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


Bought a pair of Dutch & Dutch 8C because I was curious about active speakers. Have read many great reviews and comments, so my expectations were high. Set them up with their app, inputting their distance from the front wall, sidewalls, and listening chair. They are a Roon endpoint, so the source is a Roon Nucleus on my network. They cannot touch my main system and I think I’m doing something wrong. They are not as dynamic as I expected. They have great bass. I’ve read that they have a wide soundstage, but these do not. In fact, they lack dimensionality in my opinion.  I’ve never used REW, but I’m thinking I should get a microphone and give it a try. Any thoughts?
 

The digital side of my main system is:

dCS Bartök Apex

Audio Research Ref 6SE into

Parasound JC1 monoblocks

Wilson Yvette loudspeakers

Transparent Ultra Gen 6 balanced interconnects and speaker cables

Nordost Red Dawn power cords

Carpeted floor over concrete with no other room treatments 

kcpellethead

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.