Marantz AV20 13.4 Channel AVP Discussion

[Vacceo]

It is still a good sign if AV-20 reaches 110dB SINAD. Shows engineering excellence and hopefully pushes Trinnov and Storm to up their game. These are expensive toys and they should perform beyond a shadow of a doubt. Marantz gaining 10dB of SINAD over the competition would be a good wake up call for them.

I'd really like to think that our host Amir, has something to do with the recent push towards excellence Marantz has taken in the last years.

 

[Oddball]

I'd really like to think that our host Amir, has something to do with the recent push towards excellence Marantz has taken in the last years.

Amir is the wrath of god for sure. But credit also goes to Gene - not a big fan, but he has asked the same plus additional features like LFE distribution which many don't need, but he wanted. Glad it all happened.

 

[Vacceo]

Amir is the wrath of god for sure. But credit also goes to Gene - not a big fan, but he has asked the same plus additional features like LFE distribution which many don't need, but he wanted. Glad it all happened.

Features many often times are the stuff you never thought you´d use and suddenly they become a make or break deal. I´d say their next step (for Marantz) is adopting purely digital transmission.

 

[welwynnick]

I´d say their next step (for Marantz) is adopting purely digital transmission.

Do you mean a Dante output or something like that?
I'd agree with that, but I don't think it's likely. JBL gave it a go, but it hardly caught on.

 

[Oddball]

They might think of digital out on the next flagship just for the brand recognition and prestige. Not sure it would pay off financially. Stereo is a different matter, but HT even with 5.x.4 setup is a beast to replace.

Active is definitively way to go, but from the very few of us left in the true HT world, how many are going to ditch their passive setups (and realize big losses) and invest $30K or more to go digital? I'd say few would - which equals very few multiplied by few so at the end you get negligible sample.

 

[welwynnick]

They might think of digital out on the next flagship just for the brand recognition and prestige. Not sure it would pay off financially. Stereo is a different matter, but HT even with 5.x.4 setup is a beast to replace.
Active is definitively way to go, but from the very few of us left in the true HT world, how many are going to ditch their passive setups (and realize big losses) and invest $30K or more to go digital? I'd say few would - which equals very few multiplied by few so at the end you get negligible sample.

Lets see how AudioControl get on with their Hyperion DPR-16:

Hyperion | Professional Audio

Built from the ground up for the professional installation world, Hyperion combines AudioControl’s legendary sonic mastery with the cutting‑edge video and network expertise of AVPro to give you the ultimate toolkit for immersive, future‑ready home theaters.

www.audiocontrolpro.com

 

[Vacceo]

Do you mean a Dante output or something like that?
I'd agree with that, but I don't think it's likely. JBL gave it a go, but it hardly caught on.

Something more simple, like a switch for digital/analogue output for the XLR.

They might think of digital out on the next flagship just for the brand recognition and prestige. Not sure it would pay off financially. Stereo is a different matter, but HT even with 5.x.4 setup is a beast to replace.

Active is definitively way to go, but from the very few of us left in the true HT world, how many are going to ditch their passive setups (and realize big losses) and invest $30K or more to go digital? I'd say few would - which equals very few multiplied by few so at the end you get negligible sample.

I agree that it could be for the halo factor. However, it´s true that the improvement could be minimal, as you can use a lot of actives with the already existing XLR analogue.

 

[chelgrian]

Some additional info in here

its mostly marketing, only recommend if you're curious or considering purchase. random tidbits I got from jumping through:

• DSP chip is a SHARC+ 2,000 MIPS 1GHz dual-core compared to older gen 2x 450MHz dual-core (1,600 MIPS). This is almost certainly the ADSP-21593, which I believe is already in 2023-newer D&M products. I think the gen before this was 2x ADSP-21489 or 21487. They explicitly mention ART was contributing to this upgrade, but in the grand scheme this is a pretty mild change (+20% computational headroom).
  • If they continue to mention the upgraded DSP chip despite it not really being new to this generation, my interpretation is that this is the minimum they could get ART working on and it will not come to older 1600 MIPS products. I can't think of why else they would bother showing off the DSP specs.
• AV 20 is 2-layer PCB to the AV 10's 4-layer
• AMD FreeSync support mentioned due to a mild update to HDMI board
• Marantz AV separates' HDAM design is slightly different to the AVRs which put all the channels on the same board due to space constraints
• AMP 20 using Marantz licensed, customized, and manufactured ICE power design (confirmed)
• AV 20 gets analog video inputs, they had the space

Presumably it’s still the case that as soon as you enable room correction everything gets resampled to 48k even with the DSP uplift?

 

[peng]

Presumably it’s still the case that as soon as you enable room correction everything gets resampled to 48k even with the DSP uplift?

That’s expected, there isn’t many such devices that would do higher than 48 kHz. Mainly because of cost, and that they all know there isn’t audible benefit to go higher for most if not all use conditions.

 

[Vacceo]

That’s expected, there isn’t many such devices that would do higher than 48 kHz. Mainly because of cost, and that they all know there isn’t audible benefit to go higher for most if not all use conditions.

I wonder how expensive would be to have a dsp that can take higher resolution. Sure, purely for accademic purposes, but with that capacity.

 

[masterhw]

I wonder how expensive would be to have a dsp that can take higher resolution. Sure, purely for accademic purposes, but with that capacity.

Due to the properties of different types of filters, there are often real tradeoffs to adding more filters/resolution (particularly to things like latency), that go beyond computational prowess. I know we’re very used to being able to brute force our way to better/faster/stronger but some of these limitations are mathematical and can’t be easily worked around.

48kHz on many room correction architectures likely represents a best compromise/tradeoff which a simple doubling would upset.

 

[Vacceo]

Due to the properties of different types of filters, there are often real tradeoffs to adding more filters/resolution (particularly to things like latency), that go beyond computational prowess. I know we’re very used to being able to brute force our way to better/faster/stronger but some of these limitations are mathematical and can’t be easily worked around.

48kHz on many room correction architectures likely represents a best compromise/tradeoff which a simple doubling would upset.

48kHz is CD quality after all. From my own testing changing the bitrate of my source (a PC hooked up to an AVR), I haven´t noticed anything going way past it, so even if doable, I´d probably find no benefit.

Thanks for the response! Sometimes, going beyond is a vanity project.

 

[chelgrian]

I wonder how expensive would be to have a dsp that can take higher resolution. Sure, purely for accademic purposes, but with that capacity.

As far as I know Room Perfect on Lyngdorf products runs at 96k and the Theta Casablanca runs Dirac at 96k.

The cost argument is overblown a A&H SQ 5 digital mixer for example is processing 48 input channels and 32 outputs at 96k with sundry effects GEQ/PEQ etc on a per channel basis and costs ~£3000 in the UK and a lot of the bill of materials there is going on the touch screen and motorised faders.

Pro-audio moved to 96k for latency reasons rather than anything else, it decreases the input to output processing delay which is important in live sound reinforcement.

The thing is that all AVPs run on one of about three DSP platforms that have certified kits from Dolby and others to do the decoding and processing. Those platforms haven’t had serious upgrades in a long time and their answer is ‘put multiple chips in’ meanwhile pro-audio moved on to FPGA based systems.

 

[peng]

As far as I know Room Perfect on Lyngdorf products runs at 96k and the Theta Casablanca runs Dirac at 96k.

The cost argument is overblown a A&H SQ 5 digital mixer for example is processing 48 input channels and 32 outputs at 96k with sundry effects GEQ/PEQ etc on a per channel basis and costs ~£3000 in the UK and a lot of the bill of materials there is going on the touch screen and motorised faders.

Pro-audio moved to 96k for latency reasons rather than anything else, it decreases the input to output processing delay which is important in live sound reinforcement.

The thing is that all AVPs run on one of about three DSP platforms that have certified kits from Dolby and others to do the decoding and processing. Those platforms haven’t had serious upgrades in a long time and their answer is ‘put multiple chips in’ meanwhile pro-audio moved on to FPGA based systems.

Software can make a different, for example, FIR needs more processing power, but the DSP is often the main factor. Dirac, Audyssey are not the bottleneck here, it is the DSP power that is the limit in the case of the D+M gear, same for Anthem’s. They have upgraded the DSP, but then the increase the number of channels so…..

I wonder if those high channel count storm, Trinnov AVPs can run Dirac at 96 kHz sampling rate when processing that many channels.

 

[GXAlan]

I wonder if those high channel count storm, Trinnov AVPs can run Dirac at 96 kHz sampling rate when processing that many channels.

Storm is 48 kHz.

Trinnov runs Trinnov Optimizer which is more powerful than Dirac.

Trinnov | Processing Power in AV Processors

Processing Power in AV Processors - Trinnov Altitude, Room Correction Software

www.trinnov.com

It’s not just the sample rate, but what it does at that sample rate.

Officially:

• Data precision: 64 bits, floating point
• Max Sampling Rate (up to 24 channels): Native, up to 192kHz
• Max Sampling Rate (up to 32 channel with +4 option): Native, up to 96kHz
• Max Sampling Rate (above 24 channels): Native, up to 96kHz
• Max Sampling Rate (above 32 channels): Native, up to 48kHz

Yamaha does 96 kHz, but they only have an 11 channel AV processor.

 

[peng]

Storm is 48 kHz.

Trinnov runs Trinnov Optimizer which is more powerful than Dirac.

Trinnov | Processing Power in AV Processors

Processing Power in AV Processors - Trinnov Altitude, Room Correction Software

www.trinnov.com

It’s not just the sample rate, but what it does at that sample rate.

Officially:

• Data precision: 64 bits, floating point
• Max Sampling Rate (up to 24 channels): Native, up to 192kHz
• Max Sampling Rate (up to 32 channel with +4 option): Native, up to 96kHz
• Max Sampling Rate (above 24 channels): Native, up to 96kHz
• Max Sampling Rate (above 32 channels): Native, up to 48kHz

Yamaha does 96 kHz, but they only have an 11 channel AV processor.

I meant running at 96 or 192 kHz while also running room correction, in this case Trinnov, and 24, 32 channels.

 

[GXAlan]

I meant running at 96 or 192 kHz while also running room correction, in this case Trinnov, and 24, 32 channels.

The Trinnov stuff is with room correction. It does 24 channels with full optimizer at 192 kHz with no SINAD hit.

The Storm is 48 kHz for everything

https://www.stormaudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/StormAudio-CI-ISP-MK2-range-specs.pdf

 

[chelgrian]

The Trinnov stuff is with room correction. It does 24 channels with full optimizer at 192 kHz with no SINAD hit.

The Storm is 48 kHz for everything

https://www.stormaudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/StormAudio-CI-ISP-MK2-range-specs.pdf

The Trinnov is running everything on relatively low end Intel x86 processor, you can see the ATX back plate on the rear of the processor as far as I am aware they use commodity mATX motherboards from MSI they don’t even go for industrial SKUs with 10 year availability.

Last time I looked Storm audio did the audio processing on one or more SHARC, which is why it only has enough DSP for 48k, and the control plane was a Raspberry Pi.

 

[welwynnick]

This is what Trinnov claim is the processing power advantage over AVRs and AVPs.
I'm not sure I believe their numbers for the i3-12100 and i5-12400 though.
From what I read in multiple independent tests, those CPUs manage about 30 - 40 GFLOPS.
The i3 in particular was a cheap 4 core Gen 12 CPU, and if processing power actually mattered they could have used a 12 core i7 or 16 core i9, but clearly it didn't.
I don't think anything went over 200 GFLOPS back in 2022, so I suspect they're including GPU processing as well.

t

 

[peng]

The Trinnov stuff is with room correction. It does 24 channels with full optimizer at 192 kHz with no SINAD hit.

The Storm is 48 kHz for everything

https://www.stormaudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/StormAudio-CI-ISP-MK2-range-specs.pdf

Well then obviously they have lots of processing power with excellent DSPs, but too bad they wouldn't use a flagship DAC IC such as ES9038 or 9039 Pro, but then may be their latest models do, as I only remember the one Amir tested way back.