Stand Loudspeaker Reviews

Clearly "wow." Oh my.

I followed this speaker as it was developed and have been hoping for a review with JA's measurements, so I am now very thankful. Quite an achievement for the developers.

So is this just about as good as it gets as far as measurements? If so, I'd like to see pretty much everyone review this, especially Herb and Art to see what the reaction is to a virtually perfect speaker.

I also read somewhere that an amp designer said that the performance of an amp at 0.001w is crucial in replaying the micro details of music and he has a unique way testing showing many solid-state that measures well on 1w and 100w measures badly on 0.001w comparing to tubes. I would guess that for speaker it's quite the same that a speaker performs so well on 80db can be said to be "quite accurate" but not "accurate" unless it can reproduce 40 db signal faithfully. That could be also why some dac that test the same sound so different.
However I still wonder if the previous statement have a scientific base on that : )

Thank you Kal and John for such an informative review. Fascinating. Eager to see your review of the B&W Formation Duo, as a long-time B&W 800 series listener.

If D&D could come up with a floor standing model with a couple of larger diameter subwoofers, say 10" or 12", priced around $25k/pair, with similar type of DSP control and web access, they will have another world class loudspeaker :-) ........

Go figure ;-)
Now someone please get Kal a heftier pair of stands, he must not have kids!

Having returned to Stereophile in the last few months I was interested to find any active loudspeaker reviews. I have been seeking quality and simplicity in music reproduction because this ultimately ensures that I can focus on the music. A few years ago I purchased some actives from a UK manufacturer and these have replaced the mix of boxes, wires and dust(!) from before.
I can see that it is in the interest of manufacturers to sell more boxes but sometimes it does seem as if they prioritise profit over the best result for the serious listener. Magazines play their part here also I fear.
It's therefore good to see these actives positively reviewed here. I agree that they are the future, although for me they are the present.

Isn't this an issue for any manufacturer? The best result for the serious listener is not always coincident with the product that will garner the most sales and profit. A business must make money to survive.

Sure but there is a parallel. What do our readers want to read about? It should be apparent that Stereophile readers have strong opinions about what they want.

P.S.: Welcome back.

I've used studio monitors for years from various manufacturers, for providing music at photo shoots in rented locations, in guest bedrooms, and in a gallery I partly owned. Had a Y connector to plug into the jack on my portable music player or phone, and they were great for that purpose. But - I listened to one of the nicer sets I had for almost a month, M-Audio 8 inch, while my main system speakers were out for repair, and I can tell you I was very, very happy to get my regular speakers back. The M-Audio weren't bad... but they weren't as good as my other passive speakers.

Recently got a set of KEF LSX - needed something small for a small room - and I'm floored by how good they sound. Yeah, they're small, probably miss the bottom two or three keys on a piano keyboard, but they're precise, musical, decent enough bass, and actually image when used in a pretty sub-optimal setting. When I'm listening to them, I find myself looking at them and thinking... I could swap 5 boxes out (DAC, pre, amp, two speakers) and replace them with two powered speakers. Not LSX, which are great in a small room, but something bigger.

With these, or the Kii, I could also ditch the subwoofer. Now I'm surfing the second hand market trying to figure out how much I'd get from dumping those six components in my studio/print shop to pick up a powered setup.

Sorry for all of you fans of passive speakers and those that are digi-phobes in general, but this has been where speakers have been heading for a while. This is just another example of how you can use DSP to make a great speaker.

The only thing I can see as a "design flaw" is that they are attempting to cram too much into one box. Not having your tweeter and mid shaken about by subs in the same box is preferable. For a one box solution, though, this is pretty impressive.

If this thing is profitable, I imagine they will have a version where they have separate subs and, maybe, a MTM mains cab.

When you consider all of the things this speaker offers, it's a great deal.

... already good sounding/measuring passive speakers - such as the Revel Performa3 F208 - when driven by an amp with a built-in DSP room acoustics correction function - such as the Yamaha R-N803 - compare to the D&D speakers reviewed here?

Would the D&D speakers be worth twice the price?

https://www.stereophile.com/content/revel-performa3-f208-loudspeaker

https://audio.com.pl/testy/stereo/amplitunery-stereo/2984-yamaha-r-n803d

JA wrote: "DSP operates at a fixed 48kHz sample rate, and that digital data with a higher sample rate are downsampled"
Is that true? Do you want your input to always be down/upsampled to 48K? I certainly don't. What am I missing?

but that will be like arguing that lossy digital audio signal is good enough (and all cables/amps sounds the same, etc.).
Kal, the pro-audio world has been using 48K sampling rate back in the DAT days (they don’t do that anymore for a good reason). It is a problematic rate as far as 44/88/176 sample rates are concerned (uneven multiplier = lossy conversion), you are basically arguing against all hi-res formats, and compromising Red Book, the majority of the media. Not an ideal, anachronistic, way to run a DSP.

I am not arguing it one way or the other. I am advocating that you try to listen to it with an open mind despite your knowledge and experience.

Normally, speakers are to be measured at tweeter height, but this design is meant to be listened to midway between the tweeter and woofer. The reason is simple: it eliminates any path length differences, regardless how far you are sitting from the speakers. This might have slightly influenced the vertical and lateral responses as well as frequency response and especially the step response.

hi

Selling 2 months used dutch and dutch 8c with Sound Anchor stands and Aurender N10 streamer.

Older thread, but thought I'd chime in nonetheless.

In regards to active vs. passive speakers I'd like to point to the core distinction of active speakers, namely that the filtering is done prior to amplification. That is to say: active doesn't mean being solely dependable on whole package deals where both the amps, DSP and DAC's are physically housed in the speakers - even though the individual segments in an all-in-one solution can be tailor-made to the specific task at hand (which mayn't say much, btw) and are put together for easy plug-and-play use - but there's the option of separates with active configuration as well, and this opens up possibilities that are otherwise hampered with the all-in-a-box product; that of the freedom of choice of components in the entire audio chain typically associated with a passive set-up as well, a freedom that many audiophiles find essential in their hobby.

Obviously there's the likely element of DIY with the separate approach of an active set-up, not least concerning that of the filtering itself (unless the filter settings are pre-configured by the manufacturer, like Sanders Sound), but with the dedicated audiophile who knows how to trust his or her ears and are slightly tech savvy it's a potentially liberating process.

Think about sitting in your listening spot and making filter corrections on the fly, if that's your thing and/or it's necessitated, and that you're rid of the sonic bottleneck of passive filters (with all that entails in regards to the load on the amps(s) and the compromised signal that's sent to the drivers), because that's what they are compared to a quality digital cross-over - even with A/D to D/A conversion applied in the process.

What could the critique aimed at the "active a la separates" solution be - why isn't this approach implemented and revered more readily when its sonic merits are so obvious, not only to me but also a range of audio friends of mine, all of us by all accounts never going back to passive again? Active is more than just a bundled, pre-assembled package with size constrictions (not to speak negatively of the presumable qualities of the reviewed D&D C8's), but can be an all-out separates solution that would potentially take aim at any passive ditto while outdoing it, and cheaper at that. Just my $0.02..