Originally Posted by Demoleon
Gary,

Yet I really love Meridian for 2-channel music via Trifield and would hate to lose that. I have been sitting tight hoping that Meridian will drop a bombshell update to the HD621 and 861 but I am losing hope. If I were to purchase a Meridian Ultra DAC and run it through the Trinnov how much "Meridianness" would I lose? What about Trifield, does the Trinnov have an equivalent? I don't think I could go back to listening without Trifield (due to the presence of a screen wall my speakers are a litte farther apart than optimal so the center gets a little weak when listening without Trifield.) Been with Meridian for decades and it's kind of scary leaving for something else!

Thanks,
John
I too was a big fan of Trifield. I remember a few years back the question of whether the width adjustability of Trifield was broken arose and a survey was taken. The experimentations and discussions that ensued gave me a better understanding of Trifield and I settled primarily on 1.1 for my width setting. As I said in my original post if it had been just about the music I would not have taken this journey and for me that would have been a mistake.

I didn't say too much about two channel so here are some thoughts. The RC on the trinnov is the best I've seen/heard. With proper calibration and curve fitting you can make a good speaker (but not signature level) truly approach the uncalibrated signature level speaker. And you can take the signature speaker to Audio Nirvana. OK, enough arm waving.

Cliff is correct about adding some speakers and customizing to simulate Trifield and trinnov allows up to 30 presets so you could easily adjust for different widths by saving them as presets. So far I use my presets to keep certain seating positions optimized. Cliff also mentioned up-mixing in his post. In general I am not too fond of most up-mixing. For example Cliff mentioned "Dolby Surround" which makes all of your Dolby Atmos speakers available. This may work for some and the up-mix is sophisticated but it's just too much and often it makes the music sound unnatural for me. But then there is Auromatic. With this up-mixer you get height and breadth added to your two channel and even mono recordings. Music that I considered "thin" got body but still remained true to their two channel roots. I have come to like Auromatic even better than Trifield. Of course YMMV.

Trinnov has upgraded their software a number of times I know them all since I have serial #183. Later this year they will make 48 channels (for a fee) available with a software upgrade. This will require you to use a combination of 32 analog channels and 16 digital or buy a converter to run 48 analog speakers.

Two other quick points. This switch was not cheap. The unit itself with 32 channels and all three codecs Atmos, Auro snd DTS-X was $32,000 of course you my not need/want that many channels you can buy only 8, 16 or 24 channels and then purchase more channel later if you need them and they have a more competitively priced 16 channel model coming out later this year. Also when I sold my 861/HD621 one year ago it went for $9000. I'm sure at that price the unit might not move today based on another thread I just read.

Again I am not trying to offend any Meridian users and you can see there was literally a price to pay. I'm trying to help John understand my journey. Meridian was/is outstanding kit.

Gary



My Kit: Trinnov Altitude 32,Oppo BDP 203, Sony 600es, Martin Logan Neoliths Mains with VTL Siegfried II's, ML CLX's, ML Renaissance, 5 ML Theaters,13 ML Vanquish, 6 ML Edges, 6 ML Axis' 8 Velodyne DD-18+'s, Pass Labs 600.8,Pass Labs 160.8, Pass labs 160.5, Bryston 14B-SST, 6B-SST,6 Bryston 9BSST^2's, 14' Stewart Screen, Berkely Alpha DAC RS