Murph,
No, I had already gotten rid of the two Denon's. After the Denon I had a Sherourn set-up (both rec and amp). Prior to getting the Anthem I did do a comparison between the Denon and the Sherbourn and found the Sherbourn a better sound and better decoding (decoder). The switching was quicker and cleaner. There was an overall brighter sound without being thinner. It was akin to having your ears pop when they are clogged. Sounds coming from the surrounds were better formed and noticable.
The change over to the Anthem was even more so. A previous poster brought up the HDMI issue on the Anthem not being 1.3 After seeing my Oppo upsampled by the Anthem internal video enhancement I find no reason to get a Blu-ray player at all. I had friends over and went to a store got a Blu-ray player, then rented a film in both Blu and Standard DVD. We did a comparision and found very little difference visually. There was more of a difference when we looked at the standard DVD minus the Anthem processing. There was a difference with the sound, but that too was minor, but better on the Blu. However, we also at the time tested a HD-DVD and found that it had better sound than the Blu. Having worked within the DVD arena as a consultant for years I find the whole Blu thing a wast of time and rip-off for the public. It's really a shame that the studios will NEVER actually use Blu to it's fullest. It costs too much to produce bonus material that would/should fill those discs. There was a lot of boasting about the amount of info that can be stored but no company yet has taken advantage of it. They only are taking advantage of the consumer, why else would they be releasing TV series on so many discs for a given release? With so much room a season should fit 8 or more episodes on just one disc, plus extras. It's also annoying that standard releases have more bonus materials on some release than the Blu edition. It's nice to have Hi-def DVDs but not until they get their act together - as of now Blu is a Beta test zone with each player needing attention and some never able to deliver the glory of the format.
For those same reasons, the matter of the HDMI isn't an issue for the Anthem. All I can say is that the Anthem with my Axiom amp sings like nothing I had previous. Not to mention the Oppo with the Anthem on 52" Sony Bravia - it fools most who enter my home into saying, "I didn't know that was on Blu-ray". They are alway shocked to find out it's just standard DVD.
