Trinnov EQ on the Sherwood Newcastle R-972 Receiver

[analog2digital]

Trinnov vs. Audyssey

I still want to see/hear about a shootout between Trinnov and Audyssey.

Please post if you have info.

 

[ned]

Gene,

Will you be reviewing this product soon?

 

[Seth=L]

Gene,

Will you be reviewing this product soon?

Yeah, wth Gene?!?!?!

 

[xjr15]

Informal comparison between Audyssey amd Trinnov

I still want to see/hear about a shootout between Trinnov and Audyssey.

Please post if you have info.

I have been using a Sherwood Newcastle R-972 with Trinnov Optimization for several weeks now. This receiver replaced a Denon 2808CI with Audyssey MultEQ XT, so I have some experience with both Audyssey and Trinnov in the same room. I very much liked the Denon with Audyssey Room EQ enabled, and it was enabled all of the time. The tonal balance of the Audyssey in my room was really excellent. I have been an audio hobbyist for 30 years, and I have listened to many different systems and components, but I have not done any rigorous testing or double-blind comparisons. But to me, the Audyssey was a real advance and made a big difference( for the better ) in my home theater/audio rig. I would also say that, so far, I prefer the Sherwood/Trinnov to the Denon/Audyssey. In the R-972, the Trinnov does both Room EQ and Spatial Remapping, and they can be enabled/disabled independently( The Audyssey only does Room EQ ). I have not been able to get the Trinnov Room EQ to work satisfactorily( the bass is weak and the treble emphasized too much for my taste ) so I have disabled it and tweaked the level control of my subwoofer to get an acceptable balance( I am using mini-monitor Paradigm Ref Sig S1 v2 and C1 v2 as fronts/surrounds/center and a Paradigm DSP-3400 sub ). In my view so far, even without Room EQ, The Trinnov Remapping does work and puts the Trinnov ahead of the Audyssey, mainly because of the better 360 degree imaging. With the Trinnov, the imaging is much more enveloping and specific, without vagueness or smearing of the images, compared with the Denon/Audyssey. This can be revelatory for certain recordings. I tried the Beatles Past Masters disc 2 stereo remaster through the Trinnov 3D remapping a couple of days ago and it was just great, especially Lennon's Paperback Writer with its fairly intricate vocal harmonies.

Also, I would like to say that I may still get the Trinnov Room EQ to work. A user in another forum reports that, for him, the Trinnov Room EQ only kicked in for certain Trinnov "positions". So far, I have only calibrated the Trinnov for "position 1". I plan to try Positions 2 and 3 in the near future to see if I can get Trinnov Room EQ to work.

 

[rolyasm]

XJR15.
I too have been using the new Sherwood for about 2 months. There were a few quirks I had to work out of it, but most were fixed by upgrading the firmware. I also used the +6 dB hex file that boosted the bass a lot.
I had to run my Trinnov a few times a few times. It did not want to seem to pick up my bipole signal as well as when I switched to dipole. After using the system for about 3 weeks, something happened with Trinnov. One of the speakers sounded like it was blown, but after trouble shooting, I realized it was the output signal. I rebooted the system, ran Trinnov again, and it has worked great since. I have a Denon 807 that I use for another room, and I hooked it up in between the first and second setup of the Sherwood. I like the Sherwood more. The "natural" EQ gives a boost to the bass and cuts the high end and I think it is my favorite. The 807 is great. I don't have any complaints about it, but if I had to choose, I would take the Sherwood.

 

[xjr15]

R-972 Update

On my 972( which has the latest firmware, 1.34 ), I have found that you cannot assume that all 3 Trinnov Positions are the same. They seem to have different initial states, because from precisely same mic position and speaker setup, different Trinnov Positions calibrate differently. So if you get an unsatisfactory calibration with Position 1, try using Position 2 or 3, and you may get lucky. I did. Before reading a post on another 972 user thread( at HomeTheaterShack.com ), I had never considered the possibility that, given exactly the same experimental setup( mic/speaker/room ), different Trinnov Positions would calibrate differently, but on that thread, a user who calls himself Matteo, having failed to get any subwoofer output with Position 2, simply recalibrated the same setup( his sub is built into the room, so he can't move it ) at Position 1 and the bass response mysteriously re-appeared.

With my 972, Position 1 gets the speaker mapping right, but gets the levels wrong( especially the sub, which is too far down ), Position 2 gets the mapping( geometry ) wrong, but gets the levels right, and Position 3 gets both the mapping geometry and the levels right. If the sub is underfed to the extent mine was at Position 1, none of the Room EQ options have much of an effect, as they are swamped by the over-bright level settings. With more accurate level settings, the Trinnov Room EQ is usable and audible, though you may still opt to turn it off. To my ears, Trinnov Room EQ( with 4 built-in target curves ) is similar in effect to Audyssey Room EQ.

The moral for 972 users: if you can't get it right with one Trinnov Position, try another one. The different Trinnov Positions are supposed to be used for different seating positions, but in my unit only one Position( 3 ) works, so can only get a correct calibration for one seating position.

 

[afterlife2]

R-977 looks to not have Trinnov? Did they give up on it?
:::::: Welcome to Sherwood ::::::

 

[scott911]

I think the r-977 will be branded just sherwood, not sherwood newcastle. Newcastle will return in future. The r-977 won't have Trinnov, hopefully a future newcastle branded model will.

I haven't heard an AVR processing that comes close the trinnov in the r-972 - it's wonderful. That model had some other non-trinnov software quirks, but once your album / movie is playing - pure magic.