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

[3ll3d00d]

Interesting because on their website when you click specifications for 2x4 HD it says fixed point. Guess that is a typo. If t

Looks like a typo yes as they refer to the same as floating on the features page (and it's demonstrably floating when you measure it with sub 15Hz biquads in use)

 

[superlupo]

I wish I had a need for this but HTx and Apple TV with Dirac do what my 5.1 system needs.

But you can't use Atmos (height channels), can you?

 

[superlupo]

As I was saying, you can completely shut down the amplifier section if you want. Means no heat buildup.

AFAIK you can't. Even full pre-amp mode only disconnects amps, not turns them off.

 

[JohnnyNG]

I think that having two layers of FIR filters is redundant and wasteful.

If you use the proper crossover slopes to phase align the crossover region and then use delays to time align the drivers, the DIRAC will make it a linear phase crossover without needing another layer of FIR filters.

Interesting!

 

[thcdru2k]

But you can't use Atmos (height channels), can you?

I believe Apple TV when outputting LPCM would discard Atmos meta data. You could have 7.1 though. I use an AVR with atmos and preouts to feed Flex HTx which feeds external amps. It adds an inaudible amount of distortion due to double digital/analog conversion and a slight delay that honestly is not noticeable either ( I still do not use AV lip sync adjust). Tide 16 would basically eliminate the need for upstream Atmos decoding and a lot of extra cabling headache. Since he is running 5.1 its arguable how much Atmos would benefit though.

 

[EWL5]

I believe Apple TV when outputting LPCM would discard Atmos meta data. You could have 7.1 though.

I don't think that's true. I have an AppleTV 4K sending MAT (essentially LPCM w/metadata) to my 3800. When there is Atmos in the stream, my AVR shows "ATMOS". Otherwise, it's just "Multi Ch In".

 

[abdo123]

Video feature support doesn't matter when you do Apple TV/PS5/BD Player/etc->TV->Tide16

That's how I'd connect my gear anyway regardless of the Tide16's HDMI specs.

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

Or in what situation that'd be preferable, irrespective of the Tide16's HDMI specs in this case.

It’s really ugly having 5 cables come out of your TV.

Also eARC is a big hastle.

 

[thcdru2k]

I don't think that's true. I have an AppleTV 4K sending MAT (essentially LPCM w/metadata) to my 3800. When there is Atmos in the stream, my AVR shows "ATMOS". Otherwise, it's just "Multi Ch In".

He is referring to a system without an AVR. Just the flex

 

[thcdru2k]

It’s really ugly having 5 cables come out of your TV.

Also eARC is a big hastle.

Ideally there will be Tide 16 8k or an HDMI upgrade board , or one can just purchase an 8k VRROOM. From what I can tell with the remote and screenshots of device console they are no longer calling it preset but scenes so ideally devices connect directly to the Tide 16, not the TV. Benefit to this would be you could have a stereo music scene which disables extra channels. A front speakers only without subs scene. Press a movie source, maybe your preset boosts the center channel +2db automatically. Press music, maybe you add a mid-bass boost automatically. You can do this already with any minidsp product and Pi though, you can auto change presets based on input if desired. Me personally in any case for serious gaming I would still connect 4k 120hz to display device for zero lag.

 

[Sokel]

While it is good that MiniDSP works to minimize this noise, keep in mind that this is all digital and the errors are rounding from 32-bit effective number of bits (194.4 SINAD) to a 24-bit ENOB (146.2 SINAD) and sometimes the rounding driving that down to a 20-bit ENOB. Here in the 'analog world' a 20+ bit ENOB is perfectly excellent. It is only relative to the 32-bit perfect digital signal that this looks like a huge problem.

It would be nice to be 20-bit as it's the theoretical results, but measuring the analog performance that wasn't the case at all.

Loading it with couple of filters (nothing heavy, just couple of L-R24dB and couple of corrections down low) performance was degrading rapidly as measuring lower.
While the hi-section was maxing my silly measuring rig (around -105 THD+N) the low section had a straight rising line going lower, resulting in mid 70's at the lower registers.

A subsonic, as many would like to do for example, would rise the whole way noise floor near 35dB! I have a +10dB room mode at ~30Hz which I sometimes knock down (sometimes I don't, feels like a guilty pleasure late night with low levels for example) , hitting a correction there would create havoc.

The strangest of all? Even engaging one single filter was giving the effect, as if it was changing working state, that's the way to describe it.
And it's a shame, cause flex looked perfectly nice.

Looking at 1kHz THD+N looks nice and all. But my way of measuring these days is starting at 20Hz. If it does this right then I go higher, if not I feel it's a lost cause.

Edit: the funny part of the story is that I returned it as broken, that's what I thought it was, as a sample.
If @mdsimon2 didn't up the game the way he did, and if I wasn't searching the minidsp forums, diyaudio, etc after that I would still think it was broken.

 

[Mort]

or one can just purchase an 8k VRROOM

It's physically awkward and a difficult UI but it works pretty well out of the box.

It's what I use with my HTx to handle video switching and the eArc loopback. Does a nice job with video consoles.

 

[Sokel]

And another, don't look up for hiss to detect this kind of noise.
If I can give a hint to detect it audibly is the difference of a single tone 40Hz nice and clean "vvvvvv" compared to a "vrrrrr" when there's fault (for any reason, that is, not only confined to gear, bad gain-staging or bad filter stacking can do it as well) .

 

[darth]

It's physically awkward and a difficult UI but it works pretty well out of the box.

It's what I use with my HTx to handle video switching and the eArc loopback. Does a nice job with video consoles.

Has anyone tried that or similar devices with Nvidia output and gsync?

 

[PGAMiami]

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

I also see a relay with two symmetrical resistor arrays on each output. Possibly they implemented a hybrid digital/analogue attenuation architecture similar to RME ADI 2 where every 6 db there is a relay choosing a resistor so you don’t lose more than 1 bit of resolution as you increase attenuation

 

[Mort]

Has anyone tried that or similar devices with Nvidia output and gsync?

"Please note that VRROOM supports any VRR signal thru HDMI2.1 FRL. Gsync and Freesync are tech that only work from Source to Display directly unless the Source and the Display supports HDMI 2.1 FRL as well. Kindly please verify that your source and display are HDMI2.1 and/or have support for FRL if you plan to use VRROOM for VRR signals."

From HDFury. Indicates it does but not switched.

 

[Sokel]

I also see a relay with two symmetrical resistor arrays on each output. Possibly they implemented a hybrid digital/analogue attenuation architecture similar to RME ADI 2 where every 6 db there is a relay choosing a resistor so you don’t lose more than 1 bit of resolution as you increase attenuation

That can't be at this stages, for various reasons.
Seems more like protection to me.

 

[nothingman]

AFAIK you can't. Even full pre-amp mode only disconnects amps, not turns them off.

I wish we had clarity. A lot of people talk about it as a complete shutdown and describe a power/heat reduction along with cleaner performance.

The manual describes preamp mode as “stops operation of the internal power amplifier.” Stops operation sounds like turns off but maybe that’s me reading into it.

 

[nothingman]

Where do you get off deciding they are stubborn and idiosyncratic?

And I would much rather do my bass management with minidsp than marantz or Denon. That's just silly.

I’m not just running my mouth. I have plenty of personal experience and skin in the game as an owner of the SHD that went through a brutal warranty process (huge multi-page blowup between me and them in this very forum years ago).

How about I put it this way, is it not a bit stubborn and idiosyncratic to ship HDMI 2.0 in 2026? Have there not been several dozen posts in this very thread about that? I get that they have their reasons, but miniDSP always have their reasons about everything.

That said, I do give them points for getting out ahead of this stuff in that Tide16 support portal with all the FAQ topics. That’s good, helpful, proactive communication.

 

[TurtlePaul]

It would be nice to be 20-bit as it's the theoretical results, but measuring the analog performance that wasn't the case at all.

Well let's see what this new platform can do. It says is has 32-bit precision. If this is 32-bit integer precision (which would be really really fast and low power on ARM processors), perhaps it will greatly reduce the rounding errors from the previous float format that had effectively 24-bits of interger precision with 23 bit mantissa plus a sign bit (but more precision at ow signal levels due to the exponent).

 

[Keith_W]

This is where manual correction is far better. I have never heard a system, whether it's been Audiolense, Dirac, Lyngdorf or some other "room correction" do a job especially above the Schroeder frequency.

Exactly! The only "room correction" above the Schroder frequency should be "broad, low-Q, tone control equalisation" as Toole puts it. But this does not mean that full range DSP is not possible. It is of course possible, but that is speaker correction and not "room correction". What that means is, take a quasi-anechoic measurement of speaker or driver, and use that as basis for correction. A lot of those software packages don't give you the flexibility of taking a separate measurement and performing a limited correction of that.