German speaker maker Ascendo and France’s Trinnov are known for putting on breathtaking home theater demos, and the one they teamed up for at the recent Audio Advice Live 25 consumer show in Raleigh, North Carolina, which ran from August 1-3, was perhaps the best one yet.
For sheer immersive audio horsepower, the joint demo utilized Trinnov’s flagship Altitude 32-channel audio processor and a pair of Amplitude 16-channel amplifiers. That electronics stack was used to power an 11.13.8-channel Ascendo speaker system consisting of three The12 Passive On-Wall point source speakers up front as LCRs, a surround array consisting of The10 Passive On-Wall and The10 Passive Wedge 30 speakers, and eight The6 Passive Wedge 30 speakers used for height channels.
I haven’t even mentioned the subwoofers yet! Six The16 Sub Active Sealed subwoofers were positioned at the front of the room, and six more at the rear to enable Trinnov’s WaveForming, a sophisticated type of room correction processing that can cancel out bass peaks caused by room modes while simultaneously filling in bass frequency dips for smoother and more evenly distributed bass throughout the listening environment.
Along with its 12-pack of 16-inch subwoofers, Ascendo also brought along a secret weapon: its The32 Pro Passive Sealed subwoofer, a model that uses an enormous 32-inch woofer to deliver ‘infrasonic’ bass that’s meant more to be felt than heard. In fact, The32 Pro is specified for 109 dB output @ 10 Hz.
Other components of the demo included a JVC DLA-NZ900 projector, that company’s top 8K-capable model, paired with a madVR Envy video processor and a Kaleidscape movie player as a source.
We Will Rock You
Image 1 of 3
One of the most popular home theater demo clips at Audio Advice Live 25 was Queen’s We Will Rock You from the movie Bohemian Rhapsody. The song’s boom-boom-clap rhythm makes it a good demo track for bass, and the movie soundtrack supplements it with the sound of a live audience stomping heavily on stadium floorboards.
I’ve watched this clip many times, but never have I heard such a precise separation between the kick drum and the sound of stomping feet as in the Trinnov/Ascendo demo. The low bass was powerful, yet detailed, and there was a physical quality to it that I’ve mostly only heard in IMAX theaters.
Spider-Man: Far from Home showed off the JVC 8K projector’s exceptional detail, contrast, and color definition, but it was also a showcase for the system’s immersive audio prowess. And the same could be said for Top Gun: Maverick, another hugely popular demo source at Audio Advice Live, and one that I have regularly used in my testing of the best soundbars and speakers.
The demo clip that most left my jaw on the floor, however, was one from 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. The intense firefighting in this Michael Bay-directed depiction of an American compound in Libya under attack was vividly rendered on the 11.13.8-channel system, with the sound of bullets flying coming from all around. The low bass was again very powerful, yet controlled, and I could certainly feel as well as hear it.
Needless to say, this demo involved a money-no-object system – the Trinnov Amplitude 32 processor alone costs around $40,000! But I’m glad I had the chance to experience it, and if you attend a future Audio Advice Live, you may get to do the same.
