Datacolor SpyderX Colorimeter with ChromaPure

Note: Datacolor (the meter manufacturer) offers different retail PC/Mac monitor calibration packages that include the SpyderX meter, one of which they call the 'SpyderX Pro'. This is unrelated to the SpyderX PRO enhanced accuracy meter we offer here. The various Datacolor packages differ only in software and accessories. The meter is exactly the same in all of their retail packages and is not enhanced for 10+ display types like ours.

Questions? Contact us.

SpyderX PRO bundles include a free Calibration Accessories Bundle.

SpyderX PRO (enhanced version of the SpyderX) + ChromaPure Standard

Includes free Calibration Accessories Bundle

The PRO version offers substantially enhanced accuracy across a wide range of displays

SpyderX PRO
(enhanced version of the SpyderX)
for existing ChromaPure customers

The PRO version offers substantially enhanced accuracy across a wide range of displays

SpyderX + ChromaPure Standard

Don't want the enhanced (PRO) meter? Purchase ChromaPure software here and the meter at:

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UPGRADES & ACCESSORIES:

Upgrade a SpyderX to PRO
(same as recalibration)

You pay for shipping to us and for US customers we pay for shipping back to you.
ChromaPure licence required (not included).

Add a new correction mode to a SpyderX PRO

You pay for shipping to us and for US customers we pay for shipping back to you.
ChromaPure licence required (not included).

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Orders ship directly from our ChromaPure partner in Missouri, USA.

We've worked out an exclusive deal for our members to bring you this product at a price lower than what everyone else pays anywhere on the internet. Buy direct from our ChromaPure partner at prices lower than buying off their own website. Same product, same support, just more money in your pocket at the end of the day.

If you have been interested in calibrating your own displays but have been deterred by the high cost of color meters and good software, this meter is for you. Finally, professional quality results at a non-pro price.

The SpyderX colorimeter is by far the best Spyder colorimeter that Datacolor has ever offered. It provides massive improvements in speed and low-light sensitivity over previous Spyders.

For the last several years the X-Rite i1Display Pro /i1Display Pro Plus (Display 3) has pretty much been the only game in town when it comes to affordable, serious display calibration. Datacolor offered the Spyder range of colorimeters at a substantially lower price, but their performance has not been competitive with the X-Rite alternative so we've never sold them or recommended them. In 2019 Datacolor released the next generation of Spyder colorimeters, the SpyderX. X-Rite now has some serious competition. To be clear, the SpyderX performs substantially better than all previous Spyder instruments such that X-Rite finally has some competition.

Colorimeter performance is defined by three criteria: Color accuracy, low-light sensitivity, and speed. Of these color accuracy is the least important, because color errors can always be corrected by a better instrument (if you happen to have one of course). However, speed and low-light sensitivity are baked into the colorimeter's design and nothing can be done about either without reengineering the device.

The SpyderX PRO takes the regular SpyderX one step further and offers professional grade accuracy at a price affordable to the amateur hobbyist or enthusiast. (Complete details and tests below).

Like the i1Display Pro, the SpyderX is also one of the easiest devices to use because it requires no dark reading calibration nor external drivers (support is built-in to Windows).

How does the Datacolor SpyderX compare to the X-Rite i1Display Pro / i1Display Pro Plus?

While the speed and the accuracy of the SpyderX is similar to the X-Rite i1Display Pro (Display 3), there are a few differences that users should be aware of:

Our recommendation: If you never plan on calibrating projectors and want a slightly lower cost open to the Display 3 PRO, the SpyderX PRO is the meter for you. If you're a serious enthusiast or a professional, look at the Display 3 PRO as your entry level model for only a few dollars more.

The SpyderX colorimeter is by far the best Spyder colorimeter that Datacolor has ever offered. It provides massive improvements in speed and low-light sensitivity over previous Spyders.

To test color accuracy compared the new SpyderX aginst the previous Spyder5 model. To do this we simply measured 11-point grayscale and the primary and secondary colors with both. Next, we repeated the measurements after correcting a Colorimetry Research CR-100 colorimeter with the Colorimetry Research CR-300 reference spectroradiometer. Finally we compared the x and y values of each set of measurements. This defines the color error.

To evaluate speed we imported a custom list of colors into ChromaPure's Raw data module, which were just the grayscale in 1% increments from 100% down to 5%. Next, we measured using each of the Spyder meters. Finally, we took note of how much time was required to measure the entire list of 95 grayscale values.

To evaluate low-light sensitivity we measured subsequently lower grayscale values starting at 8% with each Spyder meter stepping down one 8-bit code value at a time. For this test we used the Accupel 6000 test pattern generator and a 2018 LG OLED. Finally, we noted the lowest point at which the meter would continue to return reasonably consistent luminance measurements. For this test we did not consider color performance.

As you can see, the SpyderX's grayscale accuracy is substantially better than the Spyder5. However, this result is a little misleading. Because the SpyderX benefits from substantially improved low-light sensitivity, the bulk of the Spyder5 color error is in the 5% reading. At 10% and above the Spyder5 is actually slightly more accurate than the SpyderX. With respect to color accuracy, the two meters measured the same. The SpyderX's accuracy is comparable to the i1Display Pro (Display 3).

The low-light sensitivity of the SpyderX is more than 10 times better than the Spyder5. However, it must be noted that the SpyderX's low-light sensitivity is still considerably inferior to the X-Rite i1Display Pro, which can read as low as about 0.0025 nits in its optimum mode. In most cases this difference won't matter because 0.028 is more than adequate to measure 5% grayscale. The only instance in which this will matter is measuring the black level of a very high contrast flat panel The SpyderX will measure the black level of any flat panel whose contrast is up to 5,300:1 (assuming a peak white of 150 nits). Contrast above that all the way up to about 50,000:1 the i1Display Pro will be a better choice. Contrast on OLEDs is unmeasurable by any instrument.

The SpyderX is more than twice as fast as the Spyder5 and is comparable to the i1Display Pro. This is no small matter, especially whenever you capture a large sequence of readings.

Tests were performed for color accuracy on different display types along with repeatability.

As you can see, the average xy error is between 0.003-0.006, and the average dE error is 1.3-2.0. As before, these errors are comparable to what we see with the i1 Display Pro. One interesting feature of the SpyderX that we discovered involved its optimal operating mode. The instrument includes four modes:

We discovered that the most accurate color measurements were obtained by using the Wide LED mode regardless of the display type. For example, we obtained more accurate readings using this mode with plasma, despite the fact that the plasma was neither a LED nor wide gamut.

Repeatability is an important area of performance because without it you cannot trust any individual reading if the readings change substantially each time you measure. This test includes 10 consecutive measurements of 10% grayscale, which is a good stress test for repeatability.

These are very good results. At 20% grayscale and above the repeatability is nearly perfect.

No. The meters sold by us are NOT password protected or altered in any way, so they may be used with other software products.

Some vendors password-protect or alter meters such that their software will only work with meter(s) sold by them as well as not allowing their meter(s) to work with other software.

As a policy we do not password-protect or alter the meters we sell in any way. Once you purchase a meter from us, it is yours to do with as you wish.

Yes. For the same modest fee, your SpyderX can (and should) be periodically recalibrated to the same PRO level to ensure it retains its initial accuracy. This service eliminates the problems associated with exposure to the elements over time. We recommend doing this yearly. See our BUY NOW buttons above. You pay for shipping to us and for US customers we pay for shipping back to you. (International customers pay shipping in both directions)

The service includes a certificate of calibration that itemizes all the corrections that were applied to the meter.

The SpyderX is not ideal for projectors. If you wish to calibrate projectors we recommend the i1 Display Pro (Display 3). This is because the SpyderX has no illuminance mode, so all projector readings must be taken off the screen. Sometimes it is useful to take readings directly from the projector lens to get more light into the sensor. The i1 Display Pro includes a diffuser that is put into the light path whenever taking lens readings. The SpyderX does not. Users may be able to use the SpyderX meter in this way by employing an aftermarket diffuser, but we have not tested this.

While the SpyderX is a massive step forward in terms of performance when compared to previous Spyder models, it's still an affordable mass-market device whose tolerances fall short of professional color analyzers. Our ChromaPure partner has developed a version of the SpyderX which we've named the SpyderX PRO, that offers substantially enhanced accuracy across multiple display types including:

NOTE: Datacolor offers different versions of SpyderX monitor calibration packages, one of which they also call SpyderX Pro. This is unrelated to our SpyderX PRO sold here. The various Datacolor packages differ only in software and accessories. The meter is exactly the same in all and does not include any special adjustments for enhanced accuracy against the different display technologies listed above.

The result? The SpyderX PRO is a colorimeter that offers professional grade performance at a price affordable to the amateur hobbyist or enthusiast. Our tests show that the SpyderX PRO offers accuracy for color and the white point that in the majority of cases exceeds that of the i1Pro. Furthermore, its luminance readings are far superior to the i1Pro, both in terms of general accuracy and certainly in dynamic range. Quite simply, we believe that this the best sub-$500 meter for video calibration on the market today. Is it a true reference device? No. But at this price it comes as close as any device we are aware of to this standard.

Using a professional 2nm spectroradiometer, our ChromaPure partner corrects each individually SpyderX for 18 different display types. These corrections are then built-in to your ChromaPure license file. When you initialize the meter within ChromaPure you are asked to select the measurement mode that represent the display types for which the meter has been corrected. Selecting a measurement mode automatically applies the appropriate correction. This way, the inexpensive colorimeter can approach the accuracy of a $13,000 2nm spectroradiometer.

To understand more about why or how this accuracy works, it is important to first understand the source of errors in tristimulus colorimeters like the SpyderX.

In an attempt to accurately model human color vision, in 1931 the CIE defined the standard observer, which is characterized by three color matching functions, shown below.

A filter-based colorimeter like the SpyderX attempts to mimic human color perception by matching these curves. However, accurately matching these complex curves using any reasonably affordable filters requires correction with a reference spectroradiometer. Otherwise, you cannot achieve the desired accuracy with different display types. A spectroradiometer does not rely on filters as a way of mimicking human color vision, but rather measures the spectra of a display directly. Its accuracy depends only on the bandwidth, sensitivity, and resolution of the device.

The inaccuracies of a filter-based colorimeter like the SpyderX arise from a variety of sources.

Taken together, these four sources of inaccuracy—generic factory calibration, unit-to-unit variation, effects from aging, and a lack of consistency among displays—result in a device that, on average according to our tests, typically deviates from a reference spectroradiometer in the range of 5-6 dE (CIELAB). Our PRO version of the meter will cut this source of error considerably.

Of course, the best way to minimize these errors is to use your own reference spectroradiometer to correct the SpyderX for each calibration session on a single display. ChromaPure provides a Meter Correction module for just this purpose. However, the vast majority of consumers cannot afford a true reference device, which are very expensive. SMPTE requires a reference instrument to have a minimum accuracy of ±0.002 for the measurement of xy chromaticity coordinates at any luminance above 3 fL. The only instrument capable of this level of precision is a 5nm spectroradiometer. A tristimulus colorimeter will not offer this level of accuracy, nor will an 8nm or 10nm spectroradiometer.

The SpyderX's accuracy is reasonably consistent when reading CRTs, plasmas, and front projector screens. The biggest problem by far lies with LCDs. Using the Standard mode the SpyderX may read one LCD very accurately and yet be off on another. It is difficult to achieve consistency when reading LCDs. Contrary to one widely-repeated myth, this is not an issue directly related to the difference between CCFL backlit and LED backlit displays. Some LED displays actually give the colorimeters less trouble than their CCFL counterparts. Also, the SpyderX can maintain considerably different levels of accuracy when comparing two CCFL displays. The problem isn't with LED backlighting. The problem is LCDs period. To address this problem, the SpyderX PRO ships with 8 different LCD modes. We may add additional LCD modes as needed.

For your convenience our ChromaPure partner offers a simple calibration DVD that includes all of the test patterns that you'll need to perform a complete calibration of your display. This DVD is offered free as a complementary download.

For reviews/testimonials of ChromaPure calibration software & packages, see our ChromaPure order page.

CurtPalme.com are calibration experts and authors of the popular free calibration guide: Grayscale & Color Calibration for Dummies. We live and breathe calibration. No matter what your needs we can assist in choosing what's right for you. We offer products for the budget DIY'er all the way up to the seasoned professional, all at CurtPalme.com discounted prices.