Gary
06-27-2005, 10:18 PM
Polk XRT12 XM Tuner
OK I’ll admit it, I’m a XM junkie. I’m a big time jazz fan and the state of local jazz radio is very grim in this part of the world, so as soon as I heard about XM, I knew it was for me. This year when they added baseball, that was just icing on the cake. Since moving from my native Illinois, I have missed listening to my Cubs, so when the XRT12 became available I picked one up for my home. It gave me the chance to evaluate it for my client’s, while listening to Pat and Ron give the play by play.
So then.
Unlike most other XM tuners, the XRT12 is a designed to be a home stereo component. It is 17" wide by 2.3" high by 10.5" deep and weights 5 pounds. I not going to spend a lot of time on sound quality as that is not the purpose of this review, but it includes Burr-Brown Digital-to-Analog Converters, it has both coax and optical digital as well as RCA analog outputs. Considering the compressed nature of XM, sound quality is very good, it's not going to satisfy hard core audiophiles but it is easily the best sounding XM radio I’ve heard.
http://xm.polkaudio.com/images/tuner.jpg
Moving along.
Beyond control, the biggest problem other XM tuners have is poor line level output voltage, this is not a problem with this tuner, there was no drop in volume level when switching between other sources in my system.
One of the coolest things about the XRT12 is the on screen display; the unit features a composite video out that allows the user to browse channels and get feedback of current channel, artist, and song right on their TV.
I want to applaud Polk for taking control into consideration; most companies never even consider the needs of integrators. For that they get some well deserved dap.
That said, there's some good and bad with the control side of this product.
I’ll start with the good, discrete IR for power and a 12 trigger; giving integrators two ways to assure that the unit is on. The first units used RC5 codes with a toggle bit, just like the Delphi tuners, making them very difficult for most learning remotes. Polk quickly realized their mistake and had a firmware update on their website to fix this issue.
I tried IR control with both RTI and Home Theater Master remotes, both with great results. It has no problem excepting commands in rapid succession and favorite macros were incredibly reliable.
In my system, I'm using the 12volt trigger from my B&K receiver to control power.
The following is a list of supported IR commands from the Polk install guide.
Power On/Off (toggle)
Discrete Power On
Discrete Power Off
Select Next
Next Category
XM – Enter
Last Category
Select Last
Mute
Preset/Direct
Jump
“1 “
“2 “
“3”
“4 “
“5 “
“6 “
“7 “
“8 “
“9 “
“0 “
Display
Menu
I have also found that the unit responds to the channel up/down commands from the Delphi tuner.
There are a couple glaring omissions, no discrete commands for Preset Mode and Direct Channel Mode. It would also be nice to have a rear IR input.
If you plan on using this tuner with IR control through a distributed video systems, it’s a real winner.
On the other hand, serial control although available, is a mess. I’m sure Polk had good intentions, but you know what they say about that.
The serial protocol duplicates all the functions of the remote control plus gives you direct channel and preset select. That’s where the good news ends.
Feedback is provided for channel number, channel name, song name, antenna signal strength, and radio ID. These must be polled for; this is a small nuisance but a pain just the same.
Here’s a sample from the install guide:
System response for the 'Get' commands are as follows:
GetSongInformation (return command)
Current Channel Artist Name: B.B. King (1 blank space + 16 characters + return command)
Current Channel Song Title: Take It Home (1 blank space + 16 characters + return command)
The big problem with the protocol is the lack of anyway to scroll through channels. Although the protocol includes the category next/last commands and select next/last command, without feedback they’re useless. So you can get song and station data on a touchpanel, but you can’t do much with it. In my system I tried using the channel up/down IR commands in concert with polling and the result was less than useful.
In conclusion if you’re using a distributed video system with the TV for feedback this unit is for you, sounds great, very reliable, looks very slick. If you want something that plays nice with Crestron or AMX, keep looking.
It’s still not as good as sitting in the bleachers with a cold dog and a warm Old Style, but I’ll think I’ll keep mine, I just won’t sell it to my Crestron clients.
http://xm.polkaudio.com/
http://www.xmradio.com/
OK I’ll admit it, I’m a XM junkie. I’m a big time jazz fan and the state of local jazz radio is very grim in this part of the world, so as soon as I heard about XM, I knew it was for me. This year when they added baseball, that was just icing on the cake. Since moving from my native Illinois, I have missed listening to my Cubs, so when the XRT12 became available I picked one up for my home. It gave me the chance to evaluate it for my client’s, while listening to Pat and Ron give the play by play.
So then.
Unlike most other XM tuners, the XRT12 is a designed to be a home stereo component. It is 17" wide by 2.3" high by 10.5" deep and weights 5 pounds. I not going to spend a lot of time on sound quality as that is not the purpose of this review, but it includes Burr-Brown Digital-to-Analog Converters, it has both coax and optical digital as well as RCA analog outputs. Considering the compressed nature of XM, sound quality is very good, it's not going to satisfy hard core audiophiles but it is easily the best sounding XM radio I’ve heard.
http://xm.polkaudio.com/images/tuner.jpg
Moving along.
Beyond control, the biggest problem other XM tuners have is poor line level output voltage, this is not a problem with this tuner, there was no drop in volume level when switching between other sources in my system.
One of the coolest things about the XRT12 is the on screen display; the unit features a composite video out that allows the user to browse channels and get feedback of current channel, artist, and song right on their TV.
I want to applaud Polk for taking control into consideration; most companies never even consider the needs of integrators. For that they get some well deserved dap.
That said, there's some good and bad with the control side of this product.
I’ll start with the good, discrete IR for power and a 12 trigger; giving integrators two ways to assure that the unit is on. The first units used RC5 codes with a toggle bit, just like the Delphi tuners, making them very difficult for most learning remotes. Polk quickly realized their mistake and had a firmware update on their website to fix this issue.
I tried IR control with both RTI and Home Theater Master remotes, both with great results. It has no problem excepting commands in rapid succession and favorite macros were incredibly reliable.
In my system, I'm using the 12volt trigger from my B&K receiver to control power.
The following is a list of supported IR commands from the Polk install guide.
Power On/Off (toggle)
Discrete Power On
Discrete Power Off
Select Next
Next Category
XM – Enter
Last Category
Select Last
Mute
Preset/Direct
Jump
“1 “
“2 “
“3”
“4 “
“5 “
“6 “
“7 “
“8 “
“9 “
“0 “
Display
Menu
I have also found that the unit responds to the channel up/down commands from the Delphi tuner.
There are a couple glaring omissions, no discrete commands for Preset Mode and Direct Channel Mode. It would also be nice to have a rear IR input.
If you plan on using this tuner with IR control through a distributed video systems, it’s a real winner.
On the other hand, serial control although available, is a mess. I’m sure Polk had good intentions, but you know what they say about that.
The serial protocol duplicates all the functions of the remote control plus gives you direct channel and preset select. That’s where the good news ends.
Feedback is provided for channel number, channel name, song name, antenna signal strength, and radio ID. These must be polled for; this is a small nuisance but a pain just the same.
Here’s a sample from the install guide:
System response for the 'Get' commands are as follows:
GetSongInformation (return command)
Current Channel Artist Name: B.B. King (1 blank space + 16 characters + return command)
Current Channel Song Title: Take It Home (1 blank space + 16 characters + return command)
The big problem with the protocol is the lack of anyway to scroll through channels. Although the protocol includes the category next/last commands and select next/last command, without feedback they’re useless. So you can get song and station data on a touchpanel, but you can’t do much with it. In my system I tried using the channel up/down IR commands in concert with polling and the result was less than useful.
In conclusion if you’re using a distributed video system with the TV for feedback this unit is for you, sounds great, very reliable, looks very slick. If you want something that plays nice with Crestron or AMX, keep looking.
It’s still not as good as sitting in the bleachers with a cold dog and a warm Old Style, but I’ll think I’ll keep mine, I just won’t sell it to my Crestron clients.
http://xm.polkaudio.com/
http://www.xmradio.com/