Trinnov 8m 8 Channel Amplifier Review

[Sokel]

On the positive side they do give a 5 year transferable warranty.
The best way to measure cost is through time, $/year, and I'm glad to see that lately more and more extending the time of the warranty for amps like this.
Fun must be careless!

 

[dtaylo1066]

A well made and well designed beast. Nothing for me not to like other than the price, which is a bit over 1K per channel. I still have a bunch of Hypex UCD180 amps that work just fine. But I wonder how much, if any, the newer modules would benefit me.

 

[Azathoth]

Excellent review, these Hypex modules are really working their thing ain't it! Too bad I don't think I'll ever see the need for passive speakers any time soon.

 

[pseudoid]

and buy one of these things and spend the rest on cars, women and experiences.

Why...

Would you replace the...?

...Word Wine with 'experience'?

I just looked up the price for the ATI AT528NC—it’s $4800. Keeping in mind that the AT528NC is essentially the same amp as the Amplitude 8m minus the DB25 connector, then the “Trinnov tax” is $4700. So the Trinnov name and a DB25 connector is costing you an almost $5000 premium. Whoah!

Yeah, I did one more quick division with that ATI version and came to $600 per channel. Wooot!
That is a true bargain for the price and I would give that AT528NC a Bargain Panther vote, if similar performance.

 

[sarumbear]

The NC-xxx modules all fall off to about -0.5dB at 20kHz. If you want wide bandwidth, ruler flat amplification, these aren't for you.

If you want ball-tearing power, low distortion, efficiency and low cost, these modules fit the bill.

Personally, starting from scratch, I'd put my audiophile pre-requisites in the trash and buy one of these things and spend the rest on cars, women and experiences.

Experiences?

 

[juliangst]

The NC-xxx modules all fall off to about -0.5dB at 20kHz. If you want wide bandwidth, ruler flat amplification, these aren't for you.

If you want ball-tearing power, low distortion, efficiency and low cost, these modules fit the bill.

Personally, starting from scratch, I'd put my audiophile pre-requisites in the trash and buy one of these things and spend the rest on cars, women and experiences.

They're just 0.267dB down at 20.000Hz and who needs more bandwidth than the audible spectrum?

 

[Billy Budapest]

I just looked up the price for the ATI AT528NC—it’s $4800. Keeping in mind that the AT528NC is essentially the same amp as the Amplitude 8m minus the DB25 connector, then the “Trinnov tax” is $4700. So the Trinnov name and a DB25 connector is costing you an almost $5000 premium. Whoah!

Now, I do have to say that the DB25 connector is really cool and convenient, but it’s not worth $5000. Or shouldn’t be.

 

[MinMan]

Any chance that the OEM for this unit is ATI?

 

[Billy Budapest]

Any chance that the OEM for this unit is ATI?

It is—in fact, it says so in writing on the back panel.

 

[pseudoid]

*Experiences?

I think I figure it out: @restorer-john may not like *walking, *all by himself, down to the *symphony-hall!
Or he may have been punning on the saying about:

 

[restorer-john]

They're just 0.267dB down at 20.000Hz and who needs more bandwidth than the audible spectrum?

Don't quote an NCX response as being the same as an NC response. The older NC are all around 0.5dB down and yes, ruler flat in the audible range is a 100% requirement for high fidelity when it comes to amplification.

 

[juliangst]

Don't quote an NCX response as being the same as an NC response. The older NC are all around 0.5dB down and yes, ruler flat in the audible range is a 100% requirement for high fidelity when it comes to amplification.

Even 0.5dB is really good. Nobody will be able to tell a difference

 

[Positivevibrations]

When the NCx versions of the Hypex MP modules are released, it will be game over for any 8 channel amp over $2000. I‘m thinking a solid 500wpc with SINAD around -110 @5w. 8 channel amps for around $2000. Cool running and compact.

 

[restorer-john]

And Trinnov 8m, with its dual toroidal power supplies, has LESS power even on peak power!

They are both 8 channel amplifiers and only 2 channels have been tested. We also don't know what channels 7 and 8 use in relation to the two toroidals' secondaries.

No conclusions/comparisons can be drawn on power output. An 8 channel amplifier should be tested to clipping with all 8 channels driven, even if you only monitor 2 of the 8.

 

[restorer-john]

Even 0.5dB is really good.

No it isn't. -0.5dB is ~6% off your voltage swing. Gone out the window. At just 5W@4R. It only gets worse as the power (current) goes up.

 

[amirm]

No conclusions/comparisons can be drawn on power output. An 8 channel amplifier should be tested to clipping with all 8 channels driven, even if you only monitor 2 of the 8.

The laws of physics don't allow a 15 amp, 120 volt supply in US to do that. That would amount to more than 4KW. I don't even know if you can do it in your neck of the woods. No amplifier meant for home theater application requires all channels driven to max.

 

[ocinn]

No conclusions/comparisons can be drawn on power output. An 8 channel amplifier should be tested to clipping with all 8 channels driven, even if you only monitor 2 of the 8.

Please enlighten me on scenes in movies where 8 properly hi-passed speaker channels are fully loaded to the point they are all simultaneously drawing >311wpc.

I understand your point, on a technical critique sense, but it’s irrelevant/unfair for real world applications. Unless the owner likes listening to 30hz full scale sine waves on 8ch you’ll never come close to PSU saturation.

So only the lower noise is better (SINAD 8m 106 x 98 Buckeye) for the 4.3x price difference (8m 9500 x 2200 Buckeye).

But if we consider 4 x Buckeye stereo NCx500 at around 4400 usd one would have better power (around 640W for a single SMPS1200) and similar SINAD 106 still for half the price.

Yeah this is the point I made earlier. This doesn’t make sense unless you have “fuck-you money” and want everything to be in the trinnov ecosystem.

I think there’s merits to their approach of optimized gain staging from processor to amp over the DB25 but without comparative data in front of me, I’d wager the performance advantages of <1/4 as costly solutions far out-weigh a few DB of noise (in the -100db range) in terms of audibility/subjective quality for a buyer.

I’d much rather grab the buckeye 502 amp, and spend the $7300 saved on more pertinent things like nicer LCR, room treatment, subwoofers, which would undoubtedly be more beneficial for the final result than buying this amp.

The laws of physics don't allow a 15 amp, 120 volt supply in US to do that. That would amount to more than 4KW. I don't even know if you can do it in your neck of the woods. No amplifier meant for home theater application requires all channels driven to max.

Exactly. It’s even more prevalent in my line of work (live sound). See this.

Amplifiers capable of 8200wpc (x4) can perform at the limit off of a 264v@32A leg of 3 phase (usually at 220v@32A, one leg of 440v3P) totally fine under real world music conditions.

 

[Matias]

They are both 8 channel amplifiers and only 2 channels have been tested. We also don't know what channels 7 and 8 use in relation to the two toroidals' secondaries.

No conclusions/comparisons can be drawn on power output. An 8 channel amplifier should be tested to clipping with all 8 channels driven, even if you only monitor 2 of the 8.

The NC502MP graph I posted is specifically both channels in the same board using the same shared PS between them. The other channels would do the same.

The Trinnov's toroids are shared among all modules, so the PS is going to limit even more when all modules are powered.

 

[restorer-john]

I understand your point, on a technical critique sense, but it’s irrelevant/unfair for real world applications. Unless the owner likes listening to 30hz full scale sine waves on 8ch you’ll never come close to PSU saturation.

No, it's not irrelevant. One person's 'real world' application is someone else's idling along. The amplifier has an advertised rating- is it real or not? It's an 8 channel amplifier and should be tested to full power at clipping in all 8 channels. *

By your logic, you should only test a stereo amplifier in one channel...

* You have a whole house ducted air conditioning system rated to cool your 8 room house to 20 degrees C in summer, but you shut off the baffles to 6 rooms for specifying the 'rated cooling capacity' and only measure 2...

 

[KSTR]

They are both 8 channel amplifiers and only 2 channels have been tested. We also don't know what channels 7 and 8 use in relation to the two toroidals' secondaries.

No conclusions/comparisons can be drawn on power output. An 8 channel amplifier should be tested to clipping with all 8 channels driven, even if you only monitor 2 of the 8.

Any reason to mistrust the given specs?
- 1800W max power input
- 8x8ohms [email protected]% per channel = 1600W < 1800W
- 4x4ohms [email protected]% per channel = 1200W < 1800W
Looks reasonable wrt losses etc.
The 4x4ohms rating must rely on load balancing between the transformers which is quite likely intrinsic to the design (split secondaries stacked on top of each other across transformers).