TrigKey Mini PC as an Atmos music server

[Blackwood]

I’m just documenting this in case anyone else has had the same curiosity I’ve had...

On it’s own, a Mac won’t play Atmos files in height speakers when connected to an AVR through HDMI. It does fine with Quad and even 7 ear-level speakers, but your heights get a bit bored with nothing to do, like John Bonham during the first 4:17 of Stairway to Heaven. Except the heights never come in at all.

I “solved” the problem by buying an inexpensive Dell PC. Once you install the Dolby Access app from the Microsoft Store, you’re good to go if you have Windows Pro. Works great for me.

But I’ve been curious about the Trigkey Mini PCs (Trigkey Mini PC Desktop Brand) and finally bought one. At 4” x 4.5” x 1.75”, it’s ideal for a small-footprint computer that you can plug a drive into with all your music.

My TrigKey is a 12th Gen Intel N100, 16G DDR4, 500G SSD. Bought it for $169 on Amazon.

Got it all setup and dropped an Atmos MKV file into VLC and got... just 7.1. No heights. Checked settings and didn’t see anything different from the computer I have that does work. Even the test audio in Windows won’t play anything in the heights.

Quad works great. 5.1 works great. Just not full Atmos.

I’m wondering if it’s the Intel chip. Maybe 12th Gen Intel N100 doesn’t do full Atmos. My Dell that does work for Atmos is a 12th Gen Intel Core i3-12100.

Or maybe there’s an audio chip on a full-sized motherboard that doesn’t exist in this mini PC. I’ve been out of the Windows world for a long time, so I don’t know what’s what any more when it comes to how audio might be processed.

If anyone has thoughts, great. I still have more troubleshooting to do although I’m about out of ideas.

But I really just wanted to put this here for reference in case someone else is curious about these devices. Couldn’t find anything when doing a search on TrigKey, so maybe this will be useful for someone considering this option.

 

[sjcorne]

Interesting findings. Did you go into the VLC settings and change the audio output to bitstream? Maybe the HDMI port on the TrigKey isn't HDCP 2.2 compliant?

I picked up a Neumi Atom 4K a few weeks back and - despite saying nothing about HDCP in the manual - it plays TrueHD/Atmos MKVs just fine once you set the audio output to bitstream. Thanks @ryan de topanga for the recommendation, at just $42 that device has to be the cheapest way to play Atmos files right now. Its only weakness (aside from the lousy UI) is that it can only pass surround audio in encoded formats over bitstream, so no 5.1 FLAC playback.

 

[Blackwood]

Interesting findings. Did you go into the VLC settings and change the audio output to bitstream? Maybe the HDMI port on the TrigKey isn't HDCP 2.2 compliant?

I picked up a Neumi Atom 4K a few weeks back and - despite saying nothing about HDCP in the manual - it plays TrueHD/Atmos MKVs just fine once you set the audio output to bitstream. Thanks @ryan de topanga for the recommendation, at just $42 that device has to be the cheapest way to play Atmos files right now. Its only weakness (aside from the lousy UI) is that it can only pass surround audio in encoded formats over bitstream, so no 5.1 FLAC playback.

I’m embarrassed to say I wouldn’t have even known to go into VLC to check that setting. I’ll check it out this weekend and see. It’s not something I remember intentionally changing on the Dell, but that doesn’t necessarily mean much on a new system.

I’ve had to put this aside for about 24 hours, but I’ll check and report back. Thanks for the suggestion.

Bookmarked the Neumi to explore that further.

While I have a setup that works with the Dell, it’s hard not to look into things that are in such a small package.

And you may be interested to know that when I test an MKV Atmos file, it’s Money House’s Remember The Audio (song). That was such a big deal to me when I got things working that it’s kind of my go-to song to test MKV files on a computer. Had it not been for IAA, I probably would have never gone down this rabbit hole to begin with earlier this year.

 

[steelydave]

I'm not really familiar with the setup for VLC, but make sure you're using WASAPI for passthrough output and not DirectSound. Kodi definitely allows you to set this so you might try that - I know with Kodi if I output via DirectSound I only Dolby Digital and DTS as passthrough options, but when you switch over to WASAPI you get TrueHD and the other hirez passthrough options.

 

[Blackwood]

I'm not really familiar with the setup for VLC, but make sure you're using WASAPI for passthrough output and not DirectSound. Kodi definitely allows you to set this so you might try that - I know with Kodi if I output via DirectSound I only Dolby Digital and DTS as passthrough options, but when you switch over to WASAPI you get TrueHD and the other hirez passthrough options.

Thanks.

20 years ago I worked for Microsoft on the Windows team and thought I was fairly smart. Not compared to the developers who actually created new versions of Windows, but smart enough to document what they did and understand what was happening.

I could even kind of figure out what was going one when I saw a blue-screen dump report. (The joys of having to use beta versions of Windows on everyday work machines.)

Since getting a Windows computer some weeks back after all these years, I find myself slightly baffled at times. I have to do a Google search to figure out the most basic things.

 

[jimfisheye]

I think it's about time to experiment with some Linux installs.
We've talked about the Mac lockout thing before. It will only unmute the heights with "approved hardware" connected I suspect. My "hack" only applies to other than HDMI connected apparently? No surprise.

 

[sjcorne]

There's no "lockout" - the issue is that Macs cannot bitstream encoded formats like Dolby & DTS over HDMI, a limitation that existed even before Atmos support.

If Apple are really so keen to get people to buy hardware as you suggest, I would think they'd want the Music app on MacOS to only send encoded audio (so the listener would have to buy an Atmos-equipped AVR) rather than allow it to do the full 12-channel decode when the output is sent to a virtual device.

(you make it sound as if Apple and Dolby are some kind of evil cabal plotting to make our lives miserable, when in reality both companies have done a lot to promote surround/immersive audio over these past 2-3 years...)

 

[atrocity]

I'm not really familiar with the setup for VLC, but make sure you're using WASAPI for passthrough output and not DirectSound. Kodi definitely allows you to set this so you might try that - I know with Kodi if I output via DirectSound I only Dolby Digital and DTS as passthrough options, but when you switch over to WASAPI you get TrueHD and the other hirez passthrough options.

I was going to suggest Kodi as well, with the same caveat about setting it to bitstreaming.

I have very little experience with Kodi under W*nd*ws, so I don't know if it's also necessary to make underlying changes somewhere in the OS. If the OP is not married to W11, starting from scratch with LibreELEC might be useful.

 

[Blackwood]

Interesting findings. Did you go into the VLC settings and change the audio output to bitstream?

Bingo!!!!! VLC settings!

I didn’t have to do any VLC configuration on the Dell which is why I didn’t think of it on the TrigKey, although it’s crap troubleshooting on my part. I’d like to think I would have eventually figured it out, but I was too hyper-focused on Windows audio properties yesterday.

I went into VLC Audio preferences and “HDMI/SPDIF audio passthrough” was set to Disabled.

Switched it to Enabled and chose the Device as the Denon and I was in full height glory. Only two heights on this setup, but I assume it will work when I switch over to the four heights system. Output Module is set to Automatic.

There are still a couple of mysteries I haven’t solved when I think about the results I was getting yesterday with 5.1 and quad, but they’re unimportant now.

Thanks to you and everyone else who pitched in thoughts. I truly appreciate it!

For anyone down the road considering this as an option and sees this thread...

It’s early days, but this works pretty darn well as an Atmos music server and takes up very little space if you’re needing/wanting something that can also serve other Windows purposes beyond music.

There’s a fan inside that seems to run constantly (but quietly) and there’s venting on the sides and back so it doesn’t feel hot.

On my model there are four USB-A ports (2 front, 2 back), two HDMI ports (back), Ethernet port (back) and headphone plug (front). Came with Windows 11 Pro which is important as, if I recall, there was an issue running Atmos on Standard.

I’m plugging in a 4TB Crucial external SSD drive (USB-C to USB-A adapter) with my multichannel music on it. The 16GB of RAM the TrigKey came with is sufficient for music playing, although I think the RAM and internal SSD can be user-upgraded, something us Mac users don’t get to say much anymore.

So far for testing, I’ve been copying some files to the internal SSD and playing them from there. Later I’ll see how well it works to play directly off the external SSD.

(Listened to my MKV of ITCOTCK in Atmos on the TrigKey while writing this. Very nice!)

 

[pherbert]

Thanks.

20 years ago I worked for Microsoft on the Windows team and thought I was fairly smart. Not compared to the developers who actually created new versions of Windows, but smart enough to document what they did and understand what was happening.

I could even kind of figure out what was going one when I saw a blue-screen dump report. (The joys of having to use beta versions of Windows on everyday work machines.)

Since getting a Windows computer some weeks back after all these years, I find myself slightly baffled at times. I have to do a Google search to figure out the most basic things.

I spent 25+ years in IT in a mostly Windows environment and since I've retired either things no longer work the way they should or I've gotten dumber than a box of rocks. Maybe both.

 

[Blackwood]

I spent 25+ years in IT in a mostly Windows environment and since I've retired either things no longer work the way they should or I've gotten dumber than a box of rocks. Maybe both.

I hear ya... boy do I hear ya. Let’s hope for the former.

 

[beerking]

Bingo!!!!! VLC settings!

I didn’t have to do any VLC configuration on the Dell which is why I didn’t think of it on the TrigKey, although it’s crap troubleshooting on my part. I’d like to think I would have eventually figured it out, but I was too hyper-focused on Windows audio properties yesterday.

I went into VLC Audio preferences and “HDMI/SPDIF audio passthrough” was set to Disabled.

Switched it to Enabled and chose the Device as the Denon and I was in full height glory. Only two heights on this setup, but I assume it will work when I switch over to the four heights system. Output Module is set to Automatic.

There are still a couple of mysteries I haven’t solved when I think about the results I was getting yesterday with 5.1 and quad, but they’re unimportant now.

Thanks to you and everyone else who pitched in thoughts. I truly appreciate it!

For anyone down the road considering this as an option and sees this thread...

It’s early days, but this works pretty darn well as an Atmos music server and takes up very little space if you’re needing/wanting something that can also serve other Windows purposes beyond music.

There’s a fan inside that seems to run constantly (but quietly) and there’s venting on the sides and back so it doesn’t feel hot.

On my model there are four USB-A ports (2 front, 2 back), two HDMI ports (back), Ethernet port (back) and headphone plug (front). Came with Windows 11 Pro which is important as, if I recall, there was an issue running Atmos on Standard.

I’m plugging in a 4TB Crucial external SSD drive (USB-C to USB-A adapter) with my multichannel music on it. The 16GB of RAM the TrigKey came with is sufficient for music playing, although I think the RAM and internal SSD can be user-upgraded, something us Mac users don’t get to say much anymore.

So far for testing, I’ve been copying some files to the internal SSD and playing them from there. Later I’ll see how well it works to play directly off the external SSD.

(Listened to my MKV of ITCOTCK in Atmos on the TrigKey while writing this. Very nice!)

Great that you're getting to grips with this mini PC. My brother bought a different one recently but is having problems logging in.Checked online and it's a known fault for some users. He's an Apple man but wanted Windows to play the USB's I'm going to send him with Atmos music.
I told him if it don't work then send it back to Amazon and I'll get one and see if I can get it up and running.
He did say he don't get these problems with Apple Mac software and why is Windows such a pain in the a..e

 

[Blackwood]

Great that you're getting to grips with this mini PC. My brother bought a different one recently but is having problems logging in.Checked online and it's a known fault for some users. He's an Apple man but wanted Windows to play the USB's I'm going to send him with Atmos music.
I told him if it don't work then send it back to Amazon and I'll get one and see if I can get it up and running.
He did say he don't get these problems with Apple Mac software and why is Windows such a pain in the a..e

My TrigKey came with a bright yellow sticker on the device that says:

WARNING: During the system boot process, if you cannot log in to your personal account, please turn off WIFI and LAN, select the skip option, and then log in to your personal account in the system.

Thankfully, I didn’t have that problem or any other with the device itself.

I feel bad for your brother, though. Not much worse (tech-wise) than being excited about a new device and it doesn’t work properly right out of the box. Fingers crossed that he gets it worked out.

 

[beerking]

My TrigKey came with a bright yellow sticker on the device that says:

WARNING: During the system boot process, if you cannot log in to your personal account, please turn off WIFI and LAN, select the skip option, and then log in to your personal account in the system.

Thankfully, I didn’t have that problem or any other with the device itself.

I feel bad for your brother, though. Not much worse (tech-wise) than being excited about a new device and it doesn’t work properly right out of the box. Fingers crossed that he gets it worked out.

Yes, we read about the boot process and did as advised....still no joy. I'm waiting for the results of his final attempt.
Many thanks for the heads up.
I can see how these mini PC's are going to be very useful as a media player.
This is his mini PC
Deal: NiPoGi Mini PC W-11 Pro, Intel Alder Lake-Ν95 (Beats N5095/N5105, fino a 3.4GHz), 16GB RAM+512GB M.2 SSD Mini Computer Desktop, supporto 2.5" SATA SSD, WiFi 5,Bluetooth4.2, Double Display https://amzn.eu/d/9z4yUFG

Edit... Just received his update, he had to do a reset and it's now working as advertised....phew

 

[Blackwood]

Edit... Just received his update, he had to do a reset and it's now working as advertised....phew

Great news!!

I can see how these mini PC's are going to be very useful as a media player.

Agreed. As mentioned, it’s early days for me, but for price, capability and size, these things are pretty cool.