As I wrote before in these pages, I have long been acquainted with French electronics manufacturer Trinnov. Years ago, at an Audio Engineering Society convention in New York, a Trinnov rep used a mastering console equipped with their processor to move, at will, the sounds of instruments around the 3D soundstage and left me thoroughly impressed. That was before my conversion from stereo to multichannel music listening, and before the blurring of borders between home theater and mainstream audio.

Subsequently, I reported on an AVR with a simplified version of Trinnov processing, and later still on a full-blown Trinnov MC Optimizer. The former was tantalizing but ultimately unsatisfying, while the latter was satisfying but too demanding, operationally and financially. But recently, Trinnov entered the home theater/domestic-audio market with their line of Altitude preamp-processors. These sit at the high end of such products in appearance, convenience, DSP potency—and price.

Earlier this year, I received for review the Trinnov Altitude 32—actually the Altitude 32-816, with optional 3D audio decoding package ($26,750), plus a Trinnov 3D microphone ($750). The “816” designation indicates 8-channel (actually 7.1) input capability, either digital or analog, as well as 16 channels of outputs; the optional 3D package enables Auro-3D, Dolby Atmos, and DTS:X, along with their respective upmixers for legacy material: Auro-3D, Dolby Surround, and Neural:X (footnote 1). The Trinnov Altitude 32 is the most prodigious HT pre-pro that I have ever used. Aside from DSD support, I cannot think of a single facility or function that’s missing, including the option to go beyond the number of built-in channels by adding cards and an external box.

Getting up to altitude
In my earlier experience with the Trinnov MC Optimizer—in that instance, a standalone signal processor, although the name also applies to the suite of DSP software inside the Altitude 32 and other products—I had to rely on a phone and VPN connection with a Trinnov technician to get it going. The Altitude 32 has a much friendlier user interface. But such is its complexity that new users won’t be able to follow a simple series of setup screens to use it. Trinnov strongly advises that users read the entire 167 pages of the User Guide—and I agree—but a printed copy is not included. Since I had some prior experience, I chose instead to sample my way through the PDF guide, consulting it throughout the process.

Weighing in at an impressive 32 lb, the Altitude 32 takes great physical effort to install, compared to a power amplifier of comparable weight, because it must go on a high enough shelf that its controls and its myriad connections can easily be accessed. I started by connecting a few HDMI sources, including my Mac mini-based JRiver server, and an expanded playback system that included my standard 5.2 setup plus two pairs of front and rear Dolby-enabled speakers: small upward-aimed speakers that reflect off the ceiling to emulate height sources. The resulting 5.2.4 system required 11 of the XLR output jacks for the power amps and subs, and I inserted them in what seemed a logical order based on experience. I turned on the Altitude 32 and, yes, stereo was excellent from the left and right speakers, but the outputs from the additional channels were strange and skewed. Clearly, my default was not congruent with that of the Altitude. I needed to face the setup procedures outlined in the guide. But how?

The Altitude 32’s front panel controls and display serve only for in-use functions—not configuration or calibration. There is also direct network access to the Altitude 32’s webpage, which is somewhat more detailed, but it doesn’t support setup operations, either. The only effective user interface for setup at this moment (footnote 2) is via VNC. My iPad made the connection quickly and dependably.

This makes great sense if one looks at the back of the Altitude 32 chassis and sees the characteristic I/O panel of an Intel-based motherboard poking through on the lower left of the main array of A/V I/O connections. There’s a PC in there: Consider it the Trinnov’s left hemisphere, in that you must communicate with it if you want to deal with the A/V operations in the right hemisphere. Of course, you’re welcome to connect a keyboard, mouse, and HDMI monitor to that PC to access it directly, but that entails more devices, more connectors, and more clutter. So VPN it is—and I have been won over by that approach’s ability to give me the most granular and global control from my seat on the sofa.

The basic setup tasks are defining and mapping the output channels; bass management; speaker measurement; target curve specification; and calibration/equalization. In addition, one is likely to have special preferences for different uses—eg, stereo music with or without bass management, single person vs group listening/viewing, etc. Trinnov lets you store individual sets of controls, calibrations, and settings as individual Presets, and you can have dozens to suit your needs.

Taken in order:

• The speaker-mapping page allows you to assign any physical speaker channel to any logical speaker output in any of the commonly used layouts or codecs. I discovered that I had connected my front subwoofers to jacks that Trinnov had assigned to SurroundR/SurroundL; as a result, the rest of the assignments were displaced as well. Rather than doing a lot of plugging and unplugging, I just reassigned the remaining outputs.

Channel assignments page for each codec and, in last column, speaker output.