trivum FAQ

You can buy trivum products through the following distribution channels:

You will find information about our products and trivum itself

Our partners will be happy to help you with any questions you may have about existing installations, planning a new multiroom system, or just want to get a glimpse of our products and solutions.

If you are a dealer or an electrician and you want to work with our products, please send an e-mail to sales@trivum.com or use our inquiry form.

You have a problem or a question? We will help you quickly and easily.

Please try to find your problem in the FAQs. There are many articles like, for example, how to solve network problems. You can also search in more detail for your problem on our service website. For the full list of translated documents you may also look here.

The service website contains many documents, tips and tools. If you have not been able to solve your problem using the FAQs or the service website, you can report an error directly here. In the case of errors or questions concerning the configuration of a trivum device, you can also report an error directly in the setup of the trivum device under Information / Support.

Of course you can also directly send an e-mail to our support team (service@trivum.com)

Our trivum products are constantly being developed. That’s why new software updates are coming up that sometimes fix small bugs, sometimes including new features.

The software update happens manually in the web configuration, or with the TouchPad on the TouchPad itself. For this purpose, it is first checked if an update is available, and then installed on request.

The trivum system does not force you to make software updates. So if you are satisfied with your trivum system as it works, then there may be no reason for you to check or install any update at all.

For more information, please read the article "Software Update"

Click any of the following links to see the list of latest changes:

MusicCenter Software V9

Touchpad Software V9

MusicCenter Software V8

Touchpad Software V8

There is also a separate list for V10 software

MusicCenter Software V10

but so far V10 only differs by a handful of features from V9, and every change done in V9 is also done in V10.

To get the latest updates, make sure to select "release" and "latest" software in the web configuration.

Please note that V8 devices can not be combined with V9 devices, and V9 devices not with V10.

You need the following prerequisites to commission a trivum Multiroom system:

For a comfortable use of all trivum possibilities we recommend furthermore:

Take a normal antenna cable, cut it at one side. Take out the wire for the signal line. Braid the shielding around it into a wire.

Then connect both wires at the RP actuator.

If you have many devices with FM antenna input, you may want to connect your single main antenna to all of them by distributing the same signal.

If you simply split the same wire into many wires, this may cause interferences, with radio stations producing noises (hisses etc.) on some or all devices.

In general, you will need an antenna distributor device, like https://www.amazon.de/Axing-BVE-8-01P-Kabelfernsehen-Multimedia-metall/dp/B071RSCVPF (just an example, not tested by trivum)

Depending on the model, the last outputs may have different attenuations then the first ones, causing different reception quality.

Example: ceiling mounted speakers are connected to SC or RP devices by Cordial CLS-215 TT (2x1.5mm2) cable, or CLS-225 (2x2.5mm2) cable.

How long can they be?

For inwall/ceiling speakers with a plain crossover the only concern with long cables is the power loss. Due to the logarithmic nature of the sound pressure level one could say that a maximum loss of 25% is acceptable.

For the above cable types this means:

For SC344m/SC340m, trivum uses "terminal block" connectors like ptr-hartmann ak950-10

https://ptr.ptr-hartmann.com/en/components/connection-technology/pcb-multi-connectors-screw-terminal-blocks/ak950-100-green/

These connectors have a 5 mm pitch where only every second pin is used. This allows you to use stranded wires without risking short circuits. Normally you don’t need to buy them separately, as they are included with the product.

From the technical data they allow wires up to 2.5 mm in diameter.

If you have 4 mm speaker cables you may need adapters for them, called ferrules (wire end sleeves) with reduction, like

https://www.amazon.de/Oehlbach-Banana-Flex-Bananenstecker-Verj%C3%BCngung-Querschnitte-Gold-Rot/dp/B000FS9AH6/?language=en_GB https://www.amazon.de/MEIRIYFA-Bananenstecker-Schraubentyp-Lautsprecher-Verst%C3%A4rker/dp/B0C1YB8V34/?language=en_GB

By default, the amplified outputs of an SC344 allow to connect 8 speakers, used as 4 stereo pairs.

However the SC devices are very flexible, and the outputs can be fully reconfigured. For example, it is possible to use only one large zone with all 8 speakers running in mono mode.

It is also possible to connect more than one speaker per amplified output.

The safest way to do this is serializing two speakers:

When doing this with 2x 8 Ohm speakers you get an overall impedance of 16 Ohms. The audible sound volume will be reduced then, so you may have to increase the volume settings a bit.

Attention: always connect in-phase, meaning Speaker1Minus to Speaker2Plus. If you connect Speaker1Minus to Speaker2Minus then sound will be wiped out.

To get louder sound compared to serial connection, an alternative can be parallel connnection.

However these things must be strictly checked:

It is also possible to connect 4 speakers in a mixture of serial and parallel:

Assuming that all speakers have 8 Ohms impedance this means

Attention:

This way a theoretical maximum of 32 speakers can be connected to the amplified outputs of an SC device.

Further speakers can be connected by the cinch lineouts with an extra amplifier.

can be found in the speaker wiring manual, available here:

Speaker wiring manual

No. Please do not try to parallel-connect multiple speaker outputs to the same speaker, it will not work. They are bridged internally already, the total output power cannot be increased this way.

If you need higher output power for a zone, buy instead an external amplifier and connect it by line output.

The SC344m provides a line output signal strength of up to 1.5 vrms at sinus, if "adjust volume" is set to 200% in the output configuration. With default settings (100%), the values are lower.

Read the technical data of your amplifier’s inputs, to decide how much adjustment may be needed.

External amplifiers or active speakers accepting line-in usually have an impedance about 10 kOhms. trivum devices should work well with external impedances of 500 Ohms or higher. Lower impedances cause no damage at the trivum line-outs, but may cause bad sound.

Compared to SC, the RP341v1 has just one stream, line input and fm tuner, but still the same number of amplified speaker outputs. So the same number of speakers can be connected.

It is possible to configure all speaker outputs to run in mono mode. It is not possible to configure a single large zone with all speakers attached, but by using group play (one group with all zones), or simply playing the same source in all zones, a similar result can be achieved.

The USB standard defines a maximum of 5 meters.
So far we tested cables with 3 meters.

That means, if you have two trivum devices like 2x SC344m which are in different buildings, and want to pass line audio over this distance, it cannot be done by USBc.

Two scenarios:

Possible solutions:

You may try to lay long cinch cables directly. However, it may cause sound distortions, like ground loops, noise interference, crosstalk between channels etc.

So it’s better to lay a CAT5 cable from the start, just for audio (not connected to the LAN network), with Cinch adapters at it’s end.

Very simple Stereo Audio Extender Cat5:
https://www.amazon.de/dp/B01BF6KFOS/

With builtin transmitter:
https://www.amazon.de/dp/B014VZGMXI/

Active with high quality:
https://www.trivum.de/produkte/audio-extender/98/analog-audio-extender-set?c=475
https://gefen.com/product/2-way-audio-extender-over-one-cat-5/

If you want to send the same micro sound to two trivum devices you also have to add an analogue signal splitter (Y adapter).

Before you follow the steps to find your device on the network, check the following:

If you get an empty list of devices in the trivum App, check these points:

With trivum multiroom systems, you can also play music files from any computer or network-attached storage (NAS) device on your network.

Before playing music files from your computer/NAS, check the following:

To play your music from the computer/NAS via the trivum system, proceed as follows:

→ After the music index has been updated, the music can be played in all zones of your trivum system.

For more information on Music Database, NAS, Music Index, etc., visit service.trivum.com

With the trivum App you can also control your trivum system from your mobile device; just as comfortable as on the TouchPad itself.

Before using the trivum App, check the following:

To control your trivum system via app, proceed as follows:

iOS: open a web link: comtrivumcontrol://

Android: open a web link: trivum://control

The trivum App lists devices by model, serial number and IP address.

If you have multiple trivum master devices in your network,
and want to select them more intuitively by a self given name, perform these steps:

This way you create self-named shortcuts, which open a web browser when tapped on.

Please note: if the IP address of trivum devices change, these shortcuts will no longer work. To avoid this, you may take precaution on your router to let him give the same address to the device permanently, or configure your trivum device with static ip.

This happens with group play. If you put several zones into a group,

AirPlay is used to play music from Apple devices (iPhone, iPod, iPad, Mac computers) on AirPlay compatible devices.

Unfortunately, dropouts during AirPlay playback can occasionally occur. These are mostly network problems that lead to the loss of data packets and thus the suspension of music.

With iOS10, Apple has changed the user interface of iPhone/iPad when selecting the AirPlay inputs. There are now two selections, one for screen transfer and one for audio. First you see the left, wrong surface. There the trivum entrances do not appear. Swipe your finger from right to left. Then comes the right selection box with pure audio airplay inputs. There should appear trivum. Attention, when selecting an input this may seem to disappear. In fact, it slips to the top of the list, so scroll up.

With iOS11, Apple has changed the user interface agin. Now AirPlay inputs are located in the Control Center.

There may be other technical reasons why AirPlay inputs are not visible. Please read details in the troubleshooting guide

Please read the following article about Spotify Connect inputs, which relates as well to Airplay.

If you miss a Spotify Connect input for a zone x, check if this zone is part of a group, and if it’s the group master. It it’s not the group master, it will be hidden from the network, as it cannot play.

For example, there is a group Kitchen+Living Room. It shows the name "Kitchen". That means that zone "Kitchen" is the group master, i.e. the zone which produces music.

If you want to play Spotify music by an input "Living Room", it will not work in that case. The input may not appear at all, or (with older software) it’s name is shown in brackets ().

In this case, you can do this:

or

Also check in the setup which activation zone is configured for Spotify Connect on your device, especially on C4 systems. Maybe you want to change this, if the group master is wrong too often.

If you cannot find inputs although no group play is involved, read also

https://www.trivum.com/trivum/docs/en/trivum-troubleshooting.html#airplay-inputs-cannot-be-found

If there are occasional dropouts in group playback of music then these are normally network problems that lead to the loss of data packets and thus the suspension of music.

Look for the following option:
V9: System / Setup / Advanced / Use Unicast Audio For Group Play
V10: Devices / Players / General / Use Unicast Audio For Group Play
If your system has up to 4 devices, this will be on by default.
If your system has 5 to 7 devices, you may experiment by setting this manually to on.
It will force audio packets to be sent by unicast instead of multicast, which however requires more processing power at the sender zone.

Correctly functioning and configured networks practically never have these problems. Therefore, one of the following points may be the cause of the dropouts:

Almost all trivum multiroom devices offer the possibility of external audio sources, e.g. CD player to connect. Depending on the trivum device, there are various ways to connect the source device.

In addition, some trivum devices (AudioBox, SC044) support "Input Sensing": the automatic activation of the trivum device as soon as a signal is detected at the audio input. This is especially useful for TV sound: when the TV turns on, the trivum zone turns on and you hear the TV sound through the trivum Multiroom system.

Please note the following when using external audio sources:

The connection possibilities of the individual trivum devices are explained below:

You can only configure multiple streaming service users at trivum if each user has his own username and password.

By default, the Deezer family plan does not provide separate user names and passwords per family member. This makes it impossible for the trivum system to decide which family member to select.

However, Deezer allows to change family member accounts into independent account, with own password. This is done through the admin account. Read more about it here:

https://support.deezer.com/hc/en-gb/articles/206096901-Log-In-To-Deezer-Family

trivum supports various music streaming services. For this, the trivum customer usually has to have a premium account for the supported service there. The music services are chargeable and then make it possible to play music for a user. However, this user can not listen to music on two devices at one time.

So if, for example, If a qobuz customer enters his account on several iPhones, he can also use the qobuz application there. However, if he listens to music on iPhone "A" and then starts qobuz with the same account on iPhone "B", then the music stops on iPhone "A" and music playback on iPhone "B" is active.

The same applies to the trivum devices: It is not possible to listen to music multiple times at the same time with one account. This is a limitation of all music streaming services!

As soon as this situation occurs, the trivum display shows a message similar to the following:

If you want to play your favorite Spotify content by a single touch, or KNX automation, you need Spotify Connect presets. These are stored as favorites in the trivum favorite list. Spotify Connect presets are available from trivum software version 9.77 or 10.02.

In the trivum WebUI, select for example

and then look at the right for "…​". touch that, and select

Repeat this for all TIDAL, Deezer or Qobuz playlists you want be able to start by KNX.

Then go into the trivum web configuration (/setup) under

and configure a KNX address to play. alternatively, you may

If you select a long audio service playlist interactively, with for example 1500 tracks, only the first 500 tracks will be placed into the play queue for playback. After playback starts, you can switch to random mode via the "…​" menu.

If you want an improved random and automated playback, follow these steps:

In the trivum app or WebUI, select:

In the trivum setup, select for example:

A new action will appear in the trivum app or WebUI. When used, the system sees that random play is wanted, and does two steps:

You can then check which playlist part was selected by the "…​" info menu.

There are numerous sources of errors in a home network.

Often a home network grows bit by bit. Whenever a new network device is added, be it a computer, a WLAN access point, an IP camera or the new TV, this device is simply plugged into the next hub/switch or router. If there is no slot left, a next small mini-switch is used to get a few new slots. Networks grown in this way often have many problems.

Therefore, it pays to think about the purchase of larger and a little more expensive switch.

These switches have the following advantages:

Read more here about how to configure a managed switch. The article describes the configuration of recommended switches HP 1920G, HP E2620-24-PoEP and Cisco SG300-10. There are many other comparable switches, it is not possible to name them all.

trivum has been supporting KNX as an active KNX member for many years. We are constantly developing our KNX functions and are trying to make the KNX connection more flexible and at the same time even easier for the installer.

All trivum devices support KNX from the start. KNX is thus " built-in". In order for trivum devices to be able to work together with other KNX devices, a KNX/IP router or interface must be available in the KNX installation. trivum devices communicate via this IP router via KNX/IP.

In order to connect trivum devices sensibly with the KNX house installation, the trivum devices must be configured/parameterized accordingly.

You can find the current documentation of the latest driver V9.2x

<link> here </ link> as German version

and

<link> here </ link> as English version

If you place image files with a name folder.jpg into every album folder on the NAS, then this will be used as cover art, if none is contained in the music files.

Under Windows you may use {http://www.mp3tag.de/ MP3Tag} to check if your music files contain cover art, or to manually add cover art to (some) music files.

An Index Playlist is a normal playlist with a special name scheme. It must contain P1, P2, P3 …​ etc somewhere in the name (with blank spaces before and after).

There are multiple options to do so:

You can also find examples under ftp://service.trivum.com/WebRadios/

The trivum system may import .M3U playlist files from a NAS in a folder called Playlist, Playlists or Playlisten at the top level of the NAS share. The folder name is case insensitive.

MusicCenter V8: The .M3U files may also reside in any folder within a given NAS share.

Example

For example, music is stored on a NAS syndisk under a share named music, and the share registered in trivum reads like: smb://syndisk/music/

Within iTunes, right click on a playlist and select export as .M3U.

Make sure to store your music in a folder structure like

Then, when exporting Playlists as .M3U files, they will contain path informations like

The trivum system will ignore C:\Musik and try to match music files on the NAS by the last three path components, e. g.

So make sure that on both, the NAS and on your PC, all music is stored in the same folder structure.

If music files cannot be matched by the path name, the system tries to match them by artist and track name, however this is not reliable as special characters in those names may cause mismatches.

Enter the web configuration, then enable

You can limit a Webtouch, or a Touchpad like:

To use sfk.exe:

A list of all functions is displayed.

Ideally, connect your notebook to the same network switch as your KNX IP router and the trivum device. Then you can do these tests:

will show any incoming KNX message from the network, for example

so you see, in this example, that a device 192.168.1.100 is successfully sending KNX telegrams into the network.

will only show messages from device 192.168.1.100.

sends a KNX telegram for group address 1/2/3 with a 1-bit value "1". For example, if you have a trivum KNX event configured to play a web radio on such a message, you can test this quickly by sending it.

sends a KNX telegram for group address 1/2/3 with an 8-bit value "200". notice that 1/2/3 can be typed as "1 2 3" for more convenience.

Example:

You should see messages like:

These messages contain a binary data dump, also shown as text from.

If you see messages containing @trivum then these are AirPlay input announcements by a trivum server.

If you see for example far too many AirPlay messages, you may filter the messages with the following possibilities:

If you see no messages at all, but there must be some devices in the network:

Please read more in this article: [groupplay]

deliver a too high POE voltage, which may cause network failures with a trivum Touchpad, so the Touchpad may not allow connections to a music server.

Also check the Sonos list of known incompatible hardware:

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/incompatible-network-hardware

As network switches listed as problematic for Sonos may cause problems with trivum devices as well.

If you place image files with a name "folder.jpg" into every album folder on the NAS, then this will be used as cover art, if none is contained in the music files.

Under Windows you may use MP3Tag to check if your music files contain cover art, or to manually add cover art to (some) music files.

Communication between a Streamsource card and the MusicCenter is not possible.

A Streamsource card checks every 2 seconds if it’s communication partner (software process) is still running. If it has no infos so far about that partner, or the partner is not answering, then this error appears.

In most cases it’s a network problem. This can be checked by the trace.exe tool. Identify the Streamsource IP address, then type in the commandline:

Then press 'i' for Informations.

If the card does not react or shows "Repeating request" permanently then there is a communication problem with the MusicCenter, e.g. from IP conflicts with other devices, or a router problem. It’s also possible that the Streamsource itself is defect.

You may also try:

in the commandline. If there is no reply, check cabling to the Streamsource card.

An update to MusicCenter 7.80 or 8.25 may also help as the Streamsource card handling was improved.