I have the 990, 7500, and LFM-1 Plus sub. Speakers are B&W 804S/HTM3S.
So far I haven't noticed the need for in-room EQ or Calibration, but I'm sure the trinnov will help.
Does it also do sub calibration, like the SMS-1, or does one still have to buy that unit?

I am pretty certain that it will do sub EQ as well as the other speakers.

With Audyssey (and I assume Trinnov from the specs) there is no need for a separate sub-woofer manager. In fact it is strongly suggested that you take the SMS-1 out of the loop when using Audyssey as it can actually impede the room correction process. That's exactly what I did when I added Audyssey Pro to my arsenal of tools a few years ago (first with the Denon 3808ci and now with the AVP-A1HDci).

These full system room equalizers take over all the functions of other boxes and I can't imagine that Trinnov would be any different in that regard. The one new wrinkle that Trinnov brings to the table is the ability to acoustically relocate speakers in difficult placement situations. If the 997 is able to pull this off in a reasonable time frame it brings something very interesting to the table - especially at its price point.

That would be especially cool if one could acoustically relocate the speakers for several different listening positions in the room, save the settings, and access them for different occasions. Just dreaming . . .

Based on a post at AVS by Jeff Hipps, there will be three separate memories - which might be just what you'd need to do that.

The web site shows a 4-probe mic used to hear the speakers location in 3D space.
I guess the 997 would come with a similar mic?

I would say that it would have to - and it will probably be the same mic with a different logo on it.

Yes, the consumer Trinnov in the 997 will have multiple presets. I once again spoke with Trinnov's US manager, Curt Hoyt and he confirmed. It's a huge plus for me cuz I run two separate surround setups, a 5.1 one with music surrounds (identical to front) in classic ITU setup, and a 7.1 one with side and rear dipole surrounds for movies. To measure and save music and movie presets is the killer app for me (let along Trinnov's unique 3-D measurement and correction algorithms). And like the Onlyo pro 885 i have today, the 997 has my prerequisite XLR AND rca outputs for said surrounds, so I can pull off the multiple setups (the movie sides/aka music surrounds are never on at the same time, of course).

To paraphrase Curt, the $12k pro Optimizer model has some flexibility over the one we'll find in the 997...but functionally they are not a lot different.

I wonder if anybody here realizes that simple and proper room acoustic treatment will work far better than any electronic "correction". Electronic means can only attempt to _cover up_ room problems - it cannot cure the source of the problem. The problem will still be there, and the acoustic resonances will still be there.

Acoustic treatment cures the room problems at their source. Especially for critical music listening, actual, and real acoustic treatment is going to yield a far more natural sound field than any electronic "correction" can ever hope to achieve.

And those studios who supposedly "use" this electronic correction...the acoustics are designed by some of the best acousticians in the world. They do not need to use this device. There is nothing to "correct".

Information about the basics of acoustic treatment, in addition to other subjects can be found here.

Altec,

I agree with much of what you write. However there are the realities of possible speaker placement and "treatments" for dual use rooms like living rooms. Finally there are the "spouse rules' that must be considered. That is where Trinnov will truly address the problems

One of the reasons these electronic EQ systems exist is because many people can't (for various reasons) locate acoustic treatments in a room. I for one am glad they exist as it gives us one more tool to make acoustics sound better. Every available tool, if it's well implemented, will usually make sounds sound better. The other thing I like about electronic EQ over physical room treatment is it's ease of shut off. I can't as easily take the room treatments out of the room.

The best solution is always to make the space work. I've long been skeptical of room EQ solutions because of the inherent difficulties in "fixing" room acoustics upstream of the speaker. Certainly Audyssey has built a pretty good reputation for itself, but it's taken them a long time to reach that point (the MultEQ solution seems to be where the number of satisfied users started to really move ahead of the number of indifferent users, at least from my casual observation on various forums). Even if Trinnov can match what MultEQ has been doing (or even if it exceeds that, which some of the positive press it's received suggests is a real possibility), the fact remains that fixing the space itself is the best solution.

I've been fortunate in my current listening space to be able to get many things "right" acoustically, but there are certainly some things that I've had to fudge to integrate the system into the existing space and the constraints of a den. Having come about as far as I can, I'd be curious to see what a tool like this can actually do.

I merely wanted to make plain the fact that you don't NEED to have this room correction if you make a good room in the first place. I would imagine this would apply mostly to people who are most interested in the highest quality music listening verses the generic home theater, and who have the liberty of optimizing the room for sonics.

The benefit of acoustic treatments gets a very short shift in most quarters, mostly because they are not "sexy" and "cutting edge". But it is extremely important to point out the fact that getting the acoustics _basics_ right in the beginning is the best course if one is interested in the absolute best quality reproduction, especially for music.

Electronic "compensation" reminds me of the "cure" for feeling bad - staying drunk all the time.

It's a worthwhile point to keep out there, Altec. It's also worth pointing out that (at least in theory) the value of this feature decreases relative to the amount of speaker placement adjustment and room treatment that exists, because you will start out closer to the ideal.

Altec,

I also agree with what you said about proper acoustics when designing the room and, of course, that should be the most important consideration. PeterT added some "real world" scenarios to the mix and for this systems such as Audyssey and Trinnov can clearly (no pun intended) serve a purpose. I would add to this the fact that even the best of rooms sometimes have minor adjustments made after the fact (different furniture, slight change in speaker orientation, some different components, etc. not to mention speakers changing after a break-in period) and only the most ardent among us would take the time to adjust the physical acoustics of the room at that point. For MAJOR renovations - yes. But for the little stuff - probably not. A properly designed room equalization system can complement a properly designed room over the long haul for most applications.

In that respect I think we are on the same page here.

I realize the realities of some people's situation, and in those cases these EQ schemes are fine. I really wanted to make it clear, in the face of heavy marketing here and elsewhere, that the Trinnov is not the ONLY solution, and in fact it is not necessairly the IDEAL solution if highest quality is the goal. Good acoustics is the ideal goal, not an electronic band-aid.

Altec,

If you want to change the voicing of your speakers do you re-do your room acoustics or do you do it electronically through your active crossovers etc?

(Yes I know it's not the same - but there are parallels. Presumably you adjust the voicing etc. of your speakers to give you what sounds best to you in your listening environment - and not a test chamber. While you are aided by measurement equipment etc. it's your experience that tells you what kind of response curve from your speakers will give you the "best" sound in your listening environment. The environment and that sound are linked. You deal with it, at least partly, electronically. It's not Tronnov, or Audyssey. But as I said, there are parallels.)

I think there's room for both - when used judiciously and properly. I see it mostly as that crowning touch - or last piece of the puzzle - not as a a wonder drug.

And when I say "properly" , in the absence of the required test gear, knowledge, and capability, I personally look forward to having a pre/pro that, along with doing a ton of other things that I'm looking for, also handles room EQ etc. That it comes from the Outlaws and at a great price makes it a no-brainer in my books.

Jeff Mackwood

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jeff Mackwood:
Altec,

If you want to change the voicing of your speakers do you re-do your room acoustics or do you do it electronically through your active crossovers etc?


Jeff Mackwood [/QUOTE

The acoustics of my room are made to be an non-influential to the sound from the speakers as possible. The active crossover system of course incorporates equalization, and this is to supply the voicing of the speakers which is taken away when the passive crossovers are removed.

People who are new to this especially need to realize that if they think that they can give no thought to the room's acoustics and assume that this miracle black box will make everything perfect, they are fooling themselves.

While also expressing a preference for correcting physical space acoustic problems in physical space rather than electronic space, I welcome the addition of a well-implemented Trinnov system as an improvement for a significant number of situations. For those who find Trinnov undesirable for some uses, hopefully there will be ways to bypass certain aspects without compromising other wanted features.

Regarding room acoustics: I doubt the 997 is designed as a ‘room analyzer’, but even a consumer version of the Trinnov system does obviously have to at least ‘sense’, via the setup microphone array, what is going on in the room and make changes to a certain set of items it finds in a condition different from what is ‘targeted as optimal’. Depending on what information is passed back to the user via unit display or video menu system, one might get a hint of what the one or two worst problems are in the combination of speaker placement and room acoustics. This would allow a user to experiment a bit in their environment to determine which speaker/room modifications result in less electronic correction needed.

Regardless of acoustic or electronic treatments, modifiable passive crossovers, active crossovers, or any electronics that make ‘voicing’ and other output aspects adjustable, the last electronic item to be implemented will have ‘the last word’. As a very simple example, if you had adjustable loudspeaker voicing, and somehow you preferred frequencies from 5K to 8K to be suppressed by 6db, if you ‘voiced’ first, then implemented an electronic system that determined that suppression to be a problem rather than a positive attribute, the electronic system would likely attempt to ‘correct’ your desired suppression. So, in an instance where you might establish a target and achieve a desired acoustic output with a Trinnov system, a passive or an active crossover would still be needed to divide the frequencies in the desired ranges at the desired slopes, but other voicing aspects would tend to be at least partially overridden by EQ electronics. If the electronics allowed you to either establish a target response that included your preference or if you were able to adjust certain features manually after the automatic sensing/adjustment process, one could maintain a preference. Or one could remove their preference, adjust automatically, then ‘re-install’ their preference afterward.

Excellent points BB4TB!

What I personally want is a system that will, in the end, deliver the sound that I prefer to hear, and not a system that tells me what type of sound I should prefer to hear!

But if I am currently unable to generate the sound that I prefer to hear, then something that gets me closer to that goal is always welcome.

So with multiple presets would I be able to have, for example, a "doors open" and a "doors closed" selectable settings for my room?

I have a different perspective on room equalization since I, like many others here, don't have a dedicated disigned HT room. My system is set-up in a living room where I have 2 opennings without doors. I do have acoustic treatments throughout the room, but I'm not sure if it is giving me the best sound for my system. The treatments certainly helped since I had a lot of reflections. There are certain frequencies, probably in the upper bass range that tend to sound a bit honky sometimes. I'm no expert, but I welcome any help that may give me an idea where my problems lie and hopefully correct it.

I would also like to know if the Trinnov equalization would work for 2-channel listening.

[/QUOTE]


People who are new to this especially need to realize that if they think that they can give no thought to the room's acoustics and assume that this miracle black box will make everything perfect, they are fooling themselves. [/QUOTE]

I don't think many people on this forum are expecting EQ to make their system perfect, just better than without it. Ultimately I don't see why it matters how good or bad it is. If it makes your system sound better leave it on, if it doesn't turn it off.

People who are new to this especially need to realize that if they think that they can give no thought to the room's acoustics and assume that this miracle black box will make everything perfect, they are fooling themselves. [/QUOTE]

I don't think many people on this forum are expecting EQ to make their system perfect, just better than without it. Ultimately I don't see why it matters how good or bad it is. If it makes your system sound better leave it on, if it doesn't turn it off. [/QUOTE]

My post wasn't necessarily addressing the regulars on this forum, but the people who are new to this and are bombarded by claims, some of which are misleading to say the least.

I wish I could put more acoustic treatment in my less than ideal room. Even if I spent $5k on treatment, it wouldn't be perfect. I use my 990 with two Behringer DEQ2496 equalizers for L/C/R/Sub and it helps. I always wished that I wasn't doing the digital to analog to digital to analog path this requires. If all this is done in the digital realm within the 997, it can't help but be better.

Hello 997, hello ebay for the DEQ2496s and 990!

Yes, the processing will be performed in the digital domain, but if you listen to any analog sources, they will be converted to digital in order to be processed. If you only listen to digital program material, this is not an issue, but if you listen to vinyl or any other analog source, then you're no better off than before.

I just couldn't stand the hassle, ticks and pops of vinyl, so I switched over to digital long ago.

I never thought SACD was a viable alternative, with all the paranoia about analog only out. What about bass management?

Is DVD audio, with 192kHz/24bit happening? I assume that would be an HDMI output. I assume that I would not be permitted to back up to hard drive or use anything like a Squeezebox to play it.

I just got my Bravo robotic ripper running. I put a stack of 25 of my CDs in at night and get 25 bit perfect FLAC lossless compressed albums out. Album art is included. That was a fun programming project! I don't know if it would ever be commercially viable and there is competition. There are questions about commercial usage of EAC, which I am controlling with the AutoIt dll.

The coaxial output of my Squeezebox feeds digital to the 990. This should correct any potential jitter problems that can happen when playing CDs. Also, there is nothing like creating a playlist rather than flipping through discs. With four Squeezeboxes around the house, I can sync them for parties or run them independently. For the moment, I think that that is as good as I can do.

SACD and DVD-Audio can both go digitally via HDMI, which solves the bass management headache and allows you to consolidate your investment in good analog performance in one place. DVD-Audio as a format is not quite dead, but it's frightfully close. A handful of independent labels offer DVD-A releases from time to time, but it's extremely rare. Basically, DVD-A is all but dead as far as new releases...

The HDMI option came too late to the game to save DVD-A and SACD, by insisting on copy protection the recording industry made it too difficult for the average joe and a headache because of bass management and multiple D/A A/D conversions for the rest of us.

Both of these formats are digital, not analog.

As I recall, SACD was analog outputs only initially. I never considered it after that. Maybe I should consider it now, although I need something to connect the HDMI from (like an Oppo) and to (like a 997).

SACD and DVD-Audio both started out analog only, but there were several digital options that eventually were added to both specs. There was IEEE-1394 (FireWire / iLink), which supported DVD-A first and SACD later, but hardly any hardware ever supported it. There were some proprietary solutions like DenonLink, which again supported DVD-A first and SACD later. HDMI v1.1 worked with DVD-A directly, and eventually some players (the OPPO 970HD was one of the first) would convert SACD from DSD to PCM and use v1.1 to carry it. HDMI v1.2 added support for DSD bitstreams.

I thought when you mentioned analog, you were talking about the storage, which is digital. The player outputs of course were analog.

Hijacked!
I thought this thread was titled "Topic: Question about Trinnov EQ." ?

Some people live such a structured life..

I understand the Audyssey samples several listening locations, but near as I can tell from the info on the Trinnov page it only samples from one (but with a fancy mic that analyzes a "3D" image). I guess my question is - will the Trinnov improve the sound thoughout the room or only at the sweet spot where the mic is placed?

I was just reading up on Trinnov's web site. Appears they will be showcasing their Optimizer 2 tomorrow at the AES Convention (Oct 2-5). Will have to watch to see if they have any more info regarding the 997....

if i'm running a Rane THX44 HT equalizer now, would i not possibly not use it with the Trinnov Optimizer on the 997? running with a 990/7125 with 2outlaw 200w mono-blocks on the {r/l}front woofers