miniDSP Tide16 - Holy Grail with 16 Channel Atmos/DTS:X, high SINAD

[PJR918BMW]

I felt the same in the beginning, but then I realized in order to get them to work well, one has to ask questions in certain ways, or try different ways. Don't just accept their first response if there is any doubts of even hints of them simply referencing to internet hearsay such as those from us members on ASR, but insist they they only reference to reputable, proven credible sources, then they typically would come back with more accurate answers, even apologize for their mistakes in their first response. Given that, I think with more "training", they might evolve into something more useful to most people. As it is now, I think a lot of inexperienced users would get misled, unfortunately.

Briefly. Coz we are way off base I know how to get the best out of them but when I ask what is your confidence in this or that answer it never says anything other than "highly confident" and when I point out it is wrong yes it apologises ( bit bloody pointless!) and tells me how I am helping it learn!! AND then says " ..... next time because of your help I will do better"!

When do I gat paid for being a teacher and the money reimbursed for believing it in the THIRD place.?

 

[voodooless]

I wonder what use case there would be for Apple TV/PS5/BD Player/etc->Tide16->TV.

I have about 8m between TV and AVR, and all the gear would go next to the AVR. One active HDMI 2.1 cable is enough to install. They are a major pita.

Regardless, most of my sources are already on the TV anyway, so I could probably live with the 18 Gbps bandwidth.

 

[PJR918BMW]

HDMI 2.0??!!!!

No Dolby vision ??!!!

Yeah this thing is dead on arrival

Confused? Its an audio processor? The DV just goes straight to the TV?

 

[PJR918BMW]

Just got the Flex HTx and on the remote you can only cycle through the sources via the sorce button but I suppose Tide may be different in this aspect. I am planning to return my Flex HTx and get the Tide16 instead even though I only have use for a small subset of the available outputs but I want to be able to get multichannel audio whenever it is available on the TV or TV apps (not just via Apple TV).

I get where you are coming from I just ordered a Flex HTX and will probably spend £75 on a second hand 4k gen 3 Apple TV rather than another $3000 ++ with taxes on the flex. Money no object I would buy the Tide. In an instant.

PS:.. and no I don't have the use for the channel count either but it would be a hell of a lot neater and user friendly

 

[thcdru2k]

Those who are confused about how to get 4k 120hz working properly with Tide 16 or how to get Dolby Atmos/Vision working through passthrough were probably unlikely able to take advantage of rerouting full range audio across 16 channels aligned with REW anyways.

 

[Mort]

Doesn't the website quote the price at 3500 USD? If so, then the tariff cost should already be considered in the price.

They price everything before tarriffs. Final price depends on the country it's going to, not everyone is USA of course.

 

[Yetis]

Do we think they will follow the trend such as Trinnov and eventually offer a AES67/Dante version? That would be sweet..

 

[pat355]

at this point in the conversation, I have an important question: does the Tide16 make a good espresso? I've been following the thread since page 1 and by now I don't remember what the Tide16 does. Just hoping for a good coffee at this point though...at least I got that it's way cheaper than Trinnov despite tariffs (although it depends now on Denmark and whatnot), it doesn't have HDMI 2.1 which gets people's knickers in a twist, it doesn't upmix, it doesn't process at 96 kHz, it's 16ch instead of 8, but the majority still love the device for what it will supposedly do. Even Grok can't give me a cogent TL;DR. Oh well...

 

[Lsc]

at this point in the conversation, I have an important question: does the Tide16 make a good espresso? I've been following the thread since page 1 and by now I don't remember what the Tide16 does. Just hoping for a good coffee at this point though...at least I got that it's way cheaper than Trinnov despite tariffs (although it depends now on Denmark and whatnot), it doesn't have HDMI 2.1 which gets people's knickers in a twist, it doesn't upmix, it doesn't process at 96 kHz, it's 16ch instead of 8, but the majority still love the device for what it will supposedly do. Even Grok can't give me a cogent TL;DR. Oh well...

Yes another new product has been proposed before this one has even been released.

 

[darth]

Reading their FAQ about the (confusing) HDMI choices, https://support.minidsp.com/support...84706-understanding-hdmi-2-1-vs-2-0-on-tide16, sounds like 2 of 3 reasons are pure business decisions regardless of whether having HDMI 2 or 2.1 makes any difference from a UX perspective.

Maybe they want this product out fast to compete with all the new ones coming this year as once people buy into new stuff they will wait for a while to upgrade. I won't be surprised if minidsp simplify and dump in all HDMI 2.1 or 2.2 in an year or two once their certification is done and supply chain stabilized more.

Question is, are the boards user upgradable. The specs list "FlexiSLOT" and I am not sure what it means but guessing a flexible slot that can be changed?

That's one thing about the trinnov is that they will let you just upgrade the HDMI 2.1 to 2.2 when available keeping rest of the product as is. Buy once cry once strategy for at least say a decade.

 

[peng]

I would really like to know if the Tide uses dedicated volume control ICs such as most if not all higher end AVPs do and even avrs such as D+M’s. I asked them that question when I bought the HTx, but they wouldn’t tell me, answered all my other questions though.

If anyone knows the answer, please kindly share.

 

[Tom C]

Will you be keeping the Marantz now?

Yes, unless the unit is defective. It is in my home now, vs. the miniDSP, which has yet to be released or tested. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, as they say. The new Tide 16 looks pretty promising, though.

 

[TimoJ]

I would really like to know if the Tide uses dedicated volume control ICs such as most if not all higher end AVPs do and even avrs such as D+M’s. I asked them that question when I bought the HTx, but they wouldn’t tell me, answered all my other questions though.

If anyone knows the answer, please kindly share.

AVS Forum Tide16 thread has few internal pics. To me it looks like signal goes from DACs to output opamp buffers, so no analog volume IC between those.

 

[voodooless]

AVS Forum Tide16 thread has few internal pics. To me it looks like signal goes from DACs to output opamp buffers, so no analog volume IC between those.

View attachment 505334

Rev 1 board from 2024, so quite old. It has 4 DACs for 8 channels, while the final spec says ES9017, which is an 8-channel DAC. I suspect they changed that along the way, probably to o save some cost.

I suspect there won’t be any volume control chips in the current version either.

 

[TimoJ]

while the final spec says ES9017

But specs also say: 8x ESS ES9017

 

[voodooless]

But specs also say: 8x ESS ES9017

Hmm, you’re right! They use them in stereo mode. I guess it’s cheaper than the other stereo ESS codecs.

 

[-Matt-]

Funny that it seems to have a micro SD card on the main board!

 

[peng]

Hmm, you’re right! They use them in stereo mode. I guess it’s cheaper than the other stereo ESS codecs.

They need 8*8 = 64 dac channels for 16 channels fully differential implementation. They use 4 pieces of ES9017 for the 8 channel HTx.

 

[staticV3]

They need 8*8 = 64 dac channels for 16 channels fully differential implementation.

what kind of differential XLR Line output needs four signals per channel?

Are you sure they're not just using the ES9017 in Stereo mode? Meaning that any other Stereo DAC would've done the job as well?

 

[voodooless]

They use 4 pieces of ES9017 for the 8 channel HTx.

That’s exactly the same then. Layout looks different, but it looks like a very similar architecture.