Trinnov Altitude 16 Review (AV Processor)

[q3cpma]

Yes, of course.

I am using 15 multi-point calibration. One in mlp, 12 points on a circle (~50cm radius) around mlp every ~30°, and 2 points at left & right seats next to mlp.

That's my choice in targer curve, sounds to my ears like "true flat" response: -0.5dB@20Hz, +0,5dB@30Hz, -9dB@20kHz:

View attachment 132529

Rew checking one random speaker:

View attachment 132527

Room RT60 :

View attachment 132528

~1 hour the measurements, 1 min setting the target curve. That's the time needed for calibration..

Basically, it's just an automated multi-point calibration, all settings at default.
No "fine tuning" needed in my case..

After 30 years in high end audio gear endless "upgrading" (just spending money), trinnov is the end.
IMHO: it's as good as it gets.

The rest of my setup:
All 13 speakers are Neumann 310's and all speakers are at exactly the same listening distance from mlp (2.3m) and at the correct listening angle, with cross firing. Center speaker due to screen is 10° lower, trinnov can correct this.
2 Neumann subs (2*10" each) and 2 genelec subs (2*12"each). The genelec's are symmetric positioned with the same distances from boundaries and they are sharing 1 trinnov output (all 16 are used).
The 4 subs are positioned near the 4 corners of the room, at the spots where they measured best (rew checking).

View attachment 132530

View attachment 132531

Jvc n7, lumagen, Stewart 117" studiotek 130 g4. Viewing angle at mlp ~50°.

And a mk5 turntable, just for fun.

Trinnov, one audio gear to rule them all..

I hope you didn't hear me mutter "rich fucker" from consuming envy.

 

[Spocko]

Yes, of course.

I am using 15 multi-point calibration. One in mlp, 12 points on a circle (~50cm radius) around mlp every ~30°, and 2 points at left & right seats next to mlp.

That's my choice in targer curve, sounds to my ears like "true flat" response: -0.5dB@20Hz, +0,5dB@30Hz, -9dB@20kHz:

View attachment 132529

Rew checking one random speaker:

View attachment 132527

Room RT60 :

View attachment 132528

~1 hour the measurements, 1 min setting the target curve. That's the time needed for calibration..

Basically, it's just an automated multi-point calibration, all settings at default.
No "fine tuning" needed in my case..

After 30 years in high end audio gear endless "upgrading" (just spending money), trinnov is the end.
IMHO: it's as good as it gets.

The rest of my setup:
All 13 speakers are Neumann 310's and all speakers are at exactly the same listening distance from mlp (2.3m) and at the correct listening angle, with cross firing. Center speaker due to screen is 10° lower, trinnov can correct this.
2 Neumann subs (2*10" each) and 2 genelec subs (2*12"each). The genelec's are symmetric positioned with the same distances from boundaries and they are sharing 1 trinnov output (all 16 are used).
The 4 subs are positioned near the 4 corners of the room, at the spots where they measured best (rew checking).

View attachment 132530

View attachment 132531

Jvc n7, lumagen, Stewart 117" studiotek 130 g4. Viewing angle at mlp ~50°.

And a mk5 turntable, just for fun.

Trinnov, one audio gear to rule them all..

DUDE, this was exactly what I was thinking as an alternative to my Genelec setup! Although I would not have hung the KH 310 on the ceiling - you sir have my respect.

 

[Balle Clorin]

I am sorry

I see that you have the Amethyst. Does it have an HT bypass capability? Can you at least program one of the analog inputs to have a fixed volume level, so you could feed it with a pre-out signal from an AVR, bypassing the Amethyst's master volume control?

Thanks

I am sorry but I am a stereo-only guy, I do not understand the HomeTheater terminology. Amethyst is a 4 channel pre-amp/DAC/processor for DSP room correction/Roon endpoint. 4 channel as in Left-Right -SubLeft-SubRight

The volume control is by 64 bit floating point in the DSP engine and can be preset to anything you want .The AVR would be treated as any source, but If you want the Trinnov to do room correction why would you need the AVR at all? Not that I understand what an AVR is or does..,

 

[beaRA]

I'll list a few unique reasons that Emotiva does not come close to the Trinnov for my use case (everybody has a use case, you buy what you need) - and these unique qualities extend to the limitations of any processor under $10,000.

1. Object Viewer - Absolutely critical for my reviews of immersive audio in movies/music. We are visual animals and this truly helps understand how much is happening above/around the MLP. No other processor, not Emotiva not StormAudio can do this nor will they be able to do this because it's software based processing that requires a PC to do this in real time - which the Trinnov is.
2. Remapping Software and 3D Triangulation Microphone - I will be reviewing both Auro3D and Atmos, and their respective upmixing algorithms of 5.1 content - to that end my speaker arrangement must be a compromised "unified layout" that is not ideal to either but "close enough". The Trinnov remapping software was designed for this situation, specifically, my 4 overhead Atmos channels are also Auro height channels and positioning them for the former excludes optimal playback of the latter. However, these differences are fully resolved of any compromises by the Optimizer Microphone for true triangulation that drives the accuracy of its remapping algorithm, adjusting more accurately for MLP and speaker placement than a single microphone ever can - more data points means better precision. In Trinnov's own marketing speak: "The 3D microphone uses four mic elements in a precise tetrahedral arrangement. Each capsule is individually calibrated at the factory (±0.1 dB from 20 Hz to 24 kHz). As each speaker is measured, the resulting sound waves pass through this array of microphones, hitting each one at a slightly different time. Based on this timing, it triangulates the location of the speaker from which the sound arrived. By testing each speaker in turn, Trinnov build a three-dimensional map of where the speakers are relative to the mic (which is placed at the main listening position)." This is a core strength of the Trinnov that requires this special microphone and the software to do it.
3. Remote Installation & Troubleshooting - When working with an installer, wouldn't it be easy to let him do all the work helping you setup your processor? So I'll just quote @Matthew J Poes from a post above regarding the ease with which he sets up Trinnov for clients: "I set them up from anywhere in the world... can log into the device and manage it from anywhere. Even my phone. When it comes to customer service on custom installs, this is a big deal. Some others have this ability too, but not the cheaper ones. I am working with an installer in Israel and we have a client with a Trinnov processor. I am currently redoing the setup to incorporate a more complex bass management arrangement. I can do it from here in Florida. No problem. Minimal work on the part of the client. The most he has to do is move a mic around for me." So no, you cannot plug your Emotiva into the Internet and let somebody else do most of the work.
4. Active Crossovers for Direct Driver Amplification - If you have speakers like the Bryston, PAP or Procella that allows you to directly power each driver with an amplifier, maybe "exotic" triode tube amps for your horn tweeters and massive Class D for your 8" woofers, only the Trinnov allows you to set up the necessary crossover implementation to integrate 2 completely different amplifiers. Let's say I want use a pair of Pure Audio Project Open Baffle Duet 15 speakers which have the Voxativ 1.6 coaxial driver above and 15" driver below - I would prefer to use small wattage tube amplifier for the Voxativ and a robust Class-A for the 15" woofer below - only the Trinnov can be the active crossover that independently manages these disparate drivers so that I can have a room curve EQ setting optimized for stereo listening without a subwoofer, and one setting for home theater use when a subwoofer is added to the mix. Emotiva cannot do this.
5. Modular Software Platform - Emotiva's Dirac implementation is layered on top of a dedicated decoding chip which may have some minor firmware updates but you're pretty much stuck with that version - for example it could never magically add an entirely new format like IMAX Enhanced if it wasn't already there. Trinnov on the other hand can update its software limited only by their creativity, so can easily add IMAX Enhanced or DTS:X or Atmos Next Gen because they are software developers licensed to apply the source code at the software level to the processor. Emotiva is limited to buying whatever is off the shelf from Texas Instruments and do nothing more to this chip. Being software based means that they can over a weekend, decide to add a cool new feature like Object Viewer so we can see where the audio effects are supposed to be in your room (yes, it was developed in a weekend by an enterprising Trinnov engineer) and now has become one of Trinnov's most popular features. Being a flexible software platform means that it's open to customer suggestions for improvement and update. Emotiva on the other hand cannot improve anything without Texas Instruments designing an entirely new chip to be sold to everybody else - so if only Emotiva customers want this feature? It's unlikely to happen because TI will charge Emotiva way too much for a one-off chip. For example, if Dirac is not properly calibrating Atmos - it's not Emotiva's fault and their hands are tied, I would have to reach out to Dirac, but because Dirac is not an end-licensee of Atmos there's not much Dirac can do to figure out what's wrong whereas Trinnov engineers can trouble shoot their implementation of Atmos at the source code level - and this is why Trinnov is so expensive - you are paying for an entire software engineering team that Emotiva does not have at their disposal.

This is what's important to me; however, I'm sure there may be a few more things I've missed that Emotiva will never offer simply because it's too expensive to offer it for their price point.

@Spocko where will you be publishing your reviews based on the Object Viewer? I'd be interested to check it out!

 

[Costas EAR]

With trinnov, each output can be used for whatever you need, there is no left or right channel output, the outputs are numbers, No1 No2 up to No16.
You can use as many subs as you like, you can build one virtual sub, from 5-6 subs, whatever, with different frequency response for each (like a multi way speaker), different cross points, different crossover types or slopes, different eq to each driver with different limits for eq filters, different types of filters, fir or ir, with different whatever you want, and all together will be calibrated to perfection.

Trinnov software is unique.

 

[Costas EAR]

I hope you didn't hear me mutter "rich fucker" from consuming envy.

My friend, there are so many rich audiophiles, which own just a pair of passive speakers much more expensive than my whole av setup, that I am the poor guy between them!

 

[EB1000]

I am sorry

I am sorry but I am a stereo-only guy, I do not understand the HomeTheater terminology. Amethyst is a 4 channel pre-amp/DAC/processor for DSP room correction/Roon endpoint. 4 channel as in Left-Right -SubLeft-SubRight

The volume control is by 64 bit floating point in the DSP engine and can be preset to anything you want .The AVR would be treated as any source, but If you want the Trinnov to do room correction why would you need the AVR at all? Not that I understand what an AVR is or does..,

I want to have both HIFI and HT in the same room using the same front speakers. I'll make my question more specific:

Can you program the Amethyst so when a user switches to analog input #1, the master volume level is set to -10dB fixed, then when user selects another input, the master volume will return to its previous state (not -10dB)? NAD C658 can do that. I'm interested in replacing it with the Amethyst.

Thanks

 

[Billy Budapest]

You can be "into" home theater experience without wanting to deal with the headaches of (1) sub crawl (2) speaker selection, installation, (3) room correction, (4) AVR setup - this would be most people who don't hang out on ASR! "We want the most amazing home theater sound and we'll pay you $5,000 to make sure everything works - thank you!"

I guess what you call a headache, I call joy. Yes, there is frustration involved, but there is no greater reward than diving into a problem head on and devising a solution yourself. I am a very busy person with my work (I am a litigator) and my family life (I have a 15 year old daughter), and I could buy a Trinnov unit with cash without making much of a dent in my finances. I just don’t see the need to, and enjoy setting up and troubleshooting my system. Plus, $17,000 on principle seems like a lot to spend on a component. But further, *why* would I want to get an “installer” involved? That’s just throwing money away for something I could do myself, and have a fun time doing it myself. *If* having an installer on retainer to help troubleshoot your system would cost $5000, that’s not too much of a financial outlay in the grand scheme of things, compared to the rates contractors charge for other things. But $17,000 starts to make me question the value. I guess it’s the difference between being an enthusiast vs being a consumer. But I digress, lest this thread be thrown off track.

 

[Balle Clorin]

I want to have both HIFI and HT in the same room using the same front speakers. I'll make my question more specific:

Can you program the Amethyst so when a user switches to analog input #1, the master volume level is set to -10dB fixed, then when user selects another input, the master volume will return to its previous state (not -10dB)? NAD C658 can do that. I'm interested in replacing it with the Amethyst.

Thanks

Ask a Trinnov dealer. The source setting allow to set different input sensitivity- to get same volume at same volume setting for CD and my RIAA,, and volume setting for each input when selected or leave the volume unchanged Between sources
I do not see that it remembers the “previous”, but it can go back to a specific volume for a given source (-30 below)- or it leaves the volume unchanged when selecting another given source

 

[Spocko]

@Spocko where will you be publishing your reviews based on the Object Viewer? I'd be interested to check it out!

On my YouTube channel of course - I'll be deep diving into movies and specifically identifying "demo worthy" scenes where the audio or visual impact takes full advantage of one's flagship cinema system.

 

[Spocko]

I guess what you call a headache, I call joy. Yes, there is frustration involved, but there is no greater reward than diving into a problem head on and devising a solution yourself. I am a very busy person with my work (I am a litigator) and my family life (I have a 15 year old daughter), and I could buy a Trinnov unit with cash without making much of a dent in my finances. I just don’t see the need to, and enjoy setting up and troubleshooting my system. Plus, $17,000 on principle seems like a lot to spend on a component. But further, *why* would I want to get an “installer” involved? That’s just throwing money away for something I could do myself, and have a fun time doing it myself. *If* having an installer on retainer to help troubleshoot your system would cost $5000, that’s not too much of a financial outlay in the grand scheme of things, compared to the rates contractors charge for other things. But $17,000 starts to make me question the value. I guess it’s the difference between being an enthusiast vs being a consumer. But I digress, lest this thread be thrown off track.

I'm with you but I'll end with this analogy because it resembles me most: many people enjoy gardening and landscaping but I would rather move into a condo or pay somebody to care for my lawn before I'd ever consider "gardening". I find it incredibly aggravating, uncomfortable and a necessary evil of being a homeowner - but this doesn't stop me from enjoying a beautiful garden if somebody else took care of it.

 

[respice finem]

I hope you didn't hear me mutter "rich fucker" from consuming envy.

At least he's less rich now
But seriously, I would gladly buy a more "peasant" version of it one day, to feed a humble 5.1.2 bunch of active monitors, and for 20% of this hefty price...

 

[TGB]

At least he's less rich now
But seriously, I would gladly buy a more "peasant" version of it one day, to feed a humble 5.1.2 bunch of active monitors, and for 20% of this hefty price...

You will never get it for 20% of current price. Altitude16 is their cheap option, and compared to what you get it is dirt cheap. There is a fairly massive amount of money spent on research and development (and support). None of these are free.

 

[respice finem]

You're probably right, even if it was a 5.1.2 only, so I'll keep my current gear for a few more years and then look at the daughters of other mothers
R&D and support come at a price, certainly, as does manufacturing in Europe. The only way to lower the retail price would be to have more buyers, but to achieve it you have to... lower the retail price.

 

[TGB]

You're probably right, even if it was a 5.1.2 only, so I'll keep my current gear for a few more years and then look at the daughters of other mothers
R&D and support come at a price, certainly, as does manufacturing in Europe. The only way to lower the retail price would be to have more buyers, but to achieve it you have to... lower the retail price.

You can get the Altitude32 in 8 channel version, but that is actually more expensive than the Altitude16.

Also, how you use the channels is up to you. So nothing called 5.1.2 version. Altitude32 exist with 8, 16, 24 and 32 channels (you can upgrade post purchase) and the Altitude16 is fixed to 16 channels.

 

[Dimifoot]

Also, how you use the channels is up to you.

The Altitude 16 can be even used as a 2.14 processor, Stereo L-R and 14 subs.

 

[beaRA]

On my YouTube channel of course - I'll be deep diving into movies and specifically identifying "demo worthy" scenes where the audio or visual impact takes full advantage of one's flagship cinema system.

Thanks! I haven't come across your channel yet, but I'll give it a look.

 

[Sal1950]

The rest of my setup:

Damn my friend, that is one awesome system! I'm highly envious.

 

[abdo123]

@Costas EAR

Is there a reason why you're using a shoddy projector instead of an OLED?

 

[Dimifoot]

@Costas EAR

Is there a reason why you're using a shoddy projector instead of an OLED?

Shoddy? The JVC N7?