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Paris-based audio company Trinnov has been working on 3D audio since its inception in 2003, and their luxury home cinema processor, Altitude32, has been a huge success. We speak to its co-founder, chairman and CEO to find out more about the roots of Trinnov and the state-of-the-art technologies behind their products.
How would you describe the experience of 3D sound to homeowners?
To put it simply, 3D sound recreates a lifelike sound experience. It should feel natural, and mimic, for instance, the experience of hearing the sound of someone else’s voice, or how one hears the birds in the trees in an open space. The different sounds appear to emanate from all around you, thus the term ‘3D sound’. Contrast this with the experience of surround sound systems, where one is able to tell that the different sounds are created by reproduction, and are traceable to the speakers emitting them to the left, right, or above, which makes it not at all lifelike.
Trinnov's Altitude32 won the European Imaging and Sound Association (EISA) 2016/17 awards in the high-end home home theatre category.
How would you explain why your system is superior to others?
Our product did not happen overnight, but is the result of 15 years of research and development. We are the only brand in the industry that has developed a fully computer-based product to do the audio processing, because we have learned that there is a direct relationship between processing power and sound quality, and we are committed to producing the best audio experience. Our systems also support all the 3D formats available today, Dolby Atmos, Auro-3D and DTS:X, and runs automatically on maximum performance.
What do you think are the problems of current home audio system?
One of the problems that have arisen with the introduction of new immersive sound formats is speaker placement, which changes depending on the format. For example, Dolby Atmos might tell you to arrange the speakers in this configuration, but when you change to DTS:X they will tell you to reconfigure the arrangement – so you have to move the speakers every time you change sound formats, which is a hassle to the end user.
But at Trinnov, we provide recommendations as to where speakers should be optimally positioned in the first place with our remapping technology. We measure for sound distortions due to the speakers being badly distributed and based on that information we move the speakers to where they ought to be.
Trinnov is turning 15 this year; what was the catalyst to start this business in sound at the beginning?
I started Trinnov with three friends after university. We had no professional experiences to speak of, but what we did have was a shared passion for sound, and we started by asking ourselves what could be the next step in audio reproduction. We found our niche after discovering that what had remained underdeveloped was the spatial aspect of sound, as the production of complex and nuanced lifelike audio was very poor. So since the beginning of Trinnov, we’ve been working on producing “high spatial audio”, which involves work like recording sound with high spatial resolution and how to manipulate the sound and rotate the sound stage.
Trinnov systems are available at Clarity at #03-36 The Adelphi, 1 Coleman