XTZ Room Analyzer II Standard & Pro Acoustic Measurement System Preview
XTZ Measurement
Summary
- Product Name: XTZ Room Analyzer Pro II
- Manufacturer: Acoustic Frontiers
- Review Date: December 02, 2011 11:30
- MSRP: $229.99 to $359.99
- First Impression: Pretty Cool
Executive Overview
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. 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.
XTZ Room Analyzer II comes in two flavors:
- XTZ Room Analyzer II Standard, retailing for $229.99
- XTZ Room Analyzer II Pro, retailing for $359.99
There are four pieces of functionality that XTZ Room Analyzer provides that is used to complete a system calibration by analyzing your room response:
- Sound Pressure Level (SPL) meter with C weighting and slow averaging to set speaker and subwoofer levels
- Delay alignment tool to set speaker and subwoofer distances
- Real time analyzer (RTA) to set subwoofer phase / polarity
- Frequency response ‘Room Analyzer’ with 1/3rd octave smoothing to check subwoofer phase / polarity
XTZ Room Analyzer II Standard XTZ Room Analyzer II Pro
Features:
- Both versions are all in one box packages that include the hardware (soundcard, microphone, cabling) and software required to take acoustic measurements
- Standard version has upgraded hardware compared to the original version yet retails at $70 less
- Pro version has completely new hardware with increased microphone accuracy
- Separate software for Standard and Pro versions; Pro version has more functionality
- New software for both versions includes SPL meter; Pro version also includes signal generator
- Runs on Windows
Uses of the product:
The Standard version is best suited for:
- Home theater calibration - set levels with the sound pressure level (SPL) meter and dial in distance settings with the unique 'delay alignment' tool.
- Subwoofer integration – using the high resolution 16Hz-300Hz frequency response and real time analyzer (RTA) modes.
Acoustic Frontiers has published two in depth tutorial blog articles that explain how to use the XTZ Room Analyzer:
for Home Theater Calibration (see: bit.ly/twMsCv)
and Subwoofer Integration (see: http://bit.ly/s9GofY)
The Pro version does the above plus:
- Room acoustic analysis - the software has capability to do high resolution 16-300Hz frequency response and low frequency decay spectrogram measurements as well as full range 20Hz-20kHz frequency response and 2D/3D waterfalls to analyze reflections and check for flutter echo.
- Room
correction - the software automatically generates
correction filters for room modes which you can then further optimize
using the unique parametric EQ software emulation mode.
Intrigued by this new system, we asked Acoustic Frontiers a few questions about this new XTZ system to better understand how it works.
Q: How does the XTZ system perform room correction?
A: It analyzes the measurement to find peaks that would benefit from application of parametric EQ.
Q: Does the XTZ system have a built in EQ or is an external EQ system required?
A: XTZ has NO built in EQ - the software generates parametric EQ correction filters to be applied in an external EQ device. All of the filters that are automatically generated can be modified, and the user can add their own. The Pro version also includes a 'parametric EQ' emulation mode, which basically plays the measurement signal through a software emulation of the selected parametric EQ filters. This makes fine tuning EQ much quicker than if the EQ values had to be transferred into an outboard EQ device.
Q: How many bands of adjustment are possible?
A: Up to 7 bands.
Q: How does this system interface with an A/V receiver?
A: Via an included RCA cable into the analog inputs of your AVR.
About XTZ
XTZ is an audio company from Sweden who manufacturer a range of speakers and electronics.
Gamla Nissastigen 19, Torup, Sweden, 314 41
+46 345 20049
www.xtz.se
info@xtz.se
About Acoustic Frontiers
Acoustic Frontiers from Kentfield, CA, is an acoustic consulting company and retailer of acoustic treatment, room correction and acoustic measurement products.
1 Hillside Ave, Kentfield, CA 94904
+ 1 415 254 4204
nyal@acousticfrontiers.com
Recent Forum Posts:
westcott;846268
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.
ned;845272
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.
ned;845272
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.
