RoomMatching

Why RoomMatching?

Imagine listening to the best sounding, conventional speakers you've ever heard.
Now imagine placing them in your bathroom. How would they sound there? Not so great, right?

While that is an exaggerated example, it illustrates the point perfectly: room acoustics have a significant impact on sound quality. The problem is that loudspeaker-room interaction is very difficult to control in real-world environments. And yet, this is where Dutch & Dutch has focused their efforts. Instead of squeezing the last few drops of optimization out of conventional loudspeaker design, we created RoomMatching. A stack of technologies that integrate the room into the listening chain. Why RoomMatching? Because room interaction is where significant improvements in audio quality can still be made.

Room Interaction

Among all the components in your reproduction system, the loudspeaker holds the throne as the most crucial one. It's the heart and soul of your setup. It has the greatest impact on the sound quality you'll hear, and is therefore the component that demands most of your attention. 

Unfortunately, even if you've selected an outstanding speaker, its performance might be disappointing. That is because every loudspeaker interacts with the acoustic characteristics of the room it is placed in.

The sound quality you hear, is primarily determined by two things:

1. The quality of your loudspeakers, and;
2. The way they interact with the acoustics of your room. 

When a loudspeaker emits sound waves, they propagate into the surrounding space and interact with the room's walls, objects and surfaces. This interaction can impact the sound, leading to a muddled, boomy bass, or other unpleasant quality that detracts from the overall listening experience.

One way to solve this problem, is to build a room with perfect acoustics. This works, but it is often unpractical if not unattainable. Luckily another solution exists.

 

RoomMatching

Whether your room is small or big, acoustically treated or not. Whether your Dutch & Dutch speakers are placed far away from objects, close to the wall or even tucked in the corner: they will deliver impeccable sound. That is because your Dutch & Dutch system is designed to take room interaction into account. The collection of acoustic and digital technologies that enable your Dutch & Dutch speaker to adapt to any environment, is called RoomMatching.

Acoustics first

When thinking about a speaker that adapts to the room, Digital Signal Processing may come to mind. Yet, although we do employ DSP, we first deliver an acoustic solution. We believe that any acoustical problem that can be solved with sound speaker design should not be "cured" with DSP, as that can introduce its own set of problems. Instead, DSP should be the proverbial cherry on top.

• The vents on each side of the Dutch & Dutch cabinet output out-of-phase mid frequencies to form a cardioid midrange, drastically reducing harmful reflections from sound that is splayed off the walls.
• Our tweeter is embedded in a large Minimum Diffraction Waveguide. It ensures that high frequencies have the exact  same directivity as the mids, giving a Constant Directivity above 100 Hz
• This is combined with our unique Boundary Coupled Bass. The twin woofer(s) on the back your Dutch & Dutch system acoustically couple with the wall, to improve bass precision and minimize time-smearing.

The Dutch & Dutch speaker relies on a number of acoustical innovations to maximize its ability to adapt to the acoustics of any room and minimize its dependency on digital room correction.

DSP Second

The above ensures that every Dutch & Dutch speaker complement the listening room acoustically, even before the involvement of Digital Signal Processing. The DSP is used to take the performance of our speakers even further. Your Dutch & Dutch system uses DSP to adapt its behavior to the specific requirements of the room the it is placed in. By telling both speakers how far away it is from its boundaries, as well as the dimensions of the listening triangle it is in, the speaker is able to set up the basics of RoomMatching. To second part is to perform room measurements and using the speakers onboard room correction to correct the frequency response in the bass. 

The first part is done in the Dutch & Dutch accompanying app, Ascend. The second part relies on Room EQ Wizard, which is freely available online and connects directly to your Dutch & Dutch speaker. A new and improved version of the app is on its way, allowing you to perform an REW test directly from the app. 

Easy placement

The combination of the cardioid midrange, boundary coupled bass, the minimum diffraction waveguide and the DSP's boundary time-alignment functionality - unlike other speakers - Dutch & Dutch speakers can be placed very close to the wall behind it without detrimental effects. To the contrary! The Dutch & Dutch speakers will actually sound even better if placed close to the wall.

 

A Real-World Solution

Loudspeaker-room interaction is often neglected in loudspeaker design because it is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that can be difficult to control. Manufacturers typically design their speakers to sound as good as possible in a laboratory setting, where there are no reflections or other room-related factors to take into account. However, once the speakers are placed in a real-world environment such as your living room or studio, their performance can be significantly affected by the interactions with the room.

Dutch & Dutch loudspeakers are unique in that they are designed to adapt to their environment. They don't fight your room's acoustics, they work in harmony with them. Thanks to cutting-edge technologies like the cardioid midrange and boundary coupling in the bass, a Dutch & Dutch system can be placed close to walls or even in corners. Big rooms or small, treated or not, it doesn't matter. They perform acoustics judo, using the force of their opponent to win the game. That is what we call RoomMatching. 

Would you like to experience RoomMatching for yourself? Send us a demo request via the chat.