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

[Dougey_Jones]

Assuming there's no chance in hell this will automatically detect which input is playing?

Do any AVP’s do that?

 

[quattro98]

Do any AVP’s do that?

I assume the Marantz ones do through HDMI CEC. My older Denon 8500 receiver does this (switching between Apple TV & Blueray player connected to the receiver and a cable box connected to the TV). When it works, it’s cool to have the receiver switch inputs on it’s own.

 

[dukeside]

Might be a day 1 purchase for me when tariffs are lifted.

 

[mustang5o]

Trinnov is catering to a niche market. Partially overlaps with Storm at best, but then not really as Storm relies on Dirac that is quite simple all things considered.

Number of options and adjustments on Trinnov is mind boggling and no other company opted to go there as they produce consumer products. Trinnov is a custom instal unit - does not even have the common CEC. And they have best customer service support in the bizz - which for that money they should.

I agree with your assessment of Trinnov. One could argue MiniDSP is a niche market as well. Even if they didn't have quite the options that Trinnov has, a processor with Dante output and upgradeable channel count plus offering a lower priced Dante compatible amplifier, along with the full Dirac suite...they would be on my short list when I upgrade from my current Denon.

 

[TurtlePaul]

It is interesting to me that they are moving away from the Analog Devices SHARC platform and appear to be using a commodity ARM Cortex A53 x4 1.8 ghz SOC. I wonder if this will migrate to all future devices. I am sure that Allwinner, Rockchip, etc. are happy to undercut Analog Devices prices and in the future this is the path to substantially increase DSP processing power. I see more FIR taps on MiniDSP devices in the future. It probably required a ton of code rewrite.

 

[Ultrasonic]

All of the devices we’re talking about support EARC, so you just connect the input devices into your TV. The HDMI port on the Flex HT and HTx is intended to be connected to a TV. Since it does not support Dolby/DTS, you need a blu-ray player that can decode to surround PCM (not uncommon I believe) or a TV that can (not as common these days).

Yes but there is only one one eARC connection so both the Apple and miniDSP devices can't use this. We somehow need to get an audio signal from the Blu-Ray player to the Apple 4k TV and then on to the miniDSP HT?

MiniDSP’s devices are for tinkerers, not really an out-of-the-box solution.

Note I use a miniDSP SHD as per my signature, and also have a 2x4 HD I've had for many years too. They have many good products.

 

[popej]

Atmos/DTS:X? My inexpensive AVR lists here about 15 formats, including DSD. Will miniDSP support most devices, like ATV, game console, UHD blu-ray?

 

[popej]

It is interesting to me that they are moving away from the Analog Devices SHARC platform and appear to be using a commodity ARM Cortex A53 x4 1.8 ghz SOC.

Does it really replace DSP? It is about an equivalent of RPi 3, I doubt it can process 16 channels ART.

 

[Pow1]

Assuming there's no chance in hell this will automatically detect which input is playing?

I personally don't own any miniDSP devices so I don't know if what I'm going to say is possible with miniDSP, but the way that I have in mind to hack around (with other devices where configurable IO is an option) it is to route multiple inputs to the same outputs, essentially using the DSP as some sort of mixer.

Then switching of inputs will "automatically" be done when you turn one source on and turn the other source off.

 

[Dj7675]

Probably too much to hope for, but wish it were 20 channels. 9.1.6 with 4 subs. But this is a great thing for competition. It will be fun watching it be released and developed further.

 

[TurtlePaul]

Does it really replace DSP? It is about an equivalent of RPi 3, I doubt it can process 16 channels ART.

Every other MiniDSP uses a 400 mhz core (based on a 2010 design) which can do stereo Dirac. While that had DSP optimized vector instructions, Raspberry Pi 3 is more than 10x as fast at vector math to do 16 channel Dirac.

EQ APO on the PC defaults to 65k FIR taps - just fine for 10 channels 48 khz. The compute just isn’t that expensive on semi modern devices.

 

[EWL5]

All of the devices we’re talking about support EARC, so you just connect the input devices into your TV. The HDMI port on the Flex HT and HTx is intended to be connected to a TV. Since it does not support Dolby/DTS, you need a blu-ray player that can decode to surround PCM (not uncommon I believe) or a TV that can (not as common these days).

Personally, I use the HTx with a Sony A95L (TV) connected to an ATV (for streaming; works well with Plex/Infuse also) and an Ugoos AMB6+ (for Kodi/Plex, blu-ray rips). MiniDSP’s devices are for tinkerers, not really an out-of-the-box solution.

Folks who swear by eARC/ARC have never had their older OLED TV turn on mysteriously by a device just to receive some nasty burn-in.
Compatibility issues and a near infinite combo of home equipment have always made eARC/ARC more of a dream than a practical application.

 

[dwkdnvr]

Does it really replace DSP? It is about an equivalent of RPi 3, I doubt it can process 16 channels ART.

I realize that it's not apples-to-apples, but I was doing 16 channel FIR convolution on stereo inputs using BruteFIR on an OG Athlon processor 'back in the day' (around Y2K). Sure, partitioned convolution and latency that would be difficult to manage in a video system, but the raw throughput available on any modern-ish CPU is pretty significant.

 

[terryforsythe]

Looks like this could also be used as a crossover/processor for multiway active speakers? Any ideas on how capable the "Quad Core ARM processor / 1.8GHz " is in terms of DSP?

Probably plenty capable.

For reference, I am using a miniDSP HTx for an all active 8-ch setup, 6-ch dedicated to the two 3-way speakers and 2-ch dedicated to the subwoofer. It uses a 400MHz SharcDSP audio processor and I have no issues whatsoever. By comparison, the Tide16 uses a 1.8GHz quad core ARM processor.

 

[popej]

Found a note for CamillaDSP:
A Raspberry Pi 4 doing FIR filtering of 8 channels, with 262k taps per channel, at 192 kHz.CPU usage about 55%

Then maybe 1.8G A53 can do something similar for 16 channels at 48kHz?

 

[Ultrasonic]

Folks who swear by eARC/ARC have never had their older OLED TV turn on mysteriously by a device just to receive some nasty burn-in.
Compatibility issues and a near infinite combo of home equipment have always made eARC/ARC more of a dream than a practical application.

Possibly it's better now than you remember? I do use eARC currently and have never had an issue.

For context for above comments: AVR is connected via eARC, so that I can send it audio signals for content streamed via apps on TV, and PS5 and PC connected directly to TV via HDMI.

 

[popej]

Folks who swear by eARC/ARC have never had their older OLED TV turn on mysteriously by a device just to receive some nasty burn-in.

Isn't it CEC, which turns on/off TV? Probably works without ARC.

 

[thcdru2k]

Hdmi 2.0? Seriously?

spec sheet says 2.1 for earc, but video passthrough 60hz

 

[thcdru2k]

Looks like this could also be used as a crossover/processor for multiway active speakers? Any ideas on how capable the "Quad Core ARM processor / 1.8GHz " is in terms of DSP?

possibilities endless looks like full matrix rerouting so any crazy type of speaker/midbass/subwoofer would work.

 

[quattro98]

Folks who swear by eARC/ARC have never had their older OLED TV turn on mysteriously by a device just to receive some nasty burn-in.
Compatibility issues and a near infinite combo of home equipment have always made eARC/ARC more of a dream than a practical application.

You can use eARC separately from CEC.