I had an opportunity to hear the Anthem side by side with the same Denon I have. The biggest difference I could hear was in the dialog. Using the Anthem really opened up my front soundstage and Anthem's ARC was recommended to me because of my room setup.

The Denon actually has more features than I really need at this point or will need, IMO.

I have chatted with the other known Axiom/Anthem owner on here about how he likes his setup..