Dutch & Dutch 8c: pre-Roon Ready thread

No :slight_smile: I went with the KIIs :smiley: but analyzed the D&D very intensively in the decision phase.

It was actually Martijn Mensink himself that described how they would sync Roon ready 8cā€™s. If they have changed to network sync it is more than likely a marketing argument involved.

im sorry thatā€™s right ! totally forgot about that :slight_smile: Nice !

I did some measurements today with a friend that knows his stuff.
They sound much better in my room now.

I really recommend you to do some filters in ROON, if you are using ROON. The results is absolutely insane. He has done a lot of them. We did a digital filter in Jriver, it was awesome !

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Either way, I wished Dutch and Dutch could confirm this haha :smiley:

you have me :slight_smile:

I agree. I hope the user can choose how to sync speakers, but most of all I wish that the method D&D selects is stable in the long run and donā€™t require use of special hard ware (like Ravenna and Dante does).

Me too ! That would not be good !

https://www.stereophile.com/content/dutch-dutch-8c-active-loudspeaker-system

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Interesting: The internal processing (sample rate) is 48kHz which is too low and rare nowadays. 96kHz is/should be the standard. So everything higher than 48kHz will be downsampled + AES Input wonā€™t work for more than 96/24. Hmmm

But itā€™s achieving state of the art performance as it is, no?

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I was under the impression that the internal sampling frequency was 96kHz ā€” this came up in other reviews I believe. Could there be another explanation for the sharp drop-off after 24kHz that is not related to the internal sampling frequency?

From @Martijn_Mensink on another forum:

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/54065-article-dutch-dutch-8c-loudspeaker-review/?do=findComment&comment=902618

Not that I find it an issue, given the overall state of the art performance:

https://6moons.com/audioreviews2/dutchdutch/2.html

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This is the spec of the chip. Not the sample frequency

That is a dodgy term to use amongst audiophiles. Sort of- nothing is relevant because they sound great. Fair enough but itā€™s not bringing much to the party.

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Noā€¦ I was referring to the objective measurements Iā€™ve seen of these speakers. Check out the Stereophile measurements, for exampleā€¦

I would never dismiss other peopleā€™s subjective opinionsā€¦

I too was very surprised to read in Stereophile that the 8C downsamples all digital data higher than 48khz sampling rate. None of the half dozen other reviews Iā€™ve read pointed this out. Aside from the 8C, I canā€™t think of a single digital audio product today that canā€™t do high resolution sampling rates of at least 96khz. So Iā€™m more surprised by the rarity than anything else. That aside, Iā€™m sure the acoustic advantages of the 8Cā€™s unique cardioid dispersion, front wall coupled bass, time coherence, and FR linearity all outweigh the marginal gains of high-res audio word length and sampling frequency. Iā€™m given pause, but would still love to own this speaker. I wonder if the internal sampling frequency might change with a firmware update in the future. I wonder if such a move would increase the latency. Iā€™m also curious if the redbook sampling frequency of the 8C matters to professional mastering engineers which are also a target audience.

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Reading the comments on the article, the measurements arenā€™t without criticismā€¦

I wouldnā€™t dismiss other peopleā€™s subjective opinions either but ā€œoverall state of the art performanceā€? Iā€™m sure they sound fab but typically the average reader is looking for a little more here.

New owner of D&D 8Cs here. I do not have the beta firmware that allows a direct Roon connection via ethernet so am running them via AES from a Lumin U1 Mini and I use Roon to downsample to 96K/24 bits for any resolution/sample rates higher than that. I will compare this chain to a direct Roon ethernet chain when that capability is available but the sound is fabulous as is.

Iā€™m now going to tackle room correction and am wondering whether itā€™s better to use the parametric filter capability in the speakers themselves or use a convolution filter within Roon for this. Iā€™m curious if anyone has tackled either and has any insight or opinionsā€¦

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Good evening @Craig_Palmer !

I just did some parametric eq to my DD8C a week ago or so. The difference is huge . I got rid of the worst low frequencies in my room and made some minor corrections at 3000 and 4000 hz and the soundstage went from good to amazing ! I had a lot of low frequencies cancelling out some good stuff in the midrange and higher up . The problem with parametric EQ is that I can only guess the Q factor and I felt that I might be doing more harm than right. But like I said , fixed the biggest problems and it made a huge difference. I did a blind test on my girlfriend, we listened to Hans Zimmer - Mountains from the Interstellar OST . I turned the filters on and off and her conclusion was - ā€œItā€™s like I am changing seats , from the back rows , to the front . Her words of explaining the improvement in the soundstage .

Digital filters in Roon will be far more superiorā€¦ I am waiting for Roon like crazy right now.

I downloaded jRiver and took the room measurements , drag and dropped it , made a digital filter with all the problems solved and correct Q factor and the results ā€¦ well you will hear for yourself.

With proper measurements, placement and digital filter , I truly believe that the DD8C is impossible to beat for the money .

Hope this makes sense. Iā€™ve had a bottle of wine !

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