The best sounding audio product is the one that exhibits the least audible flaws.
Its hard to meaningfully evaluate high-end speakers just by the things they do right.
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It all starts with the bass.
It is the Achilles heel that often makes a speaker sound great in one room and awful in another.
Correcting these errors usually requires large and ugly bass traps or strategically placed subwoofers and extensive EQ.
See those vents on the sides of the speaker?
Not too much, not too little, and everything sounded snappy and tight.
Looking at the measurements, its easy to see why.
Below are two other speakers with more traditional radiation patterns for comparison.
See those massive dips in the bass that are absent or reduced on the 8c?
Those are room artifacts messing up the bass.
They were present ineverysingle speaker Ive measured from my listening position until I tested the 8c.
Its erase the cardioid radiation is working.
The 8c simply sounded neutral, in the best of ways.
I personally just bumped up the sub-bass a notch.
I prefer the latter presentation, but 8cs soundstage can be influenced substantially by how you position the speakers.
Point them right at your ears and the soundstage snaps into focus.
The tilt happens because a room will tend to reinforce bass frequencies and attenuate treble.
Such is the case with the 8c.
Thorough explanations of how to interpret these graphs are provided over atSpeaker Data 2034andAudioholics.
It is one of the flattest speakers Ive measured, and it shows in the sound.
But the 8c gets most of the other basics right too.
I personally love the look; they adeptly walk the line between professional utilitarianism and living-room friendly furniture.
Though the all-black model I tested looks classy, I particularly dig the white-on-wood colorways.
They also have a more modern and sleek design than the vast majority of studio monitors.
The web app is a welcome bit of modernity as well.
Theres even a night mode that reduces bass frequencies likely to disturb your neighbors.
I had to use a spare router just to set up a separate connection for the 8cs.
This was disappointing given the speakers price, but it ultimately highlighted something I appreciated about the 8c.
Did I mention the 8c is Dutch & Dutchs only speaker so far?
What a way to enter the market.
Heres hoping the company branches out into more mainstream (read: affordable) designs going forward.
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