Dazzor
Prominent Member
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- Jan 3, 2009
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A bit of a preamble….
I recently got an opportunity to check something out from XTZ. I chose these speakers because I've been considering an upgrade from the KEF iQ1's I currently have in my conservatory system. So the bookshelf speaker in XTZ's new 95 range seemed like the logical option for me to explore. My thinking being bolstered by the fact I really like my 99.25's (MkI's) and for the money, I, like many owners, consider them to punch well above their price-tag bracket.
My requirement here is primarily 2-channel music listening; with a bit of TV and gaming duties thrown in here and there….I think the picture below of the KEF's in situ says it all. (My humble retreat from the living room when the wife hits the sky planner and digs out endless episodes of Desperate Housewives)
In any case, I'm not alone in thinking that if a speaker can handle music it will do other duties well too; even if the enclosed manual lists these as “Sats” (The rest of the 95 family also listed as the manual is a generic one for the range)
Lastly, I am mindful of my fondness for my 99.25's, however I don't consider myself to be entrenched in any kind of brand-loyalty; so injecting any sort of hyperbole here is not on the agenda. If anything I think my expectations based on the 99.25's value-for-money factor has the potential to lead to disappointment.
Build quality, finish and general appearance:
The 95.24 are available in 3 finishes, black-ash effect, walnut effect and also a white finish. I have no idea if the white is textured, matt or some sort of wood-grain effect? Anyway, I decided to opt for the black ash to test. I must say I personally would like to have seen an oak, maple or some sort of light-wood version too, even if it replaced the white option….. Though I suspect white goes down well in Sweden.
Upon taking these out of the box I was encouraged by the solid feel and weight of the cabinets. They have curved edges which I think is a nice touch. The ribbon tweeter die-cast aluminium horn thingy looks to be well made with a nice textured feel. The 6.5” polypropylene, titanium- coloured plated drivers look pretty cool too. The binding posts are the usual fare, gold-plated jobbies, taking either banana plugs or bare wire.
Having said all that, I was not completely sold on the overall aesthetics and size. As I said, I would have loved these to come in some sort of light-wood finish like oak or even maple. In terms of the 95.24's size I simply want a smaller speaker for my conservatory system. Both these are just personal niggles, not a fault with the speaker. In fact I suspect a standmount of this size, for this sort of money will appeal to a wide audience.
The 95 range, from what I can gather by looking on XTZ's website is being pitched towards Home Cinema, in part at least. Even so, the 95.24's are a pretty big “Satellite” speaker in my opinion. They're huge compared to my little KEF's, which I already consider a decent size to act as a satellite speaker.
Having a set of 99.25's I am of course going to draw comparisons. In terms of appearance, the 95.24's are wider but not as deep. I think the 95.24's do look quite nice but the 99.25's have a more refined look about them….But then they are roughly double the price. One thing I did like over my 99.25's was the speaker-grills having invisible magnetic mounting….I do like magnetic speaker-grills.
How the 95.24's spent their 3 weeks with me
The first 11 days in my conservatory system
I left my Arcam A85 on pretty much all the time for the first 70 hours. Those 70 hours were done either playing radio, some games consol duties, watching TV or playing CD's (Mainly Radio and CD's)
The Last 10 days in my main system
Once I felt that the 95.24's had opened up (more of that later) I placed my 99.25's in the conservatory and used the 95.24's as my front-2 in the living room.
The good thing here is that because I've got both my Yamaha Z7 and Roksan Caspian M-1 series hooked up via a Beresford TC-7220 I can chop and change between a 2-channel hi-fi and my 5.1 system at the push of a button.
How they sound
In my Conservatory system
Hooked up to my Arcam A85 and Marantz CDP these speakers sounded quite nice out of the box, detailed if a little closed-in; bass was a bit dry and not particularly forthright out of the box. I put this down to them being new and needing a few hours under their belt. I also feel that being placed on each end of a dodgy old AV cabinet with a bit blu-tac on each corner will not see the best extracted from any speaker. Having said that, lots of folk will invariably put speakers of this ilk too close together each side of a TV (Just like me) so I felt this was a good thing to report on.
Although the placement of the speakers in my conservatory is far from ideal I soon began to glean a change in their sonic presentation as the hours of play unfolded. Gone was the semi-closed-in sound of < 20 hours play. Once the 95.24's had done about 50 hours (or thereabouts) I really started to notice a more open and separated sound. Bass was more evident, not boomy and certainly what I hoped for given the size of the driver and cabinet.
I could talk more about sound-quality in this section, however, for the purpose of this piece I think I may as well save it for the next section….As I have it all set-up much better in my main system.
In My Living Room (Hifi and Home Cinema)
As I mentioned earlier, I have both Hi-fi and Home Cinema set up here; with my Roksan Caspian and Yamaha Z7 sharing my front-2 via a Beresford TC-7220. The hi-fi side of it also consists of a Marantz CD6003 acting as a transport feeding a Rega DAC into the Roksan. I felt sure that being on stands in a carpeted room would give these speakers a better shot at impressing me over the impediments they faced in my conservatory.
Home Cinema: As I said, this is not my main concern but certainly something I was going to check out. Initially I set my AVR to 2-channel stereo for all my TV viewing; it just made sense to keep the other 3 speakers and sub out of the equation for a few days. In this capacity I found the 95.24's to be very accomplished. If there's anyone out there with a stereo amp looking for a pair of bookshelf's for under £350 to do both music and TV duties; you could do a lot worse than check these XTZ's out. Vocals were clear and at times I found myself sticking an ear against my dormant 99.25 centre speaker to double check sound was not coming out of it…..Enough said I think. In this capacity I preferred the +3db tweeter setting so the tuning-plugs went back in (Preferred the 0db setting when in use with my Arcam in the conservatory for music)
Performance as part of a 5.1 set-up was very good too. I blasted a few blu-rays and it all seemed to flow quite well, especially when considering my centre may not have been the perfect match I was used to. At no point did I sense the 95.24's were lacking, they really did an excellent job in this capacity. For these to act as surrounds/rears in a HT set-up may well be overkill in average size rooms (Like mine for sure)
My main Hi-Fi: So on to a good pasting with my beloved Roksan Caspian. The first CD I grabbed being one of my favourite albums for this sort of thing; Orbital's Insides. The Caspian certainly gave the 95.24's a good workout! I did of course try various types of music.
At moderate to low volumes I was fairly impressed with the dynamics but for me, unless the volume is pumped up a bit I think all speakers have the potential to sound pretty average; others mileage may vary of course. So at decent levels I quickly got a feel for the speaker's character. Depth and soundstage were pretty good I thought with a nice sparkle to the top-end. With music I preferred the tweeter tuning plugs out in both my systems for music (Not for AV). The midrange was pretty good too, I've heard better from a standmount but there was sufficient punch to make me smile with my favourite tracks.
Certainly the 95.24's sounded better in my main system over my Arcam/conservatory system. Whether this was down to room acoustics or different kit in the chain I don't know for sure (bit of both I suspect).If I were to summarize the sound succinctly I'd say… “These speakers follow in the footsteps of my 99.25's in that they are a fairly neutral sounding speaker, able to pick out detail whilst maintaining a reasonably full sound”. These are not “warm” sounding speakers in my opinion but they can dish-out a healthy amount of bass. On the bass front; these are not dainty bookshelf speakers, nor are they monsters, so one would hope they can go low-ish…and I think they do. I'm no REW wizard or anything so measuring the bottom-end wasn't on the cards. However, I am very familiar with my 99.25's on their own and with my SVS SB12+ supporting them, and to me the 95.24's went low enough for a speaker of this size. Not sure what else to say really. I suppose good amplification plays an important part here.
What I liked and what I didn't
Here's a bullet-point affair…handy for those bored by my guff and wanting a quick run-down
For:
• Ribbon Tweeter; top-end sparkle that remained smooth
• Decent mid-range punch
• Option for 0db or +3db tweeter tuning worked very well in my two environments
• Detailed and separated soundstage for the money
• Plenty of fun with good recordings
• Solid build quality
• Magnetically-mounting speaker grills
• Very capable as part of a home cinema system.
• Seemed to partner well with all three of my amps
Against:
• Bit big for my purposes
• Only 3 finish options, one of which is white
• Can sound a bit rough around the edges when pushed hard (maybe I'm spoilt by my 99.25's?)
• Like the 99 series, not great with poor recordings..IMO anyway
Summary
I'd just like to temper some of the minus points here with consideration for the cost of the 95.24's…for the money I think they are very good. I personally think that as long as you have 50 quality watts per channel or above in your amp you'd be hard pressed to find this level of performance for less than £500. And I have heard a few standmounts.
At the end of the day, this is just my take on the speakers after 3 weeks…I liked them and ultimately think they offer excellent value for money. Sadly for me these are a bit big for my requirement and I really would like a light-wood colour finish.
My aim here was to share my humble thoughts; there are plenty of you out there that have forgotten more than I know about hifi / speakers… and a keener ear for quality too, I'm sure. Others may disagree with my thoughts and that's to be expected, after all, speakers are possibly one of the most subjective areas in hi-fi. I just hope this has been of interest as I have really enjoyed my 3 weeks with the 95.24's.
The 95.24's, in my view anyway, do what a lot of good, modern speakers aim to do, and that's to ride two horses at once. By that I mean they are excellent as part of a home cinema system and can also hold their own with 2-channel music. At £345 I genuinely think these are worth checking out given XTZ's trial at home offer.
Thanks for reading
Darren
I recently got an opportunity to check something out from XTZ. I chose these speakers because I've been considering an upgrade from the KEF iQ1's I currently have in my conservatory system. So the bookshelf speaker in XTZ's new 95 range seemed like the logical option for me to explore. My thinking being bolstered by the fact I really like my 99.25's (MkI's) and for the money, I, like many owners, consider them to punch well above their price-tag bracket.
My requirement here is primarily 2-channel music listening; with a bit of TV and gaming duties thrown in here and there….I think the picture below of the KEF's in situ says it all. (My humble retreat from the living room when the wife hits the sky planner and digs out endless episodes of Desperate Housewives)
In any case, I'm not alone in thinking that if a speaker can handle music it will do other duties well too; even if the enclosed manual lists these as “Sats” (The rest of the 95 family also listed as the manual is a generic one for the range)
Lastly, I am mindful of my fondness for my 99.25's, however I don't consider myself to be entrenched in any kind of brand-loyalty; so injecting any sort of hyperbole here is not on the agenda. If anything I think my expectations based on the 99.25's value-for-money factor has the potential to lead to disappointment.
Build quality, finish and general appearance:
The 95.24 are available in 3 finishes, black-ash effect, walnut effect and also a white finish. I have no idea if the white is textured, matt or some sort of wood-grain effect? Anyway, I decided to opt for the black ash to test. I must say I personally would like to have seen an oak, maple or some sort of light-wood version too, even if it replaced the white option….. Though I suspect white goes down well in Sweden.
Upon taking these out of the box I was encouraged by the solid feel and weight of the cabinets. They have curved edges which I think is a nice touch. The ribbon tweeter die-cast aluminium horn thingy looks to be well made with a nice textured feel. The 6.5” polypropylene, titanium- coloured plated drivers look pretty cool too. The binding posts are the usual fare, gold-plated jobbies, taking either banana plugs or bare wire.
Having said all that, I was not completely sold on the overall aesthetics and size. As I said, I would have loved these to come in some sort of light-wood finish like oak or even maple. In terms of the 95.24's size I simply want a smaller speaker for my conservatory system. Both these are just personal niggles, not a fault with the speaker. In fact I suspect a standmount of this size, for this sort of money will appeal to a wide audience.
The 95 range, from what I can gather by looking on XTZ's website is being pitched towards Home Cinema, in part at least. Even so, the 95.24's are a pretty big “Satellite” speaker in my opinion. They're huge compared to my little KEF's, which I already consider a decent size to act as a satellite speaker.
Having a set of 99.25's I am of course going to draw comparisons. In terms of appearance, the 95.24's are wider but not as deep. I think the 95.24's do look quite nice but the 99.25's have a more refined look about them….But then they are roughly double the price. One thing I did like over my 99.25's was the speaker-grills having invisible magnetic mounting….I do like magnetic speaker-grills.
How the 95.24's spent their 3 weeks with me
The first 11 days in my conservatory system
I left my Arcam A85 on pretty much all the time for the first 70 hours. Those 70 hours were done either playing radio, some games consol duties, watching TV or playing CD's (Mainly Radio and CD's)
The Last 10 days in my main system
Once I felt that the 95.24's had opened up (more of that later) I placed my 99.25's in the conservatory and used the 95.24's as my front-2 in the living room.
The good thing here is that because I've got both my Yamaha Z7 and Roksan Caspian M-1 series hooked up via a Beresford TC-7220 I can chop and change between a 2-channel hi-fi and my 5.1 system at the push of a button.
How they sound
In my Conservatory system
Hooked up to my Arcam A85 and Marantz CDP these speakers sounded quite nice out of the box, detailed if a little closed-in; bass was a bit dry and not particularly forthright out of the box. I put this down to them being new and needing a few hours under their belt. I also feel that being placed on each end of a dodgy old AV cabinet with a bit blu-tac on each corner will not see the best extracted from any speaker. Having said that, lots of folk will invariably put speakers of this ilk too close together each side of a TV (Just like me) so I felt this was a good thing to report on.
Although the placement of the speakers in my conservatory is far from ideal I soon began to glean a change in their sonic presentation as the hours of play unfolded. Gone was the semi-closed-in sound of < 20 hours play. Once the 95.24's had done about 50 hours (or thereabouts) I really started to notice a more open and separated sound. Bass was more evident, not boomy and certainly what I hoped for given the size of the driver and cabinet.
I could talk more about sound-quality in this section, however, for the purpose of this piece I think I may as well save it for the next section….As I have it all set-up much better in my main system.
In My Living Room (Hifi and Home Cinema)
As I mentioned earlier, I have both Hi-fi and Home Cinema set up here; with my Roksan Caspian and Yamaha Z7 sharing my front-2 via a Beresford TC-7220. The hi-fi side of it also consists of a Marantz CD6003 acting as a transport feeding a Rega DAC into the Roksan. I felt sure that being on stands in a carpeted room would give these speakers a better shot at impressing me over the impediments they faced in my conservatory.
Home Cinema: As I said, this is not my main concern but certainly something I was going to check out. Initially I set my AVR to 2-channel stereo for all my TV viewing; it just made sense to keep the other 3 speakers and sub out of the equation for a few days. In this capacity I found the 95.24's to be very accomplished. If there's anyone out there with a stereo amp looking for a pair of bookshelf's for under £350 to do both music and TV duties; you could do a lot worse than check these XTZ's out. Vocals were clear and at times I found myself sticking an ear against my dormant 99.25 centre speaker to double check sound was not coming out of it…..Enough said I think. In this capacity I preferred the +3db tweeter setting so the tuning-plugs went back in (Preferred the 0db setting when in use with my Arcam in the conservatory for music)
Performance as part of a 5.1 set-up was very good too. I blasted a few blu-rays and it all seemed to flow quite well, especially when considering my centre may not have been the perfect match I was used to. At no point did I sense the 95.24's were lacking, they really did an excellent job in this capacity. For these to act as surrounds/rears in a HT set-up may well be overkill in average size rooms (Like mine for sure)
My main Hi-Fi: So on to a good pasting with my beloved Roksan Caspian. The first CD I grabbed being one of my favourite albums for this sort of thing; Orbital's Insides. The Caspian certainly gave the 95.24's a good workout! I did of course try various types of music.
At moderate to low volumes I was fairly impressed with the dynamics but for me, unless the volume is pumped up a bit I think all speakers have the potential to sound pretty average; others mileage may vary of course. So at decent levels I quickly got a feel for the speaker's character. Depth and soundstage were pretty good I thought with a nice sparkle to the top-end. With music I preferred the tweeter tuning plugs out in both my systems for music (Not for AV). The midrange was pretty good too, I've heard better from a standmount but there was sufficient punch to make me smile with my favourite tracks.
Certainly the 95.24's sounded better in my main system over my Arcam/conservatory system. Whether this was down to room acoustics or different kit in the chain I don't know for sure (bit of both I suspect).If I were to summarize the sound succinctly I'd say… “These speakers follow in the footsteps of my 99.25's in that they are a fairly neutral sounding speaker, able to pick out detail whilst maintaining a reasonably full sound”. These are not “warm” sounding speakers in my opinion but they can dish-out a healthy amount of bass. On the bass front; these are not dainty bookshelf speakers, nor are they monsters, so one would hope they can go low-ish…and I think they do. I'm no REW wizard or anything so measuring the bottom-end wasn't on the cards. However, I am very familiar with my 99.25's on their own and with my SVS SB12+ supporting them, and to me the 95.24's went low enough for a speaker of this size. Not sure what else to say really. I suppose good amplification plays an important part here.
What I liked and what I didn't
Here's a bullet-point affair…handy for those bored by my guff and wanting a quick run-down
For:
• Ribbon Tweeter; top-end sparkle that remained smooth
• Decent mid-range punch
• Option for 0db or +3db tweeter tuning worked very well in my two environments
• Detailed and separated soundstage for the money
• Plenty of fun with good recordings
• Solid build quality
• Magnetically-mounting speaker grills
• Very capable as part of a home cinema system.
• Seemed to partner well with all three of my amps
Against:
• Bit big for my purposes
• Only 3 finish options, one of which is white
• Can sound a bit rough around the edges when pushed hard (maybe I'm spoilt by my 99.25's?)
• Like the 99 series, not great with poor recordings..IMO anyway
Summary
I'd just like to temper some of the minus points here with consideration for the cost of the 95.24's…for the money I think they are very good. I personally think that as long as you have 50 quality watts per channel or above in your amp you'd be hard pressed to find this level of performance for less than £500. And I have heard a few standmounts.
At the end of the day, this is just my take on the speakers after 3 weeks…I liked them and ultimately think they offer excellent value for money. Sadly for me these are a bit big for my requirement and I really would like a light-wood colour finish.
My aim here was to share my humble thoughts; there are plenty of you out there that have forgotten more than I know about hifi / speakers… and a keener ear for quality too, I'm sure. Others may disagree with my thoughts and that's to be expected, after all, speakers are possibly one of the most subjective areas in hi-fi. I just hope this has been of interest as I have really enjoyed my 3 weeks with the 95.24's.
The 95.24's, in my view anyway, do what a lot of good, modern speakers aim to do, and that's to ride two horses at once. By that I mean they are excellent as part of a home cinema system and can also hold their own with 2-channel music. At £345 I genuinely think these are worth checking out given XTZ's trial at home offer.
Thanks for reading
Darren
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