Trinnov Altitude 16 Review (AV Processor)

[Golfx]

Mr Golfx… how are ya hitting them? Almost golf season here in the Northeast, although I don’t golf anymore we are surrounded by some decent golf courses.

I don’t have any bias one way or the other, I just want my next preamp to be better than what they’re producing now. Mine is getting a little long in the tooth.

The good news is that there are a handful of companies I understand are going to up the ante soon. It appears ASR has woke the AV industry up, just like they did some of the DAC, and 2-channel world and that’s a good thing in my opinion. In this day and age there is no need for some of these mediocre specs. Now we need those DAC’s in our preamps, and even if we can’t hear it headroom is great… just ask a new corvette or Lambo owner. Yes another car analogy but it works… Have a great day.

Regarding golf, my handicap is slowly going back up. It is at a 2.2 up from a 1.6. The game is in my soul—very addictive.

Regarding the trinnov i upgraded from Denon’s AVR A110 when i realized the Denon was downsampling my hi-res music to 48hz when using audyssey. The trinnov does not. It has enough processing power to do both hi res and room EQ simultaneously. The Altitude 16 keeps 96hz while the Altitude 32 keeps 192hz.

I too was/am a fan of ASR‘s “good engineering hygiene” statement that follows good DAC SINAD bench numbers from AMIR. But downsampling irritated my sense of authenticity.

 

[Deleted member 43441]

@JohnV I've never owned a Trinnov and by the look of my life trajectory i will probably never get myself to buy one anyway. But for you to say that nothing about them sets them apart is incredibly.... just plain wrong.

I mean heck look at their microphone! I would love to experience a full fledged cinema with the Trinnov installed one day.

Can we please stop this nonsense? I thought people were adamant about defending their $3000 headphones? This IS NOT an owners thead, it’s a review thread based on subjective measurements by our host.

Have a good day, and again this is a great looking machine, but its specs are underwhelming especially for 17K.

Great looking microphone by the way.

 

[Deleted member 43441]

Regarding golf, my handicap is slowly going back up. It is at a 2.2 up from a 1.6. The game is in my soul—very addictive.

Regarding the trinnov i upgraded from Denon’s AVR A110 when i realized the Denon was downsampling my hi-res music to 48hz when using audyssey. The trinnov does not. It has enough processing power to do both hi res and room EQ simultaneously. The Altitude 16 keeps 96hz while the Altitude 32 keeps 192hz.

I too was/am a fan of ASR‘s “good engineering hygiene” statement that follows good DAC SINAD bench numbers from AMIR. But downsampling irritated my sense of authenticity.

Sounds like you have a pretty good golf game my friend, continued success with that. Please enjoy this great looking AVP.

 

[DonH56]

The microphone allows the unit to analyze and locate speakers in 3D space so XYZ position as well as simple time delay is calculated (and shown in the display -- you get a 3D map of speaker position). The problem is, of course, after you've mounted your speakers as best you can and the map shows them to be a little off the optimal Dolby positions... Vexing to those of us dealing with mild OCD about such things. My overheads in particular I had to move a few inches from "perfect" due to placement of ceiling studs, and the Trinnov accurately shows them a few inches off the ideal... Still sound OK.

FWIWFM - Don (unabashed gushing nonsensical sleazy slimy ignorant stupid fanboy)

 

[hmt]

In all fairness, I understand that this company is one of the ones that are supposed up up the ante soon. This in my opinion can only be good for the entire A/V industry, and it’s long overdue. Anthem is also about to up the ante from what I understand, and I welcome to see what they come up with next.

This is no different than what Topping saw when they came into the DAC market. I can only imagine that they were licking their chops when they saw a bunch of underwhelming, under spec’d over priced, slick marketed, fancy box, blinking lights… for the most part outdated dinosaurs on the market. I invite them to come in and fix this can barely break 100 SINAD industry, and it’s not just that spec, it’s all of their underwhelming specs. Imagine what Topping could do… I bet they could make a dream machine for 5K.

The industry manufacturing AVRs has many problems, not having SINAD above 100 is not one of them.

 

[Deleted member 43441]

The microphone allows the unit to analyze and locate speakers in 3D space so position as well as simple time delay is calculated (and shown in the display -- you get a 3D map of speaker position).

Nice. Maybe I’ll end up learning something, instead of being chastised lol.

 

[Dimifoot]

Have a good day

Good day to all

Have a great day.

Good day.

Enjoy your day

 

[Deleted member 43441]

If you would please tell your buddies to quit quoting me I wouldn’t have to keep repeating myself wink wink.

I’ll ignore the repeated attempts to drag me back into the fan club LOL. My bad for thinking that this was a review thread.

It seems some can’t let others have an opinion. I’m bad at being a follower… sorry I’ll work on that.

Good day…. inspector

 

[peng]

I too was/am a fan of ASR‘s “good engineering hygiene” statement that follows good DAC SINAD bench numbers from AMIR. But downsampling irritated my sense of authenticity.

Haha don't get mad, but I have to remind that while I understand why down sampling irritated your sense... (it does to me too), but if you didn't know about it you would not know the difference because 48 kHz exceeds the >2X requirement (Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem), and then there are always antialiasing techniques to help ensure the listener won't know the difference. It is like JohnV's point about the 99 dB SINAD not good enough for him, because of the price tag, not because he could hear (he said he couldn't..) a difference between 99 dB SINAD and the 80-90 dB SINAD of his AV8801. Is it better not to down sampling? Surely it is, there would be less work to do, but not for sound quality reasons. D+M had to down sample for other reasons, one being processing power limitation. Anthem probably can do it at 96 kHz in their higher models now, not necessarily because their processors used are more powerful, but likely because (just my guess) their IRR filters are much more efficient in terms of processing power requirement than Audyssey's FIR types.

 

[peng]

It seems some can’t let others have an opinion.

I thought you guys have all been voicing your opinions freely for a few days now lol...

 

[Dj7675]

In regards to SINAD measurements, we really don't know the kind of limitations manufacturers have in regards to the various codecs etc that impact overall performance. @amirm noted this in the 8805a review HERE. As such, there could be a lot of complexity and limitations they have to deal with that 2 channel DACs simply don't have to deal with. In many ways I am actually amazed we have multichannel avr's and processors that get to a SINAD of 100+. It seems to me, that if it gets to around a 100, some degree of effort has been taken to get there. Hopefully they can figure out how to do better, but I don't be loosing sleep over it.
I still would like to see a unit or 2 measured with EQ left on to see what affect that has as well on SINAD. I think it would be interesting.

 

[peng]

In regards to SINAD measurements, we really don't know the kind of limitations manufacturers have in regards to the various codecs etc that impact overall performance. @amirm noted this in the 8805a review HERE. As such, there could be a lot of complexity and limitations they have to deal with that 2 channel DACs simply don't have to deal with. In many ways I am actually amazed we have multichannel avr's and processors that get to a SINAD of 100+. It seems to me, that if it gets to around a 100, some degree of effort has been taken to get there. Hopefully they can figure out how to do better, but I don't be loosing sleep over it.
I still would like to see a unit or 2 measured with EQ left on to see what affect that has as well on SINAD. I think it would be interesting.

Interesting for sure but I wonder how it can be done, given that the test signal has to come from the AP. I would like to think that since EQ would boost or attenuate (mostly) certain frequencies based on information collected by the mic, as long as the boost don't result in pushing the magnitude to near clipping point of the preamp/amp it should not result in much higher distortions. I have never noticed any sign of clipping or any sort of audible distortions with Audyssey or Dirac engaged but that doesn't mean the test instrument won't notice the same.

 

[TGB]

It handles all 4 subs on separate independent channels, but it doesn’t optimize the overall response of the 4 subs - at least to my understanding which I admit may be lacking.

Handling all x number of subs as one is possible, but not fully automated. You need to align delay and level alignments for them (this information will be given to you by the Trinnov Optimizer when doing a normal individual calibration for each sub as separate entities). So this is possible, but requires some manual entered data (this process Trinnov is working on making fully automated).

You can handle as many subs as you want in reality. Individually, or in 1..n groups (limit is outputs).

Example how to calibrate a group of subs as one entity (other alternatives also exist, hence this is only one of them):

https://www.avsforum.com/threads/trinnov-altitude.1516103/post-61305433

Edit:
I would prefer to not link to other forum, but describing this again requires a lot of work (I'm the author of the linked post).

 

[hmt]

Having multiple subs optimised (like DLBC or MSO) is way more important than touting +10db higher SINAD.

 

[DonH56]

It handles all 4 subs on separate independent channels, but it doesn’t optimize the overall response of the 4 subs - at least to my understanding which I admit may be lacking.

The Optimizer does not, it treats them separately, more-or-less -- Trinnov is cagey upon how exactly the Optimizer handles them but has said (in response to a question on one of their webinars) that it treats them independently. They have also said they are looking into something like MSO but at present feel their way is best (you can debate that with them, it is beyond my ken). You can optimize the overall response by directly measuring and entering delays and filter coefficients, or using something like MSO or SFM to generate the coefficients (my plan), but that is a manual process.

In my system, my measurements are good enough (as is the sound) that I have not felt a pressing need to get into MSO or SFM, plus have not had the time, but it is on my bucket list. I have done it both ways in the past and did not find a significant difference in the final response for my system.

Edit: @TGB probably has a better answer so I'll defer to him (her, it, whatever).

 

[TGB]

The Optimizer does not, it treats them separately, more-or-less -- Trinnov is cagey upon how exactly the Optimizer handles them but has said (in response to a question on one of their webinars) that it treats them independently. They have also said they are looking into something like MSO but at present feel their way is best (you can debate that with them, it is beyond my ken). You can optimize the overall response by directly measuring and entering delays and filter coefficients, or using something like MSO or SFM to generate the coefficients (my plan), but that is a manual process.

You have both alternatives, pointing to my previous post again:

Trinnov Altitude 16 Review (AV Processor)

Mr Golfx… how are ya hitting them? Almost golf season here in the Northeast, although I don’t golf anymore we are surrounded by some decent golf courses. I don’t have any bias one way or the other, I just want my next preamp to be better than what they’re producing now. Mine is getting a little...

audiosciencereview.com

 

[DonH56]

You have both alternatives, pointing to my previous post again:

Trinnov Altitude 16 Review (AV Processor)

Mr Golfx… how are ya hitting them? Almost golf season here in the Northeast, although I don’t golf anymore we are surrounded by some decent golf courses. I don’t have any bias one way or the other, I just want my next preamp to be better than what they’re producing now. Mine is getting a little...

audiosciencereview.com

Sorry, we're cross-posting, what I get for flying in whilst working (waiting for a test result). I have not been on AVS much lately and not at all on the Trinnov thread. I plan to visit again as I am behind on SW updates and have a couple of issues I'd like to check. I think we said the same thing but I defer to you. I do not claim to be a Trinnov expert.

 

[TGB]

Sorry, we're cross-posting, what I get for flying in whilst working (waiting for a test result). I have not been on AVS much lately and not at all on the Trinnov thread. I plan to visit again as I am behind on SW updates and have a couple of issues I'd like to check.

This is not something new, both alternatives have been available always I think (at least the years I've had the Altitude32, same applies to Altitude16 of course).

 

[DonH56]

This is not something new, both alternatives have been available always I think (at least the years I've had the Altitude32, same applies to Altitude16 of course).

Yah, I did not mean to imply in any way that it was new. AFAIK that capability has been there "since the beginning" though I've only had mine for a few years. I didn't see Beast76's post until this afternoon (and missed yours -- started a post, went away for a while, then finished it much later). Work interferes greatly with Life.

 

[TGB]

I see that you have the Amethyst. Does it have an HT bypass capability? Can you at least program one of the analog inputs to have a fixed volume level, so you could feed it with a pre-out signal from an AVR, bypassing the Amethyst's master volume control?

Thanks

Not sure how this works on the Amethyst, but on the Altitude you can configure Master level on each source (digital or analogue)