XTZ Room Analyzer or something else?

I cannot speak to the Room EQ Wizard software but I do have XTZ. I used it to measure my room and also my speaker response in anticipation of getting an equalizer or room correction device. I also wanted to see the before and after results of the Audyssey MultiEQ of my Denon AVP processor. Having read up on the dos and don'ts of equalization, I was curious to know what the Audyssey was doing in both the frequency and time domains.

I use XTZ on a macbook pro running VMWare Fusion 3 and XP. The odd thing is that when I recall past measurements, especially for the FR and decay plots, the software crashes quite often, more than half the time. However, it relaunches quickly and I keep going.

I imagine that if you discover a room mode you might be able to place acoustic panels in the usual, suspect places (corners etc) and see the effect. This is, in fact, my next move- I am waiting for some bass traps to arrive from Gik Acoustics.

Great question Kal and in the big picture the answer is no. I have a general idea about room modes and understand the basic rules of speaker and treatment placement. I want to learn but don't plan to become an acoustic engineer. It seems from your responses that I would have to learn either of them regardless. Given this dose this help to recommend either of the programs? Also, are their and texts that you would recommend for background reading?

Thanks again,

Aaron

You may wish to try this program SynRTA. I think you will need some cables, laptop, and sound card. As I recall, it will give you a real time readout as you wander about the room.

http://www.libinst.com/SynRTA.htm

Thumperrider112, you will need to learn to use either one but neither one will tell you what to do with the read-outs. I suggest that you read some basic audio and acoustics books like Everest or Toole.

Kal

Thanks again Kal and everyone else. I placed an order for the Everest book today. The Toole book in reading the reviews seemes to focus more on multi channel systems. Hopefully this will give me the foundation to get started with one of these tools.