IMO when one can pay 10k speaker he’s already way too wealthy to concern about #2 if that gives you ultimate sound, and for longevity I won’t really concern about modern electronics. Even class A/B chip amps last decades nowadays and if the caps are going to give in it will in passives anyway.. and for that price the warranty is usually a few years so it can cover most of the outlier bad copy components, the rest normally outlive the gear acquisition syndromeI just find this... and as a user of B&W (all in one + even streaming) Formation Duo,
I remember that I‘m surprised at the sound quality - the advantage of all in one design...
the designer know what they pursue and get it done in a right way.
The possible problems are basically two kinds from my experience.
1) You have to settle with one sound. (good for some, critical limitation for some)
2) If there is trouble, you have to deal with the whole unit.
#1 wouldn’t be a problem if the user likes it. #2 wouldn’t be a problem if the user has tons of money.
But for me, because of #2 reason, I don’t want to.
Also there is no way to distort sound later for any personal reasons.
Also not sure about other people, but for me, one of major reasons I buy B&W formation duo is its clean look. (No wire, no something around)
And good look. D&D 8C looks okay but personally not 10k good.
If I had this much money I would get Avantgarde for a living room, and honestly not care about the graph.
It would be like buying classic maserati quattroporte.
(And my one of the other sound rooms maybe ATC or Genelec, I don’t know)
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Will consumers buy the Dutch & Dutch 8C?
- Thread starter suttondesign
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The repair thing is an issue, as you have to send the whole unit away if there's a problem. You need a secondary system just in case. But the truth is that these things will probably fail fairly early or not for a very long time. Digital crossovers are highly superior to those in conventional speakers.
As far as the electronics etc., becoming obsolete: not an issue, IMO. DACs and ADCs are already SOTA, how much better do you think some future version will sound? Plus lots of these units are upgradeable via firmware.
Better drivers coming along? Yeah, maybe. But all speakers have that issue. DRC? Do it from your computer server.
These guys are great b/c it's easy to use DSP to flavor the sound anyway you would like.
As far as the electronics etc., becoming obsolete: not an issue, IMO. DACs and ADCs are already SOTA, how much better do you think some future version will sound? Plus lots of these units are upgradeable via firmware.
Better drivers coming along? Yeah, maybe. But all speakers have that issue. DRC? Do it from your computer server.
These guys are great b/c it's easy to use DSP to flavor the sound anyway you would like.
Richard Berg
Member
https://dutchdutch.com/software/
@q3cpma this also "explains" (technically if not satisfactorily) why they won't publish a USB class-compliant driver -- it would present to the host as 2 independent mono devices, which the end user would have to gang together with VoiceMeeter/Blackhole.
What?! I mean, I understand the problem they're trying to solve, but I can't fathom why they're trying to solve it, rather than simply front the DAC sections with a single 2ch bitstream. The whole point of putting their active components in an outboard rack was to make this kind of engineering simpler & more flexible...
@q3cpma this also "explains" (technically if not satisfactorily) why they won't publish a USB class-compliant driver -- it would present to the host as 2 independent mono devices, which the end user would have to gang together with VoiceMeeter/Blackhole.
Richard Berg
Member
https://www.audiogon.com/listings/lisa7904-dutch-dutch-8c-studio-pair-monitors
Way cheaper than the listing on their own website. So which one of you is in Sunset Park? @Dialectic ?
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Richard Berg
Member
Ah, pity. I would be curious to demo them someday.
Richard Berg
Member
Oop, appears I got my newfangled Continental designs mixed up. The 8C's put their active circuitry in the base of each speaker.
Still a poor excuse to not present itself to the network/USB as a multichannel endpoint (which could then be daisy-chained over to AES input on the other speaker(s)), but at least it's an excuse.
The unpronounceable M1 is the one with the outboard rack:
doorofnight
Member
I am a consumer and I have the DD8c. 
Hi,
I read most of this thread and came across sayings that “8c is not intended for pro audio” and that “8c has large dips” etc
Wtf ?
I come from adams, genelecs (1031), barefoot in the last 20 years.
Right now I’m on the Amphions. I demoed the 8c for 10 days and ordered them.
The 8c is a superb speakers for a studio. I don’t know where you got the data suggesting not a flat response, but on my control room (a 40k room designed by John H. Bradnt) the 8c actually measured flattest of all. I’m attaching one of the first measurements I did when I set up the speakers, and this is without correction.
Now flatness does NOT mean the speaker is actually good. What determines a good mixing speaker is:
1. Translation
2. Translation (yes, it’s the dominant factor)
3. How you interact with the speaker. Fatiguing factor, and how you enjoy working on it.
Now the 8c did incredible well on those aspects. It’s translation is in the levels of the Amphions (the highest I have come across) and it’s actually less fatiguing than the Amphions.
Now speakers are a personal thing.
Me, I adore the neutral voicing of the 8c. It’s very hard to describe but it’s analytical without being fatiguing. The bass response is simply the best I ever got in the room (barefoots were the worst btw) and the coupling works wonders. I got flat response down to 20hz
But again, the speaker translated wonderfully. This is why I decided to buy them (and probably will keep the pair of Amphions as a second reference).
Alex
I read most of this thread and came across sayings that “8c is not intended for pro audio” and that “8c has large dips” etc
Wtf ?
I come from adams, genelecs (1031), barefoot in the last 20 years.
Right now I’m on the Amphions. I demoed the 8c for 10 days and ordered them.
The 8c is a superb speakers for a studio. I don’t know where you got the data suggesting not a flat response, but on my control room (a 40k room designed by John H. Bradnt) the 8c actually measured flattest of all. I’m attaching one of the first measurements I did when I set up the speakers, and this is without correction.
Now flatness does NOT mean the speaker is actually good. What determines a good mixing speaker is:
1. Translation
2. Translation (yes, it’s the dominant factor)
3. How you interact with the speaker. Fatiguing factor, and how you enjoy working on it.
Now the 8c did incredible well on those aspects. It’s translation is in the levels of the Amphions (the highest I have come across) and it’s actually less fatiguing than the Amphions.
Now speakers are a personal thing.
Me, I adore the neutral voicing of the 8c. It’s very hard to describe but it’s analytical without being fatiguing. The bass response is simply the best I ever got in the room (barefoots were the worst btw) and the coupling works wonders. I got flat response down to 20hz
But again, the speaker translated wonderfully. This is why I decided to buy them (and probably will keep the pair of Amphions as a second reference).
Alex
Attachments
Please let us know your interpretation of "Translation".
I'm not knowledgeable of the Pro audio's vocabulary, and haven't heard that word being tossed around before.
TIA, Sal
There's a lot of reasons that have been covered here many times.
Pro world is a whole different approach to audio. Powered speakers offer a number of advantages but also a number of disadvantages to consumer audio. The consumer audio market is very "upgrade" based. They want to be able to plug in different dacs, pre-amps, amps, wires, etc; at will. It may be lunacy but it is the reality of the market. I could go on of the advantage of being able to plug in a new piece went one fails, on, and on. What happens 5 years from now when one of my all-in-one speaker fails, the boutique manufacturer has disappeared, and I can't get this complicated combination of software and hardware repaired?
Pro and consumer audio really are two different worlds.
What's best for one might not be the best path for the other.
Just sayin
As a non-professional, I understand it to mean that your mix "translates" to other speakers. In other words, what you hear in your mix on the 8c, others also hear when they play it back on different speakers. I've heard several pros who use the 8c and the Kii Three talk about how well the mixes done with them "translate", and how they are superior to other monitors in this respect.
Amateur studio work in college, this is correct and I'd add that accurate speakers seem to translate the best: Even if you're ultimately going to listen on a soundbar or inaccurate speakers, you don't want the inaccuracies of your studio monitors to have a second set of inaccuracies doubling up in the playback system.
(An example is a monitor that is bass deficient or has a null. A friend who does studio work professionally mastered a song, and adjusted part of it to sound strong and full on his monitors... His monitors were already rolling off at that point though.
When the mix was finally played at a massive lantern festival, he realized that the woofer arrays were playing deeper than his monitors, and it was apparently quite the earth shaking experience: He'd boosted the bass in the song because his speakers rolled off, and the venue subwoofers were quite hot and boosted it again. If both systems were flat, it would translate just fine. If you know one system isn't going to be quite flat, then at least avoid doubling up on the issues.)
Another thing that helps "translation" is having a limited range set of monitors to control for those who don't have a subwoofer, are using airpods, etc. A flat, extended speaker can be used for this by simply EQing it, or in the case of some companies activating a switch that disabled the woofer and only uses the midrange and tweeter. (Focal has models like this. Kali supports it with their subwoofer I think.)
For fun: This was produced on a pair of Dutch & Dutch 8c speakers.
The above production sounds great on the Amphions, which is probably a good thing (i trust the Amphions alot).
Yes, translation is basically how what you hear in the mixing/mastering room is translated to other speakers. Obviously every system is different and will always sound different, so the idea is that your speakers/room should be able to tell you the pros and cons of your mix, so that you MAKE it sound good in the room. If the translation is good, it will sound good to other systems. If the translation is not good, you'll get surprises and return to mixing to fix them.
Yes, translation is basically how what you hear in the mixing/mastering room is translated to other speakers. Obviously every system is different and will always sound different, so the idea is that your speakers/room should be able to tell you the pros and cons of your mix, so that you MAKE it sound good in the room. If the translation is good, it will sound good to other systems. If the translation is not good, you'll get surprises and return to mixing to fix them.
Not my kind of music but sounds good on my 8c's
Per my understanding, a mix that "translates" well is one that sounds pleasant and spectrally complete on the greatest number of systems possible. The term "pleasant" is very subjective and what we perceive as pleasant today is certainly very different from what we did a two decades ago, so it really means is "not too dissimilar from existing contemporary productions of the same genre". Besides, each engineer has their own signature sound. If a particular engineer's sound happens to connect with a very large number of listeners, that sound can be considered more pleasant than one that connects with fewer people.
To achieve good translation, the engineer has to ensure two things:
1. That the material sounds good on high-end systems. This assumes all high-end systems are as good as the monitoring system the material was mixed on, and it requires that the monitoring system be able to reproduce the full spectrum of frequencies that are present in the audio material. With all that in place, if it sounds bad on the mixing monitoring system, it will sound bad elsewhere. The quality of the monitoring system is determined by a combination of the monitors, the room they are placed in and the engineer's ears. Getting this right is half the battle won, and it only needs to be done once.
2. That enough harmonic content is present for frequencies that less capable systems are usually unable to reproduce (e.g. sub-bass), so that every sound is at least partially represented and therefore heard regardless of the system's limitations. This is more down to technique, because a pure 27.5 Hz sine wave may sound glorious on high-end systems that can go that low without distorting, but might not even be heard on less capable systems. It's up to the engineer to ensure higher harmonics are present so that at least something can be heard even on laptop speakers.
A lot of people think a mix that translates well will sound good everywhere. That's not true: a good mix will sound at best less bad on a crappy system.
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