Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Reciever upgrade!

I entertained purchasing a D2 or AMV 50 a while back when they first came out. After a continued and seemingly never ending evolution of bugs and firmware upgrades to address them, it became abundantly clear to me that Anthem owners are beta testers. I’ve been an unsolicited beta tester for several manufactures already and decided that Anthem products were simply too damn much money to be rolled out to consumers with the bugs they had. I passed. Now they are behind the power curve with HDMI 1.1. I know, I know, I’ve heard it a gazillion times and still hear it all the time….. “You don’t need HDMI 1.3" and / or "Anthem will upgrade to 1.3 ”. .. BS is what I say to that. If you are fine without it, and have no need for it great, but I do not think it is a prudent argument to make to someone who is just now getting into the HDMI high rez audio / video game. If you are buying new, buy 1.3 and if you buy gear thinking they will simply "upgraed it from 1.1 to 1.3", you'll be paying through the nose, waiting for weeks without anything to use and when you get it, it'll be bug squishing time all over again. And if you are going to spend the kind of money that Anthem wants for the D2, you owe it to yourself to shop around. That price point opens a lot of doors.

If you're trying to save $ take a hard look at the RX-V663 and see if you can live with 2 HDMI in. I think that this is THE bang for the buck receiver right now.

People are picking it up online for around $350-400.

Yeah, I've seen the 663 at Audioholics and was intrigued. I'm torn between budget instant gratification and getting a heavier duty reciever for future proofing. Of course, by the time I buy this reciever, they'll change to HDMI 1.4g and 9.3 will be the new standard audio format and I will be left cursing myself for getting into such an expensive hobby.

I think the 663 could be looked at as future proofing in that it does all you need right now, has preouts for a more powerful amp later on and it won't break the bank right now so you can cotinue to save for the next pre/pro with the latest codecs in a few more years.
I do own the 3808 and feel the networking capability they went with was it's biggest advantage, I love being able to stream from my NAS directly to it with FLAC files and the 6ave deal is still on just phone and ask for it.

That 6ave is a pretty good deal. I hope it'll last for a little bit so I can scrounge up the cash for it. I still want to go to best buy and take a look at the reciever and get a feel for it before I buy it. Denon made my DVD player, which I am extremely happy with, so I trust them as a brand. I'd rather get it than the Yamaha because it has the scaling capabilities (might make the Wii look super) plus I'd like to play with Audessy since my bedroom theater is not the most ideal conditions. I've got a birthday coming up, so I'm sure I can get enough gift cards to cover a 40 gig PS3 and be on my way to Blu-Ray! Now all I gotta do is work some overtime!

That really depends what features you end up wanting. Its not a fancy receiver so you don't have things like independant crossovers.

On the upside you are much less likely to end up lost in the UI and ending up with a receiver that keeps resetting itself.

There are a couple of good threads on audioholics discussing the pros and cons of this receiver.

Off topic a bit ... I share your pain of not having a receiver that can do base management via the multi-channel inputs.

But note that many players let you do this internally. The Samsung BD-P1400 does NOT let you set cross overs individually (i.e., fronts at 80, rears at 100, etc.), but it does let you choose whether your speakers are large or small, then manages the bass (I believe it cuts off the bass at 100 hz, but it coudl be 80?) accordingly. I haven't yet had an opportunity to complain that my sound isn't good enough using the multi-channel inputs. The enhanced sound is better than my old dolby digital sound by a good margin (surprisingly, I might add) - enough that I have not had the urge to upgrade.

Hi Scott, This isn't meant to be at all argumentative at all, it's curiosity.

When you switched to the Anthem, you had to add a separate amp, the Axiom one...I'm Jealous. At this time did you try running the Denon through the Axiom amp as a processor to see if you had the same results?
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Just an FYI, I called 6ave today as I'm shopping for my dad's 3808. The deal now is 1050 with shipping (in the states) included.

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.