To give some background to the reason for my purchase of the XTZ speakers, I happened to upgrade my sub to an SVS PC-Plus tube sub and I found that although the bass was massively improved the midrange suffered incredibly.
Voices that used to be clear were a little harder to hear. I don't know why perhaps it was the dramatic shift in the bottom end area that changed the sound spectrum in my living room.
It was this reasoning that made me think about buying some new floorstanders and a centre which would give me a little more in the mid-range.
I live in Newcastle and there isn't a lot of choice when it comes to hi-fi dealers so getting to audition a set of speakers is very difficult. This is where I happen to fall upon XTZ. I found the new range of 89 speakers with a whole host of room tuning features (great when you can't audition speakers) as well as ribbon tweeters. Yes, that was what interested me as they are normally found on much more expensive speakers.
After a bit of measuring and a slight change around in furnishings in my living room I placed my order for an XTZ 89 centre and 89 floorstanders. This was on Tuesday 29 September and they arrived on Friday 2 October. Excellent.
I had also ordered a set of M&K K4 surrounds which I was intending to wall hang in my room to serve as surrounds and they also arrived on Friday.
First thing to mention is that when the XTZ boxes arrived the floorstanders (I have attached a picture) had a lot of dents and the bottom area had almost collapsed. Oh oh I thought. The centre on the other hand looked like it had a newer, better box type packaging which was virtually undamaged.
Anyway I had taken the afternoon off work so I boxed up my trusty SVS SBS 5.0 speakers and proceeded to mount the K4 surrounds and un-box the XTZ's. I was a bit apprehensive about the floorstanders having seen the damage to the boxes but upon opening them I found they were fine.
I then did the same with the centre and was a bit dismayed to find a bit of “damage” to the top left of the speaker. I say damage but I could not say it happened in transit as the area in which the damage is (the black box part of the speaker) has a grey lip and speaker grill which protrude about 10-12mm in front of the black box section and no damage was present here. In fact I think it's a manufacturing defect on the finish of the box. I also inspected the floorstanders and found a slight defect on the grey lip where it connects to the black box on the top (pictures are all attached).
I am not too bothered about this as it's hard to see unless you take out a magnifying glass.
So having unboxed everything I then set about connecting everything up to see what the sound is like. I opted to run the set-up with the damaged centre as I had already boxed up my SVS one and I wanted to have a tonal balance across the front.
Well having re-run Audessy on my Onkyo 875 amp I set about watching some general TV viewing. The first thing that hits you with the speakers is how clear and detailed the treble is. It's much, much better than my old SVS speakers.
I opted to run the fronts and centre without any bungs at first and found the mid-range and bass disappointing. However, I do know that this is one of the things with XTZ speakers and they do need a lot of running in. Having watched a variety of TV viewing including music on VH1 and Q and Kerrang I was unimpressed with the mid and low range of the speakers, there was just nothing there. So I followed the advice in the manual and bunged one port in the centre and both the upper ports in the floorstanders.
I made a lot of difference to the mid-range. Still though I thought the sound could be better. So we had a night of DVD viewing with the speakers running in and the system as a whole (including my sub and new surrounds) are a far better system than the old complete SVS speaker set-up I had before.
To describe the sound the speakers are much more open and clarity is far superior to the SVS SBS system. Also details which were unheard of before are now there. Take for example Transformers on HD DVD. The bits when the robots blink and transform give you a host of new nuances that simply were there before. Midrange is also excellent and voices are clear as a whistle without any nasal noise, sibilance or distortion (well not in my room anyway).
Now I can't tell you what drivers these speakers use as they have been bought out of my own pocket I am not keen to start taking them apart.
However I am sure XTZ can confirm what the tweeter is as well as the drivers? I do know that the floorstanding speakers are two and a half way so they have a ribbon tweeter, a driver for the midrange and then an identical driver to take care of lower frequencies. I did a lot of research on ribbon tweeters and there are reports that they can sound “separate” to the rest of the speaker but the sound definitely doesn't sound this way to me.
Well did I get an improvement in midrange (which I was wanting). It's a definite yes they have a lot more presence and even now listening to music there is a massive difference to when I first fired them up. I am hoping that the improvement continues for the next few weeks when they should have run in (it is suggested they can take up to 100 hours to do this).
How does the centre compare? Well to me it blends with the floorstanders very well and again there is a much more open and clear sound stage. Combined there is a lot more presence, like the events you are watching are actually unfolding right in the corner of your room where your TV happens to be.
One thing I should mention is that ribbon tweeters are well known to have a poor vertical sound throw. Now my SVS centre had a basic painted wooden stand which allowed you to angle it up to your hearing position. This is something I think XTZ should seriously consider. I am going to have to devise something to angle the speaker when I get a replacement centre.
I will of course update this thread when they are properly run in.
So to conclude:
Pro's:
1) Excellent sound and great value for money.
2) Fast delivery (well to me anyway)
3) Room tuning so you can make changes to suit your own room requirements.
Con's
1) Finish could be better. Fronts aren't perfect I am talking about the edges in particular.
2) As the centre has a ribbon tweeter it should have a tilt system.
3) Ended up with a “damaged” speaker. I am convinced this did not happen in transit but it is more a finishing defect. However this links to the 1st point and could just be a one off.