Trinnov may not be well-known in the high-end home theater market in the United States, but that may soon change. They have made their reputation with room optimization and calibration systems that are widely used in professional theaters. Their optimization and calibration software made a brief appearance in the consumer market in the Sherwood Newcastle R-972 receiver, which Dennis Burger liked enough to award a BIGGIE Award back in 2010. But since then, the company has kept a fairly low profile on these shores.
Trinnov is back in the US, showing off their new Altitude32 processor at CEDIA Expo in a booth hosted by high-end A/V distributor Sound Developments. The Altitude 32 differs from other Dolby Atmos processors in that it uses no DSP chips: the processor is actually a souped up quad core computer running Linux. The Atmos decoding is done directly on the processor using software decoding. This makes it more powerful and more easily upgradeable than other processors. It also allows the Trinnov to support up to 32 independent speaker outputs. The Trinnov Altitude32 can be configured for 8, 16, 24 or even 32 channels depending on the size of the customer's room (and budget).
At CEDIA, the Trinnov Altitude was configured for 16 channels but using only 14 of them for a 9.2.4 system (9 main channels, 2 subwoofers driven by a single LFE output, and 4 height channels). This was one of the most impressive-sounding systems at the show, not only in terms of creation of a believable 3D soundstage, but also for sheer SPL output and dynamic range. Sound Developments General Manager Greg Peterson made a point of playing a live music performance clip (at a fairly high volume) before the theatrical Atmos demos to show that the Procella speakers and amps were equally good at playing music and movies.
In addition to Dolby Atmos, the processor will also support the Auro-3D surround sound format. Trinnov Sales Manager Arnaud Destinay explained that supporting both Atmos and Auro-3D in one product presents a bit of a challenge. "They each have different recommendations for speaker configurations," said Destinay. "But our processor supports not only distance and EQ calibration and room optimization, but also speaker virtualization and remapping." In other words, an installer can position one set of speakers in permanent locations in the customer's home theater and the Trinnov processor can do a virtual speaker remap to provide the ideal sound for Dolby Atmos or Auro-3D. And it can do this on the fly when it detects the surround format from the active source.
For the high-end home theater client (and installer), this is an elegant solution as it allows the customer's theater to support movies and other content encoded in both Dolby Atmos and Auro-3D, without having to install two separate sets of speakers and amplifiers. Can you say, "Future proof?"
The Trinnov Altitude32 is nearing final production and expected to be available this fall. US pricing has not yet been announced.
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