I have had my share of different brands of systems from Harman, Pioneer, Yamaha, Marantz, Integra. I guess they have all had their own particular sound. I have been told by too many people that you have to get an external amp to get the full potential out of your speakers. After spending too much money or more to point time trying, I have concluded that the statement is not all together true.
Back some 18 years now I purchased a Nakamichi AV1 receiver and was blown away by how much better it sounded to me. Put it down to how well built the unit was. I replaced that unit with a pretty good Yamaha but lost something in the sound. Insert many other units after and a slippey slope down hill it seems. Now that I have an Anthem, and that open clear feeling sound is back, I think it's now not really the quality of the build but the design and how the sound in processed inside.
Lets face it, a receiver (and pre-amp for that matter) has a job of taking in a signal and doing more than just controlling volume, but also pitch, treble, bass, signal voltage, alignment. All this then sent to the amp and out to our speakers. Every company has their way of doing this and produces a sound. If I change my receiver and nothing else, and can clearly to me hear a different sound out of my speakers, then how could I not conclude that the receiver is changing the sound. if everything else is constant.
Now having owned the Anthem AVM-60, I will revise my statement that started this thread. I am still a bit disappointed that more units don't support the 9.2.x Atmos format, but understand now that where the encoding of movies that are getting released, I can understand that this speaker layout would not probably take advantage of it. Looking at some of the technology advancements that are taking place, one can hope that the trickle down effect will help out some of the lower level components out there.
Having spent quite a bit of time in a number of the big box stores, i get to make two conclusions. The sales people are being fed a canned line to repeat to the customers that misses the whole point of what Atmos and DTS-X is all about. And luckily many of the customers who are buying the equipment have a brain and do their own research into the topic and actually know far more than most of the sales people on the floor. That I am glad to see.
I can't say the Anthem pre-amp will be the last processor I buy, but I know if it stays working then there will be very little reason to replace it unless another component fails and requires a change to make it work. I have found my sound nirvana now.
