I’VE BEEN reviewing A/V gear for over 15 years, and it’s rare that something new comes along that will intimidate me. But all that changed when I found out I’d be reviewing the Trinnov Audio Altitude16, an $18,000 surround sound processor that’s arguably the most sophisticated and flexible offering of its kind on the market. To prepare myself, I even downloaded and starting reading Trinnov’s 172-page manual well in advance of the Altitude16’s arrival.
Once it arrived and was unboxed, I admired the Altitude16’s design—it has an industrial look that I personally love in an A/V component. The brushed aluminum front panel contains only a few controls: power, mute, volume adjustment, and source selection, plus menu navigation buttons. A large dimmable display shows volume, input, and audio format status, along with other information about incoming and outgoing A/V signals.
The Trinnov offers 16 channels of processing with support for the three major immersive audio formats: Dolby Atmos, DTS:X Pro, and Auro-3D. It has eight 18Gbps HDMI 2.0 (HDCP 2.2-compliant) inputs and two HDMI 2.0 outputs (with eARC on output 1), dual coaxial and optical digital inputs (plus one output of each type), and analog XLR and RCA stereo inputs. Other connections include a trigger input, four trigger outputs (three configurable), an RS-232 control port, an Ethernet port for network connection and control, and two additional Ethernet ports labeled for future use. The
