Help . . . I’m dumber than my active speakers!

Can only assume these are new and need serious break-in time. Simple as that.  I've no experience with that active, only with several ATC actives and they are quite good in the areas of expectation mentioned.

As I understand, your above system is your main system divested completely from the Dutch & Dutch.  So what source are you running directly into the D&D? Streaming?

Hope it gets better for you.  Cheers

Streaming directly into the D&D 8C via a Roon Nucleus. I am the second owner, so I’m pretty sure they have been broken in.

It could very well be placement or your room.  Try this.  Set them up as close as you can to your listening location.  This will remove the room acoustics.  If they suddenly sound fantastic it's your room.

I had Dynaudio Focus Actives. The biggest tower ones they had on the last gen. Tons of great reviews. Nah they were not my cuppa tea at all! They were however the most intelligible speaker I’ve ever had for tv. Music they were dull as hell. 

Well you have a pretty killer system it just may sound better than those Dutch & Dutch 8C's. That said definitely experiment with positioning.

The D&Ds have built-in room correction and can be setup all the way against the back wall.  They also have a deal with Bache to give you the surround sound effect. They take a while to set up. I had them done by an expert who did it right but still took 2 hours. On your own you are likely f-ed. Pay a trained D&D man.

They do sound amazing in the low and mid. I preferred by Fritz BE's on the highs.

Bite the bullet and move on to somethin’ else. It sounds like that speaker is not your cup of tea and never will be!!

It is strange that in your room the Yvettes outperform the D&Ds. Definitely try what @erik_squires suggests aboveand also try feeding them the same signal that goes into the parasounds.

Try near listening yes but before put some enough big damping weight, concrete in my case , on them...Tune the weight necessary by listening experiment...

And isolate them by some coupling-decoupling sandwich of materials ( granite plate -quartz feet -granite -sorbothane duro 70 plate- bamboo plate-cork plate-oak plate ).

@kcpellethead I think your main system is very good and there is no reason to think the active speakers can do the same. I have heard Dutch and Dutch at shows and liked them. We have to ask ourselves can a built in amp  match these other electronics? Your first system is very well matched. Give the D and D time but I doubt it will be as good.

Try this, I didn’t read your entire post, but this made a huge difference on my active speakers. 
 

Max the speaker volume out and use your source to control the volume. 
 

Turned my Dynaudio from dead to alive. 
 

Best!

The Ref 6 IMO is not a preamp that generally will give you a very open sound stage and that may be why you are hearing what you are hearing.

Happy Listening.

Hi kcpellethead,

I think your 8c's are not performing the way they could. Please reach out to me on info@dutchdutch.com. I'd be happy to help you get the most out of your 8c's. 

Best regards,

Martijn Mensink

Dutch & Dutch

I'd take Martijn up on that offer above!

I know the active dsp speakers (I own a pair of Meridian DSP8000se) have the advantage of measuring perfectly, but sometimes I wonder if it's the non linearities in speakers that set them apart, what makes me favor one against another? 

does the D&D have optional settings you can save? Try a couple different eq's before relisting them, and worst case you shouldn't lose much relisting considering you bought them used.