XTZ Room Analyzer II Standard & Pro Acoustic Measurement System Preview

[admin]

Acoustic Frontiers has released an Acoustical Measurement system called XTZ Room Analyzer II that is said to be easy to use and it comes in two flavors, Standard and Pro. XTZ contains both the hardware (microphone, soundcard, cabling) and the software required to calibrate your home theater. There are four pieces of functionality that XTZ Room Analyzer provides that is used to complete a system calibration: SPL, Delay, RTA and Frequency Response. This system interfaces with your A/V receiver and external equalization to help you dial in the best response for a better home theater experience. The graphic interface looks pretty cool and the price for these two systems seems quite reasonable.



Discuss "XTZ Room Analyzer II Standard & Pro Acoustic Measurement System Preview" here. Read the article.

[adk highlander]

I've read about this software before. Kalman Rubinson (Stereophile) has written about this software and uses it when reviewing some gear. I think he was able to load the software outputs into the Classe processor he was reviewing one month. I'd like to see a possible review of this vs. the pro kit for Audyssey or the Dayton Audio OmniMic Precision Measurement System.

[ned]

Would be nice to know which processor it is compatible with.

[westcott]

Would be nice to know which processor it is compatible with.

I am skeptical that at this price point that it has the necessary resolution to properly provide an accurate analysis.

[Nyal Mellor]

Would be nice to know which processor it is compatible with.

The room correction settings generated are parametric EQ type filters i.e. configurable Q, gain and frequency. There aren't that many processors that include the ability for the end user to manually specify parametric EQ filters and my knowledge of what is out there on the market isn't exhaustive. I do know the new Pioneer Elite series receivers have a couple of parametric EQ bands (and the functionality may be in all of their processors with MCACC - although you would have to check their manuals to be sure as do the Classe processors.

[Nyal Mellor]

I am skeptical that at this price point that it has the necessary resolution to properly provide an accurate analysis.

What makes you say that? We live in the era of cheap (or free if you look at Room EQ Wizard!) measurement software, reasonable quality measurement microphones such as the Behringer ECM8000 and Chinese manufacturing. Furthermore the accuracy requirements for room measurement, subwoofer integration or home theater calibration are nothing like those for measuring THD or jitter in electronics. For one in any domestic setting you'd probably only be measuring 50dB above the noise floor, which means the signal to noise ratio of the soundcard and mic doesn't have to be amazing. And secondly the frequency response errors introduced by the measurement equipment are minor compared to those introduced by the room or by a badly integrated sub. Even a measurement system with +/-1.5dB variation would be plenty to calibrate and measure 95% of rooms since really you are not going to get any better than that without going to a dedicated room with acoustic treatment and EQ.

Of course I am not disputing that you get what you pay for. If you want a state of the art measurement rig then you'd want something like an Earthworks M23 ($450) or an M30 plus a nice soundcard ($200) and a calibrated SPL Meter ($150 for a cheap one, $1000+ for a really good one). But really most people don't need that unless you are a professional calibrator.