XTZ Room Analyzer or something else?

Hi,

If you use XTX, maybe you can measure in the corners or near boundaries and try to pinpoint the room modes and nulls. That may help you with placement. I think there is another program out there that actually tells you where to put the speakers, based on the dimensional measurements (that is, not doing actual acoustic measurements).

Classicjazz, I found this program, cara 2.1 plus
http://www.rhintek.com/cara/cara21desc.php

That does exactly what you said. However, since I don't think I can account for all the dimensions and items in the room, this kind of program has its limitation. So I wonder if there is a program that might try to calculate and suggest recommendation based on actual sound measurement.
If not, I think that program like Cara might give me a good place to start then fine tune with XTZ, I suppose.

CARA will not 'suggest' where to move your speakers but will select the optimum position within the range/area you specify. However, it is based on the information you enter into the system and not on real-world measurements. Also, it is based on powerful but incomplete analysis models. I think it is a great tool to use before room design and its value declines as more and more real-world constraints are imposed on it. There is a simpler and easier equivalent that is probably as useful in completed construction situations: RPG's Room Optimizer.

XTZ, otoh, is a measurement system that will tell you how the system is actually performing in your room. It will suggest filters for the room/loudspeaker variations below the critical frequency but it cannot suggest setup changes because it cannot know anything about your system except how it measures at the microphone. REW is similar but with more tools, as is GoldLine's EZTUNE. There are several others. These will all tell you what is wrong (or right) about the measured setup but leave it up to you to change that and see if things get better or worse.

Kal

Thanks for your information, I will check on these programs as well. The main concern I have is that once I get reading down with XTZ, I am not sure where to go after that. I will check out some of the book titles that you mentioned and hopefully they will give some insight into what needs to be done to correct the problem.

FWIW, I found the XTZ room analyzer pro II very easy to use. It quickly and consistently found a big room mode at 38Hz for which it recommended a -22db correction. I attenuated it down with a McIntosh MQ 107 (not quite all the way to a -22db, which made the sound too thin), and my boomy bass issue immediately disappeared in dramatic fashion. The A/B between the equalizer on and off and the bass issue is incredible.

I haven't tried any other room analyzer software or equipment but foundn the XTZ to be simple and to provide exactly the information I needed, so I thought I'd share my experience.