TacT Audio RCS 2.2 XP User Manual

Owner’s Manual

RCS 2.2 XP

Preamplifi er /

Dynamic Room Correction System

3

Tact Audio

WARNING

TO REDUCE THE RISK OF FIRE OR ELECTRIC SHOCK, DO

CAUTION

The exclamation point within an equilateral triangle is intended to alert the

The lightning with arrowhead symbol within an equilateral triangle is

the product’s enclosure that may be of suffi cient magnitude to constitute

CAUTIONCAUTION

4

Tact Audio

1. Read these instructions entirely before installing or operating this equip­ment.

2. Keep these instructions.

3. Heed all warnings.

4. Do not use this equipment near water or allow it to become wet.

5. Do not block any ventilation openings. Install in accordance with the manufac­turer’s instructions.

6. Do not install near any heat sources such as radiators, heat registers, stoves,
or other appliances (including amplifi ers) that produce heat; doing so may
damage the unit and present a fi re hazard.

7. Do not defeat the safety purpose of the polarized or grounding-type plug. A
polarized plug has two blades with one wider than the other. If the provided
plug does not fi t into your outlet, consult an electrician for replacement of the
outlet to one that is polarized. To protect against electrical shock, match the
wide blade of the polarized plug to the wide slot in the outlet and fully insert
the plug.

8. Protect the power cord from being walked on or pinched, particularly at plugs,
convenience receptacles, and the point where they exit the equipment. Do not
use this unit with a damaged cord or plug.

9. Only use attachments/accessories specifi ed by the manufacturer.

10. Unplug this equipment during lightning storms or when unused for long peri­ods of time.

11. Refer all servicing to qualifi ed service personnel.

1. Always unplug the unit from the electrical outlet before cleaning.

2. Do not use abrasive cleaners. Simply wipe the exterior with a clean soft cloth.
A small amount of nonabrasive cleaner may be used on the cloth to remove
excessive dirt or fi ngerprints.

The >note< symbol indicates information very useful or essential to daily
operation.

Tact Audio

future upgrades or should you ever require service on your RCS 2.2 XP Pream-

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written consent of the Tact Audio Corporation.

The information contained in this document is subject to change without

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Tact Audio

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Main screen 28

30

MODE menu 31

ADC menu 32

DOUT FS menu 33

POL menu 34

TEST menu 34

DISPLAY menu 35

COMM menu 36

AMP menu 37

OPTIONS menu 38

LOCK menu 39

MSR menu 40

INFO menu 40

LEVELS menu 42

DELAYS menu 42

NAMES menu 43

CRO menu 43

MSR menu 44

4

LINK option 47

TABLE menu 48

Tact AudioTact AudioTact Audio

2.2

Carefully remove the RCS 2.2 XP and accessory kit from the carton and visually
check for shipping damage. Contact both the shipper and TacT Audio immediately
if the unit shows any sign of damage from rough handling. All TacT Audio equip­ment is carefully inspected before leaving our factory.

KEEP SHIPPING CARTON AND PACKING MATERIALS for future use or in the
unlikely event that the unit needs servicing. If this unit is shipped without the
original packing, damage could occur and void the warranty.

You should fi nd the following items in the accessory kit:

The RCS 2.2 XP is designed with an automatic switching power supply. It will oper-

The RCS 2.2X has three operating modes:

The unit is powered but all outputs are muted and the display

toggle between ON and STANDBY.

Tact Audio

The RCS 2.2 XP has four times the processing power of the famous TacT RCS

2.0 and even better AD and DA conversion. This now combined with new fea­tures and a more user-friendly interface takes TacT Audio’s room correction to
new heights. The RCS 2.2 XP has no noise and extremely low distortion, yielding
amazingly transparent accurate sound. Every eff ort has been made to make this
preamplifi er the best that money can buy. Add to this the latest evolution of TacT
Audio’s room correction technology and the result is absolutely staggering.

TacT room correction technology has been praised by the press all around the
world. Comments like “Wholesale improvement in sound quality” have become
a standard phrase for reviewers describing the results that can be achieved with
TacT’s room correction. Now we have taken room correction technology even
further, not only in terms of processing power, but also in terms of the measure­ment and correction systems. The measurement is now done with a triple pulse
for each acquisition. This increases the measurement resolution in both the time
and frequency domains. Correction resolution is now four times higher than found
in the original RCS 2.0.

One of the most exciting features of the RCS 2.2 XP is its separate subwoofer
output. The RCS 2.2X P can be used with one or (preferably) two subwoofers. An
electronic crossover can be set with a frequency between 60 and 400 Hz and a
slope between 12 dB/octave and 60 dB/octave to split the audio signal between
the main and subwoofer outputs. The correction software aligns the sub-woofer(s)
with the main speakers in the time domain and in the frequency domain, for com­pletely seamless integration surpassing even the best single-box systems.

CAUTIONCAUTION

With the RCS 2.2 XP, you can add subwoofers to an existing High End speaker
system for substantial sonic improvements. Preferably, the subwoofers should be
placed in the corners behind the main speakers. Corner placement of the sub­woofers will yield much higher effi ciency with signifi cantly reduced low-frequency
distortion. But more importantly, the transfer of energy from the sub to the listening
position will be much more direct, resulting in vastly improved impulse response.
The room correction system will easily compensate for the frequency response
variations of the subs introduced by corner placement. It will delay the main
speakers for perfect time alignment to within 1/8 of an inch.

The RCS 2.2 XP off ers you the opportunity to add subwoofers to a system and
improve the transient response tremendously at the same. This contrasts sharply
with the normal result of adding subwoofers to a system: slow – undefi ned bass
with lots of frequency and time behavior problems. If the separate subwoofer

outputs are not used, then the RCS 2.2X will use all the processing power on the main
speakers.

Tact Audio

True

Upgradeability

future interfaces.

features can be loaded through the RS232 port with fi rmware upgrades.

It is our

policy to offer software upgrades at no cost, and we therefore encourage you to

CAUTIONCAUTION

Tact Audio

Dynamic Room Correction (DRC) ® is new technology developed by Tact Audio
Inc. over past two years. This groundbreaking brings the science and art of Room
Correction, and specifi cally Tact room correction products, to yet another level.

When we introduced our fi rst RCS system (the Tact-2.2 in the late 90’s) we were
fully aware that we were embarking on a long term research process in the new
exciting fi eld of room acoustics correction. As a result of this research effort we
brought to the market products such as Tact-2.0 S two channel RCS preamp, the
Tact-2.2 X two channel preamp with RCS on two main and two subwoofer chan­nels, and the TCS MKII ten channel theater correction system. All these systems
offer RCS technology not found in any other product on the market. Our contin­ued research combined with enormously valuable feedback from our customers
has resulted in this new technology that we named Dynamic Room Correction
(DRC)®.

Why do we call it Dynamic Room Correction (DRC)?

The reason we call it DRC is that the target curve used to compute correction fi l­ters dynamically changes with the master level control. In another words, for every

0.1 dB of level change the system uses a new target curve to compute room cor-

rection fi lters. What makes this dynamic is that all computations and adjustments
are done on the fl y without any interruption to the music you listen to.

Why do we need Dynamic Room Correction (DRC)?

It is well known fact that humans do not here all frequencies at the same level.
It is also known that our ears are more sensitive to frequencies between 2000
and 5000 Hz than to frequencies bellow 2000 Hz and above 5000 Hz. In addi­tion to this our hearing sensitivity changes with sound pressure level (SPL). This
human hearing property was fi rst discovered and experimentally confi rmed by
Fletcher and Munson at Bell Laboratories in 1933 and later refi ned by Robinson
and Dadson in 1956. Their work resulted in a family of equal loudness curves
(contours), widely known as Fletcher-Munson equal loudness curves. A sample of
Fletcher-Munson loudness curves is shown in the fi gure bellow.

On the graph there are 12 curves numbered from 0 to 110. These numbers repre­sent the loudness level in phons. A Phon is a unit used to describe the loudness
level of a given sound. The reason for introducing the loudness unit is that two
sounds with the same SPL (dB) do not necessarily have the same perceived loud­ness. Phon is equal to SPL in decibels at 1000 Hz. For example, 80 phons means
as loud as 80 dB, 1000 Hz tone.

Equal loudness curves represent the SPL that different frequencies need to have
in order to be perceived as two tones of equal loudness. For example, a 200 Hz
tone at SPL of 50 dB will have the same perceived loudness as a 1000 Hz tone at
SPL of 40 dB. In this case both 200 Hz and 1000 Hz tones have a loudness of 40
phons, and they both belong to the 40 phons equal loudness curve.

As it can be seen from the graph, in comparison to frequencies between 2000
and 5000 Hz, it is intrinsically harder for us to hear very low frequencies (below a
few hundred Hz) and to a lesser extent very high frequencies (above 7000 Hz). At
higher listening levels this difference gradually becomes smaller and smaller and
curves become fl atter.

Tact Audio

Traditional Tact room correction systems use one target curve that allows for
full range 20-20,000 Hz room corrections. Once selected, the same target curve
(same set of correction fi lters) was used at all listening levels. This approach did
not take in account the fact that our sound perception, as described by Fletcher­Munson curves, is frequency and level dependent. Many of our customers have
realized this fact and they have used the nine correction presets (available on all
our RCS products) to program 2.0 S, 2.2 X and TCS MKII with nine different target
curves each corresponding to a different listening level. In this way they were able
to take into account the equal loudness curve effect by switching to new target
curves as the master level changes.

Thus for a number of reasons it is clear that we need a room correction system
that will perform room acoustics correction and at the same time dynamically
change the target curve (correction fi lters) as the system listening level changes.

How does it work?

Dynamic Room Correction (DRC) offers a very sophisticated way of handling a
multi target curve approach to solving equal loudness curve problem. The system
is based on one reference target curve and eight additional target curves called
dynamic target curves. The reference target curve is used to perform basic refer­ence room correction. Dynamic target curves are labeled 0, -6, -12, -18, -24, -30,

-36 and –42 dB and are combined with the reference target curve to obtain the

fi nal target curve used to calculate correction fi lters.

For example, if the master level reads –10.3 dB (89.6 on the relative readout) the
system will use the –6 dB and the –12 dB dynamic target curves and by interpola­tion will calculate a target curve corresponding to –10.3 dB. After that the system
will combine the 10.3 dB target curve with the reference curve to obtain the fi nal
target curve that is then used to calculate the correction fi lters. New correction
fi lters are loaded into the signal path as the music is playing and the new correc­tion takes effect in a split of a second. The same process repeats again for any
new master level setting.

CAUTIONCAUTION

Tact Audio

ROOM CORRECTION

Tact-2.2 XP can now perform room correction automatically from the 2.2 XP front
panel user interface, without the need for an PC software.

The automatic room correction feature is designed to perform the entire room cor­rection process without using a PC interface. The Tact-2.2 XP has suffi cient DSP
processing power to perform room measurement, crossover fi lter design, target
curve generation and correction fi lter calculation. The entire process is controlled
from the 2.2 XP front panel DRC-RCS menu. Target curve and crossover fi lter
adjustments can be made on the fl y while the music is playing. Users can, for ex­ample, specify a boost at low frequencies or a roll-off at high frequencies. Values
of the ‘low’ and ‘high’ frequencies can also be adjusted.

PC based room correction requires that the 2.2 XP is connected to the RS232 port
of a PC. PC software is used just as a GUI (graphical user interface) to provide
the user with a graphical presentation of the correction process. After the room
response measurement is completed, the room frequency response for all mea­sured channels can be displayed on the screen. Crossover fi lters and actual cor­rection fi lters can be viewed. The displayed graphs provide valuable information
that helps users design their own optimum target curve.

The Tact-2.2 XP memorizes two sets of target curves: computer generated and
automatically generated target curves. When the automatic feature is turned OFF,
the 2.2 XP will use a computer generated set of target curves. When the automatic
feature is turned ON, the 2.2 XP uses target curves generated by the 2.2 XP front
panel automatic correction feature.

When the 2.2 XP is connected to a PC and the automatic feature is enabled, au­tomatically generated target curves will be uploaded into the RCS/DRC screen.
The curves can than be saved or modifi ed. Modifi ed curves can than be loaded
back into the 2.2 XP. However, the uploaded curves will not take effect until the
automatic feature is disabled. Any target curve uploaded to 2.2 XP is saved as
a PC generated target curve and takes effect only when the automatic feature is
disabled. In another words, if a target curve is to be modifi ed by the PC software,
the automatic correction feature has to be disabled.

This following describes the automatic room correction process for all 2.2 XP
operating modes.

Tact Audio

This operating mode assumes a stereo system consisting of two main channels
and two subwoofers. To select 2.2 mode from the main screen, click on the MENU
button, and then select the MODE menu. In MODE menu, click on the STEREO

2.2 option. This will select 2.2 mode and will display it on top of the screen (1)

Fig.1.

Fig. 1. Mode menu. 2.2 mode selection is displayed in the upper left corner (1).

To perform 2.2 mode automatic room correction go through the following steps:

1. Correction Bypass. Place 2.2 XP in correction bypass mode. You can place

2.2 XP in bypass mode by pressing on the BP remote control button or by using

the front panel controls.

Fig. 2. Tact-2.2 XP main screen. Note a ‘*’ next to BP. It indicates that BP – bypass
mode is selected.

2. Crossover Filters Off. Make sure that crossover fi lter option is set to OFF. It

is important that all measurements are performed without any crossover fi ltering.
If your loudspeakers have built in electronic crossover fi lters, make sure that they
are disabled. If crossover fi lters could not be disabled, set the subwoofer crossover
fi lter to its highest frequency and main channel to its lowest cut off frequency.

To disable crossover fi lters enter the

RCS-DRC menu and select the CRO-

ON(OFF) option in Fig.3 to enter Crossover screen Fig. 4.

Fig. 3. RCS-DRC screen.

CAUTIONCAUTION

Tact Audio

Fig. 4. Crossover menu. CRO: OFF indicates that crossover fi lters are disabled

Crossover fi lters can be turned OFF from the front panel crossover menu (Fig. 4).
Place the screen cursor over the CRO: ON menu option and then press the enter
button (click) until it displays CRO: OFF, and then click on SET option.. Please
note that any change made on this screen does not take effect until you click on
the SET option.

Click on the MENU button to go back to the DRC-RCS screen, Fig. 3.

3. Measurements. To perform room response measurements, select the MSR

menu option to display the measurement screen (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5. Measurement screen.

The 2.2 XP is factory confi gured to measurement parameters as displayed in Fig.

5. The MSR MIC CAL option should be turned ON and the MIC FILE fi eld should

display the microphone serial number as printed on your microphone

MSR MIC CAL. When this option is set to ON, the room correction algorithm will
apply the microphone calibration fi le to the measurement data. When this option
is set to OFF, the microphone calibration fi le is ignored.

MIC FILE. This fi eld displays the microphone fi le name used to perform micro­phone calibration. The microphone calibration fi le data is saved in 2.2 XP internal
memory. For more details on how to transfer microphone calibrations fi le to 2.2 XP
memory, please refer to the Microphone section of the PC software manual.

AVG This is a very important measurement parameter. It equals the number of
measurements that are averaged prior to being saved. The averaging process
reduces the effects of random environmental noise. Typical Average values go
from 10 to 30.

Tact Audio

DELAY. If you do not want to be in the room while measurement is in progress,
set this parameter to a few seconds to allow you to exit the room. For example, if
DELAY = 10 the system will wait for 10 seconds before it starts pulsing.

PULSE. This parameter sets the relative level of the output measurement pulse.
Minimum level is 1% and maximum level is 100%.

FILE. Use this option to assign a File number to the measurement you are just
about to perform. At the end of the measurement process, the measurement data
for all four channels will be saved in the selected File number. Tact-2.2 XP sup­ports up to seven measurement fi les. In another words you can save up to seven
different measurements in 2.2 XP internal memory.

Use L, R, SL and SR options to select (enable) a channel for measurement.
Channels are labeled as L for left, R for right, SL for subwoofer left and SR for
subwoofer right channel. Selected (enabled) channels are marked by a rectangle.
To select or deselect a channel place the cursor over desired channel and press
ENTER button.

In most cases, factory presets are optimum and users can proceed directly with
peforming actual measurements. To initiate the room measurement process, click
on the START button. The following screen will be displayed:

Fig. 6. Microphone calibration and measurement screen

After the measurements are completed, click on the

EXIT option and then click
on the MENU button to go back to the DRC-RCS screen (Fig. 3). At any time dur­ing the measurement process you can click on the CANCEL option to cancel the
process. After the measurement is completed or the measurement was canceled,
the CANCEL option changes its name to EXIT.