Trinnov Cinema Dealer & Installer

The World’s Most Capable Home Cinema Audio Platform, Installed by One of the UK’s Most Experienced Teams

There is a short list of components that define the very top tier of home cinema performance. The Trinnov Altitude processor is on it — arguably at the top of it. At Custom Controls, we have been designing and installing reference home cinemas for over 25 years. As authorised Trinnov dealers and certified installers, we specify, install and calibrate Trinnov systems for private clients across London, Cheshire, the French Alps and internationally.

This is not a page about specifications. It is a page about what happens when Trinnov’s extraordinary technology meets 25 years of real-world installation experience — and why that combination produces results that neither can achieve alone.

Why Trinnov?

The question we are asked most often by clients considering a cinema room at this level is: why Trinnov rather than a high-end AV receiver from a well-known brand? The answer is straightforward: no other manufacturer combines the processing power, the channel count, the room correction capability and the long-term software investment model that Trinnov does. Every other processor in this category is, in one way or another, a compromise. The Altitude is not.

Trinnov was founded in 2003 — its name a contraction of “tri-dimensional innovation” — with a research focus on high spatial resolution audio that pre-dated the immersive audio formats it now decodes. That depth of research is what separates the Altitude from everything else. The company’s loudspeaker/room Optimizer technology is protected by over 50 patents. Its WaveForming bass technology — the most significant advance in residential cinema audio in a generation — is exclusive to the Altitude platform. No other home cinema processor offers it.

The Trinnov Altitude Platform

Altitude 16

The Trinnov Altitude 16 is the entry point into the platform and the right choice for the majority of high-performance home cinemas. It delivers up to 20 discrete audio channels — enough for a full Dolby Atmos 9.1.6 layout or a DTS:X Pro configuration — with the full Trinnov Optimizer, active crossovers, bass management and WaveForming capability. It decodes every current immersive audio format: Dolby Atmos, DTS:X Pro and Auro-3D.

Altitude 32

The Altitude 32 is the reference processor for large-scale, high-channel-count home cinemas. Up to 32 channels of discrete analogue output — expandable to 48 outputs by enabling its digital outputs simultaneously — make it the only processor capable of delivering the full Dolby Atmos 24.X.10 home layout. For rooms where the specification calls for complete immersion from every seat, the Altitude 32 is the only meaningful choice.

The Magnitude 32 — Speaker and Room Optimisation

The Magnitude 32 works alongside the Altitude processors to extend bass management to a level of precision that no passive crossover can approach. Every audio channel can be individually split by frequency, directing low frequencies to dedicated subwoofer channels. This means bass follows the audio around the room — the left rear surround’s low frequencies go to the rear subwoofers, not just a single centralised sub. The result is a more coherent, more enveloping sonic environment that rewards the most demanding content.

WaveForming — Trinnov’s Most Important Innovation

Of all the technologies Trinnov has developed, WaveForming is the most significant — and the least understood. It deserves a proper explanation.

The Problem WaveForming Solves

Bass in a home cinema room is not simply a matter of installing powerful subwoofers. A single subwoofer — or even a conventional pair — creates sound waves that bounce off every surface in the room. Those reflections combine with the direct sound to create peaks and nulls at specific frequencies: some seats receive far too much bass, others far too little. In a rectangular room, certain frequencies become standing waves, filling the room with an undifferentiated, smeared low-frequency presence that obscures the detail and speed of real musical bass or cinema effects. This is the single greatest acoustic challenge in room design, and it is why even very well-specified cinemas can disappoint.

How WaveForming Works

WaveForming is an active acoustic processing technology that uses multiple subwoofers — a minimum of four, typically positioned at the front and rear walls — to control the way bass waves propagate through the room. The rear subwoofers act as active absorbers: the algorithm drives them to cancel the reflected bass energy before it can bounce back and interact with the direct sound.

The result is a bass wave that behaves as if travelling through open space — a plane wave, controlled and directional, with no room modes and no standing waves. Bass arrives at every seat at the same level, at the same time, with the same precision. Trinnov’s WaveForming demonstration at CEDIA 2024 showed bass consistency within two decibels across 18 seats — something previously unattainable in a listening room of that size.

WaveForming does not sit on top of a standard cinema design — it informs the design from the beginning. Subwoofer positions are dictated by the physics of the room, not aesthetic convenience. The dimensions of the room, the target bandwidth, the speaker layout and the number of subs are all determined together, before a single cable is run. This is the reason that buying a Trinnov processor and booking calibration separately produces significantly inferior results to commissioning the entire design from a specialist who understands WaveForming from first principles.

The Trinnov Optimizer — Room Correction as a Science

The Optimizer uses Trinnov’s iconic 3D microphone: four capsules arranged in a tetrahedral configuration that captures sound in three dimensions simultaneously. Unlike a standard measurement microphone, the 3D microphone maps the spatial position of every speaker in the room to within a centimetre and a degree of arc. This allows the Optimizer to understand not just how loud a speaker is, but precisely where it is — and therefore how to apply time and level corrections that are acoustically coherent in three-dimensional space.

The Remapping function builds on this to correct for imperfect speaker placement: if a surround speaker is physically constrained to a non-ideal position, the Optimizer recalculates the signal so that it behaves as if it were in the correct position. This is not equalisation — it is geometric audio correction, unique to Trinnov.

Our engineers are fully trained and certified in the Trinnov calibration process. Calibration at this level requires an understanding of what the measurements mean, the skill to identify when the algorithm needs guidance and the experience to know when a calibration is finished versus when it is merely complete. After 25 years and dozens of high-end cinema installations, our team brings that experience to every project.

Why Choose Custom Controls for Your Trinnov Installation?

• 25 years of home cinema installation. We have been designing and installing reference home cinemas since 1998. Our understanding of what makes a cinema room perform goes far beyond the documentation.
• Five consecutive Crestron Integration Awards. A measure of the standard to which we hold every installation, regardless of what technology is at its heart.
• Full system design from first principles. We do not fit Trinnov into a room. We design the room around what Trinnov needs to perform at its best — working at first-fix stage with architects, interior designers and builders.
• WaveForming capability. We are one of very few installers in the UK with the training, experience and calibration infrastructure to deploy WaveForming correctly.
• Trinnov certified engineers. Our engineers have completed Trinnov’s own training and certification programme and calibrate using Trinnov’s own 3D microphone system.
• Integration with any smart home platform. We integrate Trinnov with Crestron, Lutron and other control platforms so the entire cinema operates from a single interface.
• London, Cheshire, the French Alps and internationally. Distance is not a constraint.

Trinnov at the Limit — A 34.7.15 Home Cinema Installation

The most ambitious project in our Trinnov case study portfolio is a private home cinema room in Africa — a 5.5m wide by 12m deep dedicated cinema space that stands among a handful of private cinema rooms in the world at its level. The system centres on a Trinnov Altitude32 pre-amplifier working in conjunction with a Magnitude32 room equaliser and active crossover, distributing audio to eight Amplitude8 channel amplifiers. The result is a 34-channel surround system with a further 15 height channels and 7 subwoofers — a 34.7.15 configuration that is beyond the capability of any other residential audio processor.

The front sound stage alone comprises Wide Left, Left, Centre, Right and Wide Right channels, each split into dual Artcoustic P6 array speaker configurations with dedicated subwoofers — ensuring that bass is reproduced by each channel in full rather than redirected to a central subwoofer. The 4.5m acoustically transparent screen conceals the entire front array. Seating for 12 is provided by Cineak Intimo day beds on the front row and Cineak Vedette electronic recliners on the rear two rows. A Kaleidescape Stratos movie server provides lossless 4K HDR film content. The room was designed from the ground up with acoustics as the primary constraint — and the Trinnov system was the only processor capable of managing the channel count the design demanded. The full case study documents the design rationale, the acoustic approach and the complete specification.

Read the full case study — Trinnov Home Cinema Installation, Africa →

A Note on the Long-Term Value of a Trinnov Investment

Trinnov’s architecture runs on a custom operating system — TrinnovOS — hosted on a powerful Intel multi-core processor. New features, new audio format decoders and new technologies — including WaveForming itself, delivered to existing owners as a free software download — are added through software updates at no cost. Altitude owners receive the same updates free of charge, and Trinnov’s modular HDMI design ensures that as HDMI standards evolve, new boards will be available. A Trinnov installation is a long-term investment that gets better over time.

Begin Your Trinnov Consultation

A Trinnov installation rewards careful planning, a whole-system design approach and an installation partner with the technical knowledge and accumulated experience to deliver the full capability of the technology. We would be delighted to arrange a consultation — at your home, at your architect’s studio, or remotely — to discuss your project.