Trinnov Amplitude 16 Amplifier Review

[musicforcities]

Well. That is very impressive power and performace in a twelve channel amp. And price seems reasonable given that and its intended market.

 

[amirm]

So people have a whole spare room to build a huge home cinema, but then can't spare the space for another 1U enclosure? I wonder how many of the actual customers are in this particular predicament?

I am one. Planned for 7.1 system and now facing having to have more channels for ATMOS. My rack is waist high and is already pretty full.

 

[GXAlan]

I am one. Planned for 7.1 system and now facing having to have more channels for ATMOS. My rack is waist high and is already pretty full.

You should definitely make the leap to Atmos if you can. A top-middle over the listening area if it’s a modestly sized room adds a lot. I would say that a 5.1.2 is more enjoyable than a 7.1.0 with a lot of the Atmos content being mixed right now in many HT rooms. If your HT is unusually wide that it would benefit from 7.1, that’s a different story.

My bias is that the old home THX mono surround with decorrelation was already really immersive. With the technology available in the 5.1 era, adding 7.1 was an incremental marketing improvement which DID have an audible improvement but like the last bit of SINAD, a small improvement. When Atmos first came out, it was underutilized but now I find that it’s pretty common to find Atmos including with music where the height speakers are used a lot.

 

[amirm]

I definitely like to add Atmos support. We built the theater a decade before the format came out so the idea of ceiling speakers was not in sight. On a hunch, I put in wiring for two rear ceiling height speakers. So those are relatively easy to add. The second pair will be much more difficult. I hope I can figure out a way to do that as well.

 

[kyuu]

A top-middle over the listening area if it’s a modestly sized room adds a lot. I would say that a 5.1.2 is more enjoyable than a 7.1.0 with a lot of the Atmos content being mixed right now in many HT rooms.

I'm considering upping from 5.1 to 5.1.2. So the top-middle overhead speakers are preferred over front-heights?

 

[Olli]

I'm considering upping from 5.1 to 5.1.2. So the top-middle overhead speakers are preferred over front-heights?

No, 1st thing would be front heights.

 

[Olli]

I definitely like to add Atmos support. We built the theater a decade before the format came out so the idea of ceiling speakers was not in sight. On a hunch, I put in wiring for two rear ceiling height speakers. So those are relatively easy to add. The second pair will be much more difficult. I hope I can figure out a way to do that as well.

I was sort of reluctant to move to Atmos for music. Despite all the obvious theory that it is the superior format. But with the new setup I gave it another try and I really like it much better than stereo. At least for native productions such as the new JamieXX album

I even added an Apple Music subscription since it‘s so easy to use it with an Apple TV „headless“.
There‘s really a lot of Atmos Music available now and there‘s more coming from what I hear from my brother in law who is a well known mastering engineer specializing in Atmos. Good news!

Wondering what Roon is going to do about it is limited to 8 Channels so far.

 

[Olli]

Well. That is very impressive power and performace in a twelve channel amp. And price seems reasonable given that and its intended market.

It‘s 16 CH…

 

[Olli]

Couple of remarks to Amplitude - amplifier is optimized to be paired with Altitude AVP and is cheaper of 2 concepts (Amplitude 8 has 8 hypex1200 modules with LPS).
Gain matching gives audible advantage to the system, DB25 connectors are very comfortable to work with, you cannot underestimate how much better it is to handle 2 cables instead of 16. Ability to bridge the channels gives another level of flexibility. e.g. in 9.x.4 setup you can bridge l-c-r for more power.

And to bring things into perspective, you expect to see it paired with Alt 16 that costs around 18k eur, and if you get both, you can expect to get some good deal.

Please note that only the ALT32 has DB25 connectors; the ALT16 has balanced XLR out and is ready for Audio over IP via Network RJ45 connectors, but that’s not ready yet.

 

[IamJF]

I'm considering upping from 5.1 to 5.1.2. So the top-middle overhead speakers are preferred over front-heights?

That's pretty easy to decide - cause ATMOS tells you what to do to stay within the norm so the decoder knows what to do ;-) Search for "Atmos-installation-guidelines-....pfd"
5.1.2 or 7.1.2 is with 2 top middle overhead speakers which are 80° over your head (so a liittle in front of you) with tolerance from 65° to 100°.

For movies this is often even the preferred setup - cause most movies seem to use only 2 baked overhead channels to produce "some" overhead context. Music often uses objects and profits from 4 overhead channels, movies can produce comb filtering between the overhead channels.
A 6 channel setup would be a perfect mix - the middle speakers can be used for "baked" overhead content and all 6 for objects.

@amirm Start with your 2 overhead speakers - it's probably fine.

 

[TankTop]

I definitely like to add Atmos support. We built the theater a decade before the format came out so the idea of ceiling speakers was not in sight. On a hunch, I put in wiring for two rear ceiling height speakers. So those are relatively easy to add. The second pair will be much more difficult. I hope I can figure out a way to do that as well.

I have asbestos in the ceiling, I think Atmos is out for me

 

[musicforcities]

It‘s 16 CH…

Opps sorry. Ok even more impressive then. I would imagine these are intended for full custom home theater installs or audio distribution.

 

[Fidji]

I'm considering upping from 5.1 to 5.1.2. So the top-middle overhead speakers are preferred over front-heights?

No, 1st thing would be front heights.

I would disagree here, if you do only 2 overhead speakers, go for middle overhead
If you plan to go for more overhead speakers later, you should still follow Dolby placement guidelines and pick any pair you wish to start with

Dolby Atmos Speaker Setup Guides

Browse our wide-range of Dolby Atmos speaker step-by-step setup guides to find the best speaker placement and configuration for your home theater.

www.dolby.com

I would do front heights only if you intend to do x.1.6 and want to have combined dts:x/atmos layout.

 

[mppix]

For me the perfect amp (unicorn) would be a 32channels with Dante and Ravenna input, passive cooling and little to no heat and no more than 350mm depth. All my speakers now are active (2 channels per speaker) so a 32 channels actually becomes a 16 channel device.

Why do you need an amp at all?
A Neumann MT 48 or a mergin anubis can distribute the aes67 channels that are decoded in a mac (pc?)..

 

[digital_av]

Why do you need an amp at all?
A Neumann MT 48 or a mergin anubis can distribute the aes67 channels that are decoded in a mac (pc?)..

Sorry for the confusion. They have "active/digital/external" crossovers but no internal amp. I'm not sure if I can name these "active" speakers.
So I have to do the crossover either on the AV (i.e. on Trinnov) or an external DSP (i.e Lake LM44) then 2 channels (HF and LF) go into the amp and then into the loudspeakers.

 

[Descartes]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Trinnov Amplitude 16 home theater amplifier. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $12,500.
View attachment 397243
We have an on-off switch and a faint display that shows whether the channels are bridged or not. Given the main application of being in a dark room, you wouldn't want any bling on the front. Back panel shows the amazing number of channels crammed into this enclosure, courtesy of ICEPower class D amplifiers and custom power supply:
View attachment 397244
The binding posts show up impressively. And dual AC input (both must be used) hints at the box delivering 16 concurrent channels of amplification (or 8 bridged -- not tested). Inputs are provided through DB-25 connectors. Trinnov supplied me with a very supple and high quality converter to XLRs which made testing easy.

Trinnov Amplitude 16 Amplifier Measurements
I performed all of my testing on channels 1 and 2 in single ended/non-bridged mode. Let's start with our dashboard:
View attachment 397246

Nice to see the unit meet and exceed the spec on noise+distortion. Performance is not quite as good as the Trinnov 8m I tested but still quite competent:
View attachment 397248

View attachment 397249

Gain is on the low side but that is intentional to maximize SNR by matching the Altitude 16 processor. Speaking of SNR, performance is excellent there:
View attachment 397250

There is no load dependency which is nice:
View attachment 397251
I tested using reactive loads and it delivered the same.

Multitone shows some rise in distortion at higher frequencies:
View attachment 397252

Which then gets reflected in intermodulation distortion using 19 and 20 kHz tones:
View attachment 397253

Crosstalk is excellent:
View attachment 397254

Specs are met with respect to power:
View attachment 397255

View attachment 397256
View attachment 397257

Full power is more or less maintained for the full audio range:
View attachment 397258

We can see the same in our sweeps vs frequency where 20 Hz output is not impacted:
View attachment 397259

The amplifier impressively doubles down in power up to 20 Hz including with reactive loads:
View attachment 397260
View attachment 397261

Noise on power off may be audible on sensitive speakers:
View attachment 397262

Amplifier is stable on after a few minutes:
View attachment 397263

Conclusions
It is clear that the Amplitude 16 is competently designed despite including 16 channels of power -- more than I have seen before. This takes away massive amount of clutter in a high-channel ATMOS home theater setup. We give up a small notch in performance from 8m but that is a trade off that I happily accept in not having to have two boxes.

On the cost, please note that this product is sold through the installer channel which requires healthy margins. So please don't compare it to companies selling direct.

I am going to recommend the Trinnov Amplitude 16 amplifier.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Appreciate any donations using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

Thank you for your review! Are we talking 50 points or more?

 

[Cbdb2]

I have asbestos in the ceiling, I think Atmos is out for me

You can also get up firing speakers that reflect off the ceiling to replace the ceiling speakers. not ideal but still works.