was hearing was on the track or if the speaker/room was causing something to be incorrect. Spoiler alert: The speakers/room are not at fault. The tracks are just played back at a higher fidelity in terms of imaging than I am simply used to. And it threw me off enough to look at an actual "stage map" of the tracks through editing software.

For example:
On Chord Overstreet's cover of We've Got Tonight, when the vocalist starts singing his voice starts sharp to the left-of-center. I thought maybe this was a room issue caused from the asymmetrical shape of the room wrt to the speakers' position. But, it's actually on the track that way. I've heard this song quite a few times and haven't caught that before. Doesn't mean it was never there on other setups. Just means that it caught my attention.

Another example is: The sax on the Superette track (from Phil Woods' Here's to My Lady) is about 6 to 7 feet to the right of the speaker and according to the imager. I thought maybe it was some artifact or something... surely these speakers don't throw an image *that* wide. But, turns out, that's correct because the content is about 90° out of phase and should pan hard right. These speakers *do* throw an image that wide. Paint me very impressed.

If you wanna demo the tracks, here they are. Very good songs.

 

[jtwrace]

I use a rode pro shotgun style mic. I keep it off the camera because otherwise it picks up the mechanical noise of the lens' auto-focus (which is very audible thanks to the mic being right next to the lens itself).

I was going to add some absorption panels in the room to help with the reverb. Just haven't gotten around to it, mainly because I haven't gotten any complaints about the audio since I switched to the new mic and placement. I actually thought the audio was getting better.

It's really too bad you're not closer to me. I have the ideal setup for you to record in all with a full studio caliber mic/pre/setup. Heck, I can even do extreme podcasting too with guest call in too.

 

[richard12511]

Well, these are the first set of speakers I've busted out iZotope's Imager to verify that was I was hearing wasn't wrong... the stage on the two songs listed in the photo below have things in them that stood out enough to make me question if what I was hearing was on the track or if the speaker/room was causing something to be incorrect. Spoiler alert: The speakers/room are not at fault. The tracks are just played back at a higher fidelity in terms of imaging than I am simply used to. And it threw me off enough to look at an actual "stage map" of the tracks through editing software.

For example:
On Chord Overstreet's cover of We've Got Tonight, when the vocalist starts singing his voice starts sharp to the left-of-center. I thought maybe this was a room issue caused from the asymmetrical shape of the room wrt to the speakers' position. But, it's actually on the track that way. I've heard this song quite a few times and haven't caught that before. Doesn't mean it was never there on other setups. Just means that it caught my attention.

Another example is: The sax on the Superette track (from Phil Woods' Here's to My Lady) is about 6 to 7 feet to the right of the speaker and according to the imager. I thought maybe it was some artifact or something... surely these speakers don't throw an image *that* wide. But, turns out, that's correct because the content is about 90° out of phase and should pan hard right. These speakers *do* throw an image that wide. Paint me very impressed.


View attachment 89409





If you wanna demo the tracks, here they are. Very good songs.

Interesting, I wasn't expecting that, and it's kinda disappointing(for me) . I was really looking (still am) at these guys or the Genelec 8351b for my next set of music speakers, but I was hoping that they'd have a littler bit smaller soundstage(not super small, but smaller than my Revel M105), as that's what I think(not positive on this)come to prefer over the past few years. I'm guessing it's wider than the Revel(since that's what you had last)? Did you test those same songs that revealed the wide soundstage with the F226be? I'll listen to the songs and see if I notice the same thing.

I did a blind test between my Genelec 8030c and Revel M105 last weekend. The Revel was preferred on "Bird on a Wire - Jennifer Warnes", "May it be - Enya", and (by my Dad)"Shape of You - Ed Sheeran", but the Genelec won out on all other songs iirc. It wasn't super one-sided or anything, but the Genelec did win. I guess it could be something else, but I figured the most likely explanation for the preference was the smaller(less wide) soundstage.

Any way you could get your hands on a 8351b?

 

[napilopez]

I think @napilopez did a really good job. I know you didn't mean that as a slight to him; just wanted to clarify, though.

I'll have to ask Napier and/or D&D what they think about laying this speaker on its side for ground plane measurements. Given the side vents are designed to cancel out the midrange's backward radiated sound. Not sure if blocking one vent will make an impact when the speaker is already laying on its side... I've never had to deal with that before. But, I'll talk to those guys and see what they think. If nothing else, I might have limited vertical response results but since those don't have a huge impact on the overall SPIN it might still be liveable.

Ah, I'm jealous, I think about these a lot! Also jealous that you got the white colorway.

Really looking forward to your data and impressions! I can't remember at the moment, but I think one vent was partially covered during vertical measurements? You can ask @Martijn Mensink but I'm sure you'll figure it out!

 

[Chromatischism]

I was just trying to do some comparisons between some speakers I have tested and thought I should make it easier on myself by putting some of the basics from the results in to a spreadsheet. It's hard to really capture the overall performance of a speaker with a few metrics but this captures some of the big stats sensitivity, ±1.5dB and ±3dB response region on-axis and max SPL.

Feel free to give it a look. I realize I could add some other factors but I don't want this to become additional work. Besides, you need to look at the data to get the whole story. For example, horizontal and vertical dispersion @ 10kHz is just a snapshot. It could be much worse at the crossover. But defining and assigning a metric to that is kind of odd because it will vary at different frequencies and you can't easily throw that in a single cell or set of cells without the sheet becoming pointless as a "quick look".

And, yea, I would like to add some graphs to these such as on-axis, listening window and other data but honestly, I just don't have the time to do that.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iHiinala9exYa8dv32RoXi2QRqcmUc7troJgCXnrWtM/edit?usp=sharing


View attachment 85588

Erin,

Sorry for the dumb question, but is the ±1.5 and 3.0dB Region based on the on-axis response or the listening window? Thanks.

 

[thewas]

For example:
On Chord Overstreet's cover of We've Got Tonight, when the vocalist starts singing his voice starts sharp to the left-of-center. I thought maybe this was a room issue caused from the asymmetrical shape of the room wrt to the speakers' position. But, it's actually on the track that way. I've heard this song quite a few times and haven't caught that before. Doesn't mean it was never there on other setups. Just means that it caught my attention.

Another example is: The sax on the Superette track (from Phil Woods' Here's to My Lady) is about 6 to 7 feet to the right of the speaker and according to the imager. I thought maybe it was some artifact or something... surely these speakers don't throw an image *that* wide. But, turns out, that's correct because the content is about 90° out of phase and should pan hard right. These speakers *do* throw an image that wide. Paint me very impressed.

Don't want to spoil your joy on the very good D&D 8c which I had also the luck to hear, measure and compare directly to a pair of Neumann KH310, but both those effects are so obvious and easily to hear with any of my much cheaper setups, but maybe I am just spoiled as I tend to listen closer in rather nearfield conditions, which would pose also the question, maybe to add also some "nearfield" listening in the reviews as it reveals much more details? Just an idea that came to my mind as I really appreciate your loudspeaker reviews and find them as I have written before in several threads as some of the very best.

 

[hardisj]

both those effects are so obvious and easily to hear with any of my much cheaper setups

For sure. But, to be fair, it also helps when you know exactly what to listen for. Would you have noticed it if you weren't listening for explicitly, or would it have just been a casual observance? That's an unanswerable question at this point. So, like I said in the post,

I've heard this song quite a few times and haven't caught that before. Doesn't mean it was never there on other setups. Just means that it caught my attention.

 

[thewas]

For sure. But, to be fair, it also helps when you know exactly what to listen for. Would you have noticed it if you weren't listening for explicitly, or would it have just been a casual observance? That's an unanswerable question at this point.

Of course a priori knowledge helps but as I had written they both are so obvious/intense sounding to that I am quite sure in this case I would have noticed them even without it, especially since both are quite unusual/unnatural sounding to me and I am neither often making sure statements nor account myself as an "golden ear".

 

[fredoamigo]

As excited as you. My initial aesthetic disgust at the bamboo/white front combo is now gone with this one of the very sober studio version.

like you I really like this hue but I'm not sure it's a "studio version".
because the site indicates that the studio version is only available in black with threaded side mounting ...https://dutchdutch.com/8c/

 

[hardisj]

Correct. It is not the Studio version. It a new color way. Might be the only white on white “in the wild” right now. I’ll get those details before I complete my review and make sure to let you all know the availability.

 

[q3cpma]

like you I really like this hue but I'm not sure it's a "studio version".
because the site indicates that the studio version is only available in black with threaded side mounting ...https://dutchdutch.com/8c/

Typo, meant "or", not "of".

 

[Vini darko]

Hand delivered and set up by the bossman. Your doing alright m8. Looking forward to the review.