Stereophile – August 2019

stereophile.com n August2019 101

DUTCH & DUTCH 8C

measurements, continued

real time. Setting the front-wall

distance to 15.75" (40cm) and

side-wall distance to 23.6"–27.6"

(60–70cm), the bass was strong—

almost too strong. Measurements

I took using Dayton Audio’s

OmniMic microphone and XTZ’s

Room Analyzer Pro software

defined two significant bass peaks,

at 33Hz and 66Hz for the left

speaker and 35Hz and 75Hz for

the right. I corrected these peaks

with parametric filters comple-

mentary in gain and Q.

Now the bass was tight

and extended, but there

was still too much of it.

After a few days of listen-

ing, I settled on a –2dB

shelving-down of the bass;

my FR measurements

confirmed that the 8c’s

were now flat down to

20Hz. Impressive output

from these little puppies.

Sound

I did all my listening with

files streamed from JRiver

I left the speakers there
while I continued to learn
how to use them. I learned
that I could play a stereo
AES3 signal straight from
my Baetis Prodigy-X
server or from my miniDSP
U-DIO8 at resolutions
of up to 24-bit/96kHz
PCM. I learned that there
were controls for bound-
ary distances and bass and
treble levels, and options for
more parametric filters than
I would ever need. I also learned
that my review samples included
beta-version software that let them
function as a Roon Advanced
Audio Transport at up to 24/192
PCM for that application.
After this education pro-
cess, and having cleared the
other speakers out of the way, I
repositioned the 8c’s and Sound
Anchors closer to the front wall,
positioned as D&D recommends.
I switched to the AES3 input
(and, ultimately, to Roon via
LAN); there’s no justification for
using an analog connection between my digital server and
these speakers—they’d redigitize the signal anyway.
I placed the 8c’s some 15" from the front wall (which
isn’t a wall but a triple-glazed, heavy-duty city window
with a 4"-thick slab of fiberglass on the inside ledge). Using
lanspeaker.com, one can make all sorts of adjustments in

Media Center 24 via AES3 at up to 24/96, or from Roon

via LAN at up to 24/192. I heard no differences in sound

quality between the two sources.

My immediate impression of the Dutch & Dutch 8c’s

was one of rightness: They always sounded clean, bal-

anced, and revealing. It was difficult to hear any specific

app. It turned out that I hadn’t disabled

Kal’s parametric EQ settings, which

included a 14.75dB-deep notch at 33Hz

with a Quality factor (Q) of 10.1 and

another notch at 66Hz, this one 5.75dB

deep with a Q of 15.6. Turning off these

filters gave the expected flat response.

The plot of the 8c’s horizontal dis-

persion (fig.3) reveals that the speak-

er’s directivity is very well controlled,

the output to the sides falling off

evenly with frequency up to 15kHz or

so. The use of a woofer with a cardioid

radiation pattern and a tweeter loaded

with a waveguide gives an impressively

consistent result. The reverberant

power in the listening room will have a

spectral balance not significantly dif-

ferent from the 8c’s direct sound other

than in the treble, where the room’s

furnishings are more absorbent than

they are at lower frequencies. In the

vertical plane (fig.4), the 8c maintains

its even on-axis balance over a wide

(±10°) window. The hint of a suckout

between 1200 and 1500Hz 15° above

the tweeter axis suggests that this is

the region where the woofer crosses

over to the tweeter—lower than usual

for a 1" tweeter.

In the time domain, the Dutch

& Dutch 8c’s step response (fig.5)

reveals that the tweeter and woofer are

connected in positive acoustic polarity,

with DSP used to produce an almost

perfectly time-coincident shape.

However, the output of the subwoof-

ers, which appear to be connected in

negative polarity, starts just before

the tweeter/woofer step. The 8c’s

cumulative spectral-decay plot (fig.6)

is one of the cleanest I have measured,

especially in the treble!

In summing up the Dutch & Dutch

8c’s measured performance, all I can

say is “Wow!”—John Atkinson

Fig.5 Dutch & Dutch 8c, step response on tweeter

axis at 50" (5ms time window, 30kHz bandwidth).

Fig.6 Dutch & Dutch 8c, cumulative spectral-decay

plot on tweeter axis at 50" (0.15ms risetime).

Time in ms

Data in Volts