Anthem AVM60 7.1.4 Preamp/Processor

[Travis Ballstadt]

Well I had planned to put this together sooner, but things in my theater keep on changing. Back in December, I pulled my Emotiva XMC-1 out of the rack and replaced it with an Anthem AVM60. I was not unhappy with the sound of the XMC-1, but I had grown weary with some quirks it had, and wanted to move on. After doing some research, knowing I didn’t need more than 11 channels, I settled on the Anthem AVM60. It arrived a couple days after I put my order in, and I quickly got it into the rack and connected to my 7.1 setup. A classy front panel, well-built and solid.

One of the features I REALLY like about the Anthem unit is how customizable the inputs can be, it’s almost like creating macros in a universal remote. The unit can store 4 speaker profiles, and 4 room correction settings, and they can be configured almost infinitely.

For example, I have 3 sources - an Nvidia Shield, an AppleTV, and a Sony UHD disc player. I use the AppleTV and the disc player for both movies and 2-channel audio. Rather than selecting a source, and then selecting a surround mode, etc. based on what I want to do at that moment, I configured two separate inputs for the AppleTV and two for the Sony disc player. Example - I have an AppleTV input which sets up the unit with all speakers active and a specific room correction preset. Then I also have an AppleTV input called ATV 2ch, which automatically selects the AppleTV, my 2.2 speaker profile, and a room correction calibration curve specifically set for music listening. So it’s really one-click and everything is set up for music or movies without having to go into the menus or press ten buttons on the remote to change it each time. NICE!

It took a few evenings worth of attempts to successfully get it working solidly on my network. Well, it took an evening or two of failures with my wifi and ordering another switch so I could hardwire it. Since then there have been zero issues.

Once I had it on the network, I was able to run the latest version of Anthem’s room correction system, ARC Genesis. Inside the box with the processor was another, smaller box containing the tools needed to run ARC Genesis - a microphone (an actual microphone, not one of the little hockey pucks that come with many room correction kits), an impressively solid mic stand (it’s not going to be seen on the road with Guns’n’Roses, but it’s great for an included stand), cables, etc. A microphone calibration file is downloaded via the website by entering your mic’s serial number.

It took about 20-25 minutes to take the measurements, create a few different speaker profiles, custom curves, and push them from my MacBook Pro to the processor.

So…I mentioned that things kept changing and delaying this write up.

Once placed the Anthem into the system, the plan was to use it regularly for a few weeks, and then evaluate it. Well, a couple weeks after adding the AVM60, I came across a deal too good to pass up on a set of 5 Triad InWall/4 Gold Satellite speakers, so I put those in, ran ARC Genesis again, and was living with them.

Then I decided to connect a couple of old Mission 77ds dipole speakers as overhead middle channels. Rerun ARC Genesis, and live with that for awhile. It sounds great. I didn’t plan on implementing immersive audio into this room. I didn’t think it would have much of an effect with my 7’6” ceilings, and I’m planning a cross-country move in the near future. I figured I’d wait until after the move. I’ve been shocked at what it can add, even in a small room.

Oh, and I’m not even making things up when I say that yesterday I bought another lot of Triads. Why? Because it was another great deal, and I really like them.

Back to the Anthem.

One thing that I really want to emphasize about the Anthem is ARC Genesis. It’s really, REALLY quick and easy to use. I mentioned earlier that I was happy with the sound of my XMC-1 and Dirac. That was after 2 1/2 years of tweaking and fiddling and messing around, I finally got it to a place where I was happy with it.

The Anthem and ARC Genesis essentially matched the XMC-1 and Dirac on the first try. It was that simple and powerful.

It’s hard to do a direct A-B comparison between the two, based on the downtime. But that first configuration, where the only thing that had changed was the processor and room correction, they were sounding identical, and I hadn’t really dug into the tweaking in ARC Genesis. And with Genesis, I gained the ability to place 4 different correction profiles into the processor at one time, and it IS easy to A-B-C-D compare and switch between them, unlike Dirac on the Emotiva processors which only allow for a single profile to be loaded at a time.

Genesis was also able to instantly indicate an issue with two of the surrounds I had been using, which Dirac didn’t reveal.

In my unscientific testing, with my road-weary ears, the Anthem wins this match-up hands down, in terms of sound quality, room correction, stability, customization, and ease of use. The Anthem is quick, responsive, and powerful. All the quirks of missing center channel audio I was having with the Emotiva unit are gone and forgotten.

In the end, I'm grateful that I don't feel the need to get up to 16 channels. The Anthem is in the sweet spot for me, the price point is spot on, and many of the 16 channel units hitting the market are not having the smoothest launches. This unit has been on the market for a few years, yet it's still receiving updates, and has a feature set that keeps it current with the newest units hitting the market. I installed a beta firmware last week that added IMAX Enhanced features to take advantage of specially encoded discs (all future Sony UHD releases will be IMAX Enhanced).

Rating: Solid 5 out of 5 for sound quality, configurability and ease of use.

 

[JStewart]

Lately it seems like processors are full of bugs. Nice to hear of one that "just works".

 

[Grayson Dere]

Thanks for the helpful and concise review! Was the Genesis ARC set it and forget it during/after calibration? or did you have to adjust anything manually post-calibration?

 

[Travis Ballstadt]

Lately it seems like processors are full of bugs. Nice to hear of one that "just works".

Breaking the 13-channel barrier is a challenge that surprised everyone I think. Some companies have risen to the challenge much stronger than others.

 

[Travis Ballstadt]

Thanks for the helpful and concise review! Was the Genesis ARC set it and forget it during/after calibration? or did you have to adjust anything manually post-calibration?

That’s something I should add above.

Another great feature of ARC Genesis is that ability to store 4 profiles. That allowed me to set profile 4 as my 2ch correction, and profiles 1-3 are all 5.2.2 corrections based on the same measurements. So I would generally leave 1 at the ARC suggested settings, and on 2 and 3 I made minor adjustments, such as the high frequency cutoff for eq, and the house curve.

Once you load the 4 in, you can go into the menu and make instantaneous switches between them for ABCD comparisons.

So, in short, outside of remeasuring with each change in my speakers, I haven’t had to do much along the lines of tweaking. It’s been set it and forget it, save for a couple times I just got curious and wanted to play around with it.

 

[Travis Ballstadt]

Here are several screen shots taken of my latest ARC Genesis session, showing the various controls and parameters.

 

[JStewart]

Breaking the 13-channel barrier is a challenge that surprised everyone I think. Some companies have risen to the challenge much stronger than others.

Could be other factors or just coincidence, but it also seems those with Dirac have the most growing pains. Nothing on Dirac. I really appreciate what it does for me.

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Nice review, thrillcat - thanks!

Regards,
Wayne

 

[Travis Ballstadt]

Could be other factors or just coincidence, but it also seems those with Dirac have the most growing pains. Nothing on Dirac. I really appreciate what it does for me.

Dirac did a great job in my room as well, it just took a lot more fiddling with it.

I have heard several reports that Dirac changed their entire paradigm halfway through the delivery of their latest product, and the hardware manufacturers were forced to reimplement a different interface than they were expecting to receive from Dirac. This has caused varying levels of delays and problems, based on the capabilities of the hardware companies. Some have handled it in stride. Others have...not...handled it in stride.

 

[JStewart]

Did not realize that. Thanks.

 

[JStewart]

Does the Anthem have native streaming. Have you tried it? Any quick comparison to BluOS?

 

[Travis Ballstadt]

The Anthem uses DTS Play-Fi, and I believe it has built-in Spotify.

As I don’t listen to music much in the theater room, I haven’t done much with Play Fi.

 

[Tom L.]

Well done! The Anthem with the ARC seems to be a very versatile system. The idea of being able to store, and recall, four+four different "scenes" makes a very powerful statement!

My only experience so far has been with the Audyssey. Painfully slow, not so flexible and very difficult to tweak.

I enjoyed your review very much!

Thanks!

 

[Grayson Dere]

Here are several screen shots taken of my latest ARC Genesis session, showing the various controls and parameters.

View attachment 28953View attachment 28954View attachment 28955View attachment 28956View attachment 28957View attachment 28958View attachment 28959

Fantastic! Thank you for sharing these graphs. I'm thinking of upgrading my AVR now...haha.

 

[Travis Ballstadt]

If I could ever find the time I’ve been planning to do a video.

 

[Manic1]

Well I had planned to put this together sooner, but things in my theater keep on changing. Back in December, I pulled my Emotiva XMC-1 out of the rack and replaced it with an Anthem AVM60. I was not unhappy with the sound of the XMC-1, but I had grown weary with some quirks it had, and wanted to move on. After doing some research, knowing I didn’t need more than 11 channels, I settled on the Anthem AVM60. It arrived a couple days after I put my order in, and I quickly got it into the rack and connected to my 7.1 setup. A classy front panel, well-built and solid.

View attachment 28939

One of the features I REALLY like about the Anthem unit is how customizable the inputs can be, it’s almost like creating macros in a universal remote. The unit can store 4 speaker profiles, and 4 room correction settings, and they can be configured almost infinitely.

For example, I have 3 sources - an Nvidia Shield, an AppleTV, and a Sony UHD disc player. I use the AppleTV and the disc player for both movies and 2-channel audio. Rather than selecting a source, and then selecting a surround mode, etc. based on what I want to do at that moment, I configured two separate inputs for the AppleTV and two for the Sony disc player. Example - I have an AppleTV input which sets up the unit with all speakers active and a specific room correction preset. Then I also have an AppleTV input called ATV 2ch, which automatically selects the AppleTV, my 2.2 speaker profile, and a room correction calibration curve specifically set for music listening. So it’s really one-click and everything is set up for music or movies without having to go into the menus or press ten buttons on the remote to change it each time. NICE!

It took a few evenings worth of attempts to successfully get it working solidly on my network. Well, it took an evening or two of failures with my wifi and ordering another switch so I could hardwire it. Since then there have been zero issues.

Once I had it on the network, I was able to run the latest version of Anthem’s room correction system, ARC Genesis. Inside the box with the processor was another, smaller box containing the tools needed to run ARC Genesis - a microphone (an actual microphone, not one of the little hockey pucks that come with many room correction kits), an impressively solid mic stand (it’s not going to be seen on the road with Guns’n’Roses, but it’s great for an included stand), cables, etc. A microphone calibration file is downloaded via the website by entering your mic’s serial number.

View attachment 28940 View attachment 28941

It took about 20-25 minutes to take the measurements, create a few different speaker profiles, custom curves, and push them from my MacBook Pro to the processor.

So…I mentioned that things kept changing and delaying this write up.

Once placed the Anthem into the system, the plan was to use it regularly for a few weeks, and then evaluate it. Well, a couple weeks after adding the AVM60, I came across a deal too good to pass up on a set of 5 Triad InWall/4 Gold Satellite speakers, so I put those in, ran ARC Genesis again, and was living with them.

Then I decided to connect a couple of old Mission 77ds dipole speakers as overhead middle channels. Rerun ARC Genesis, and live with that for awhile. It sounds great. I didn’t plan on implementing immersive audio into this room. I didn’t think it would have much of an effect with my 7’6” ceilings, and I’m planning a cross-country move in the near future. I figured I’d wait until after the move. I’ve been shocked at what it can add, even in a small room.

Oh, and I’m not even making things up when I say that yesterday I bought another lot of Triads. Why? Because it was another great deal, and I really like them.

Back to the Anthem.

One thing that I really want to emphasize about the Anthem is ARC Genesis. It’s really, REALLY quick and easy to use. I mentioned earlier that I was happy with the sound of my XMC-1 and Dirac. That was after 2 1/2 years of tweaking and fiddling and messing around, I finally got it to a place where I was happy with it.

The Anthem and ARC Genesis essentially matched the XMC-1 and Dirac on the first try. It was that simple and powerful.

It’s hard to do a direct A-B comparison between the two, based on the downtime. But that first configuration, where the only thing that had changed was the processor and room correction, they were sounding identical, and I hadn’t really dug into the tweaking in ARC Genesis. And with Genesis, I gained the ability to place 4 different correction profiles into the processor at one time, and it IS easy to A-B-C-D compare and switch between them, unlike Dirac on the Emotiva processors which only allow for a single profile to be loaded at a time.

Genesis was also able to instantly indicate an issue with two of the surrounds I had been using, which Dirac didn’t reveal.

In my unscientific testing, with my road-weary ears, the Anthem wins this match-up hands down, in terms of sound quality, room correction, stability, customization, and ease of use. The Anthem is quick, responsive, and powerful. All the quirks of missing center channel audio I was having with the Emotiva unit are gone and forgotten.

In the end, I'm grateful that I don't feel the need to get up to 16 channels. The Anthem is in the sweet spot for me, the price point is spot on, and many of the 16 channel units hitting the market are not having the smoothest launches. This unit has been on the market for a few years, yet it's still receiving updates, and has a feature set that keeps it current with the newest units hitting the market. I installed a beta firmware last week that added IMAX Enhanced features to take advantage of specially encoded discs (all future Sony UHD releases will be IMAX Enhanced).

Rating: Solid 5 out of 5 for sound quality, configurability and ease of use.

I have been looking to upgrade my Marantz 7702mkll processor and have been looking at the Avm60, I will not have 16 channels at the most 7.2.4. The othere pre-pros are the Marantz 8805 used for about 2k, or the XMC-2, but have about ruled it out due to reviews of buggy applications. The others are more expensive Audiocontrol M5, Nad and the Arcam. The reason for the Marantz is they say it can be upgraded to HDMI 2.1. What would you suggest? How does the Anthem handle 2 subs? When 8k is here do we have to buy a new processor to take advantage of the format? How easy is Arc Genisis to implement for a 65 + individual?
Thank you so much for the review it is timely for my situation and like us all looking for something that will be relevant for more than a year.

 

[philip vasseur]

I have been looking to upgrade my Marantz 7702mkll processor and have been looking at the Avm60, I will not have 16 channels at the most 7.2.4. The othere pre-pros are the Marantz 8805 used for about 2k, or the XMC-2, but have about ruled it out due to reviews of buggy applications. The others are more expensive Audiocontrol M5, Nad and the Arcam. The reason for the Marantz is they say it can be upgraded to HDMI 2.1. What would you suggest? How does the Anthem handle 2 subs? When 8k is here do we have to buy a new processor to take advantage of the format? How easy is Arc Genisis to implement for a 65 + individual?
Thank you so much for the review it is timely for my situation and like us all looking for something that will be relevant for more than a year.

I want to thank our moderator for this excellent review and answer a couple questions from Manic 1. I have owned the AVM60 for at least 2 years, and can enthusiastically second the positive review. I've had lots of gear over the years (I'm 69) and Anthem has proven to be totally reliable, very musical, and the ARC feature is superb. I liked the AVM60 so much that I've purchased the STR preamp and power amp for a two channel system. ARC Genesis is even more advanced for the STR series, with separate control of two subs with phase matching, and detailed options for setting up your speakers. Gene Delasalla at Audioholics has a detailed review of the STR lineup if anyone is interested in more info.
If you think about how important your room acoustics are to the final sound you hear, I would argue that there is no comparison between a processor or AVR that offers good room correction and one that does not. I am familiar with Dirac and it is a good system but ARC is far easier to use and very powerful. The other systems like Odyssey and YPAO are IMO poor in comparison to ARC and Dirac.
You also do not need to add a Bluetooth adaptor or network box (Sonos Port, etc) to stream music. you can use the built in PlayFi app to stream any music service at a much higher quality than with Bluetooth. I have to say PlayFi is not the most pleasant app to use, it needs to be rebooted fairly often, and it does not always play well with Spotify connect but it does work 90% of the time without issues.

@Manic1

two subs. The AVM 60 has dual subwoofer outputs, however they put out the same mono signal. When you run ARC it treats them as a single sub (I have a pair of SVS SB16s). This is in many ways a good way to go, because it is the final combined output that you are interested in when talking about home theater and certainly makes it more simple than tuning individual subs (like you can with the STR preamp or integrated).

8K. I don't know the answer to this, other than to say the AVM 60 is a pass through system and I would think it would be the same with an 8k signal, perhaps our moderator can explain in more detail.

ease of use. I am 69 and find ARC very easy to use, fun in fact and I run it whenever I get the chance (wife is out of the house). So if you get new drapes, rugs, speakers etc it is very easy to run the program again and get new values. Just a suggestion, use ear protection when you run it, the test tones are loud.

The Anthem AVM 60 is IMO the best processor out there because of its feature set, flexibility with inputs, high quality DAC, build quality and reliability, and most of its room correction system, recently upgraded to ARC Genesis. You also have Anthem support available via email or phone to help you out. Great guys up there in Canada and they've always been happy to help me out.

 

[Travis Ballstadt]

I have been looking to upgrade my Marantz 7702mkll processor and have been looking at the Avm60, I will not have 16 channels at the most 7.2.4. The othere pre-pros are the Marantz 8805 used for about 2k, or the XMC-2, but have about ruled it out due to reviews of buggy applications. The others are more expensive Audiocontrol M5, Nad and the Arcam. The reason for the Marantz is they say it can be upgraded to HDMI 2.1. What would you suggest? How does the Anthem handle 2 subs? When 8k is here do we have to buy a new processor to take advantage of the format? How easy is Arc Genisis to implement for a 65 + individual?
Thank you so much for the review it is timely for my situation and like us all looking for something that will be relevant for more than a year.

I'll respond, but @philip vasseur did a nice job of answering, I don't know that I'll have anything different or better to say...

The Marantz would be a great unit. There are many, many happy users out there who love it. I've always loved the sonic signature of a Marantz as well, but I'm not a fan of Audessey room correction, which Denon and Marantz are pretty tied to. The Marantz also offers Auro, but the content for that is so limited it wouldn't be a factor for me. If I had to, I could live with the 8805.

The XMC-2, well, it was the heir apparent to my XMC-1, but I lost faith that it would ever be what everyone wants it to be. I hope it reaches that point, but I've owned two of their previous processors and neither ever reached the point of being completely stable and problem free.

I had also looked closely at the Arcam AV860, but the price tag just seemed a little more than where my wallet was sitting. A good friend down the street who owns a company in the industry has the AV860, and to be honest, his system is the best I've ever heard. I don't think the AV860 is the reason for that, but it certainly isn't a handicap, either. I think his speakers and amplification play a much larger role in the sound than the Arcam, but like I said, the Arcam isn't dragging them down, either.

Regarding 8K and HDMI 2.1, I honestly don't know. It didn't factor into my decision. I think we're at least a processor decision away from it being a big enough factor for me to care. 8K displays are just hitting the market now, and 8K content is likely several years off. My content is all ripped to an Emby server, which means all DRM has been removed, so that also makes it less of a factor. That's a decision that you'll need to make on your own, but I just don't see it being an issue in the next few years. As for being able to upgrade the board to HDMI 2.1, I don't know if Anthem will offer that or not. In MY opinion, I think it's more likely that you'll just see a new processor from Anthem with 2.1, as the AVM60 is already been on the market for a few years.

Two subs...Yep. Mono signal. Usually will be perfectly fine if you have 2 identical subs. Can be less than ideal if your subs don't match.

Genesis is a piece of cake. Once you get the AVM60 configured on your network, you can run a measurement, create your profiles, generate the filters and have it running on your system in 20 minutes. There is even two different modes, a simple mode and a professional mode, not to mention the iPhone version. The Anthem sounds great without any correction. A basic correction can be configured with minimal effort or knowledge, and once you've run it a couple times, you really get a good idea of what the different controls do, and you can fine tune your correction to meet your tastes.

As for the relevance of the AVM60 long-term, that depends on your definition of long-term. You mentioned a year...absolutely, for you, it will be relevant. I think it will be relevant for 3-4 years if you don't need to go past 7.2.4, which you said you don't. Anthem is still fully supporting this, like I stated in the review, it just received a new update in the past few weeks that added IMAX Enhanced functionality. It's far from long in the tooth. I plan on it being in my rack for at least 3 years.

 

[Manic1]

I want to thank you both for your great feedback my questions were answered throughly and coming from an owner and someone who has lived with it well sure has swayed me over to Anthem. I was reading how most owners were raving about ARC and no rhat Audessey does not come close, I am not a big fan. Only thing left is to find a good deal on AVM60. Once again thank you Phillip, and Thrillcat.

 

[1_sufferin_mind]

The XMC-2, well, it was the heir apparent to my XMC-1, but I lost faith that it would ever be what everyone wants it to be. I hope it reaches that point, but I've owned two of their previous processors and neither ever reached the point of being completely stable and problem free.

Start Edit:
Your review was one of the better Ive come across! It really drew me into the experience of owning one, and also made me want to own one. You must be very content with your choice!
End Edit

You also mentioned the XMC-1’s quirks elsewhere. I brushed your comments aside before accepting their XMC-2 trade-in deal because the quirks I experienced weren’t severe enough to interfere with my enjoyment of the presentation during day to day operation.

The XMC-2 is the right decision for my circumstance, but I would also like to lay my dissatisfaction on the table as a buyer caveat. My unit has quirks severe enough to prompt me to seek warranty service. The unit will randomly block all audio with any source and sometimes lock up afterward, requiring a hard user-reset. I’ve tried a factory-reset and latest firmware to no avail. The frequent delays of entire system-resets required to recover audio are embarrassing and intolerable. Hopefully, my XMC-2’s performance is not representative of the line and will be replaced with a properly functioning unit under warranty.

 

[Travis Ballstadt]

@1_sufferin_mind That's really a shame. In hindsight, I'm shocked that they've been able to get away with shipping such half-baked products. But then I realize I bought 2 of them, knowing what to expect.

Anthem is having a 20% off sale right now. Return the XMC-2, get your XMC-1 back, sell the XMC-1 and get the Anthem ($2400).

I have nearly forgotten what it's like to have such a quirky processor. The Anthem is rock-solid stable. The only thing of note is that I installed a beta version of the firmware to see what the IMAX Enhanced features are (pretty unnoticeable at this point), and with this beta firmware, the built-in test tones for leveling speakers don't function. I could go back to the previous production version of the firmware (unlike on Emo processors), but I'm not going to bother. I've got things dialed in really well right now and I'm fully enjoying movies without any concerns on the processor.

Hopefully I'll continue to receive notifications on your thread again. Keep us posted over there.

 

[Manic1]

Well, I went off course and ended up with a Marantz 8805. Have to say this is a very reliable and great sounding unit!

 

[Travis Ballstadt]

Well, I went off course and ended up with a Marantz 8805. Have to say this is a very reliable and great sounding unit!

Glad you found something you enjoy!

 

[Shimei]

Well I had planned to put this together sooner, but things in my theater keep on changing. Back in December, I pulled my Emotiva XMC-1 out of the rack and replaced it with an Anthem AVM60. I was not unhappy with the sound of the XMC-1, but I had grown weary with some quirks it had, and wanted to move on. After doing some research, knowing I didn’t need more than 11 channels, I settled on the Anthem AVM60. It arrived a couple days after I put my order in, and I quickly got it into the rack and connected to my 7.1 setup. A classy front panel, well-built and solid.

View attachment 28939

One of the features I REALLY like about the Anthem unit is how customizable the inputs can be, it’s almost like creating macros in a universal remote. The unit can store 4 speaker profiles, and 4 room correction settings, and they can be configured almost infinitely.

For example, I have 3 sources - an Nvidia Shield, an AppleTV, and a Sony UHD disc player. I use the AppleTV and the disc player for both movies and 2-channel audio. Rather than selecting a source, and then selecting a surround mode, etc. based on what I want to do at that moment, I configured two separate inputs for the AppleTV and two for the Sony disc player. Example - I have an AppleTV input which sets up the unit with all speakers active and a specific room correction preset. Then I also have an AppleTV input called ATV 2ch, which automatically selects the AppleTV, my 2.2 speaker profile, and a room correction calibration curve specifically set for music listening. So it’s really one-click and everything is set up for music or movies without having to go into the menus or press ten buttons on the remote to change it each time. NICE!

It took a few evenings worth of attempts to successfully get it working solidly on my network. Well, it took an evening or two of failures with my wifi and ordering another switch so I could hardwire it. Since then there have been zero issues.

Once I had it on the network, I was able to run the latest version of Anthem’s room correction system, ARC Genesis. Inside the box with the processor was another, smaller box containing the tools needed to run ARC Genesis - a microphone (an actual microphone, not one of the little hockey pucks that come with many room correction kits), an impressively solid mic stand (it’s not going to be seen on the road with Guns’n’Roses, but it’s great for an included stand), cables, etc. A microphone calibration file is downloaded via the website by entering your mic’s serial number.

View attachment 28940 View attachment 28941

It took about 20-25 minutes to take the measurements, create a few different speaker profiles, custom curves, and push them from my MacBook Pro to the processor.

So…I mentioned that things kept changing and delaying this write up.

Once placed the Anthem into the system, the plan was to use it regularly for a few weeks, and then evaluate it. Well, a couple weeks after adding the AVM60, I came across a deal too good to pass up on a set of 5 Triad InWall/4 Gold Satellite speakers, so I put those in, ran ARC Genesis again, and was living with them.

Then I decided to connect a couple of old Mission 77ds dipole speakers as overhead middle channels. Rerun ARC Genesis, and live with that for awhile. It sounds great. I didn’t plan on implementing immersive audio into this room. I didn’t think it would have much of an effect with my 7’6” ceilings, and I’m planning a cross-country move in the near future. I figured I’d wait until after the move. I’ve been shocked at what it can add, even in a small room.

Oh, and I’m not even making things up when I say that yesterday I bought another lot of Triads. Why? Because it was another great deal, and I really like them.

Back to the Anthem.

One thing that I really want to emphasize about the Anthem is ARC Genesis. It’s really, REALLY quick and easy to use. I mentioned earlier that I was happy with the sound of my XMC-1 and Dirac. That was after 2 1/2 years of tweaking and fiddling and messing around, I finally got it to a place where I was happy with it.

The Anthem and ARC Genesis essentially matched the XMC-1 and Dirac on the first try. It was that simple and powerful.

It’s hard to do a direct A-B comparison between the two, based on the downtime. But that first configuration, where the only thing that had changed was the processor and room correction, they were sounding identical, and I hadn’t really dug into the tweaking in ARC Genesis. And with Genesis, I gained the ability to place 4 different correction profiles into the processor at one time, and it IS easy to A-B-C-D compare and switch between them, unlike Dirac on the Emotiva processors which only allow for a single profile to be loaded at a time.

Genesis was also able to instantly indicate an issue with two of the surrounds I had been using, which Dirac didn’t reveal.

In my unscientific testing, with my road-weary ears, the Anthem wins this match-up hands down, in terms of sound quality, room correction, stability, customization, and ease of use. The Anthem is quick, responsive, and powerful. All the quirks of missing center channel audio I was having with the Emotiva unit are gone and forgotten.

In the end, I'm grateful that I don't feel the need to get up to 16 channels. The Anthem is in the sweet spot for me, the price point is spot on, and many of the 16 channel units hitting the market are not having the smoothest launches. This unit has been on the market for a few years, yet it's still receiving updates, and has a feature set that keeps it current with the newest units hitting the market. I installed a beta firmware last week that added IMAX Enhanced features to take advantage of specially encoded discs (all future Sony UHD releases will be IMAX Enhanced).

Rating: Solid 5 out of 5 for sound quality, configurability and ease of use.

Thank you very much for your comprehensive review Thrillcat. Next on my upgrade list is a Pre-Pro. The Anthem thus far is exactly the Pre-Pro I've had my eyes on for a couple of weeks. Your review has basically sealed the deal. However, I'll probably wait until end of this year to purchase around the Cyber Sales.

 

[Travis Ballstadt]

Thank you very much for your comprehensive review Thrillcat. Next on my upgrade list is a Pre-Pro. Having been a regular at Emotiva's forum/board I didn't want to actually purchase an Emotiva Pre-Pro because of the obvious bugs which a lot of the regulars are struggling with. The Anthem thus far is exactly the Pre-Pro I've had my eyes on for a couple of weeks. Your review has basically sealed the deal. However, I'll probably wait until end of this year to purchase around the Cyber Sales.

Currently, room correction is a must and something I'm heavily emphasizing. Let's just say I am very unimpressed by Onkyo's AccuEQ solution. I recently began room treatment and turned to this forum/board in order to learn more. Can't wait to replace my Onkyo PR-RZ5100 with a better Pre-Pro for 3.1 listening:

Anthem is offering 20% off on their website right now. Just sayin'.

And honestly, as time has gone on, I've been running it with no room correction at all. My room is a perfect storm of bizarre construction anomalies and just the right treatments that just flat out works, so I'm finding that I like it best without room correction.