Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater New Anthem Receivers/Processors

Well then ... it grew a head and I’m not crazy

I sure like Amirs youtube vids. Great info and calm presentation style.

If you do end up with an Avm 90 Id like to hear about it for sure. 40 is coming....

NickBuol had the 1140. He liked it Bman

Didn’t know he was on you tube ... I’ll have to take a gander when I have a few minutes...

Is Anthem still offering a trade-up?

Back in December, I was seriously looking at the AVM 70, however, a friend of mine who works in a retail outlet that carries the Anthem line said any meaningful inventory would probably not be available until February at the earliest and if so, get on the list. Instead I got a hold of a Yamaha CX-A 5200,a little older unit, however, for a number of reasons, still my predominant choice. On the surface, the difference between the 90 and 70 is apparently, a little more upgraded DAC and the ability to connect FOUR independently controlled subwoofers rather than TWO. There could be other extra features that I am unaware of, but these are two of them and I am still not convinced that the price differential is worth it between the 90 and 70. Of course, the upgraded "Genesis" ARC room calibration software in all of their new AVR and Pre-Pros is regarded as being right up there with the best of them. Anthem did initially announce that any manual set-up would only be available in an outboard app(no on-screen programming) from which almost immediately they received a considerable amount of pushback and apparently re-introduced it back into their units. I would be curious to see if that actually happened.

In this day of home theater systems with with lots of source units, amps, video game consoles, cable/sat boxes, equipment of all sorts and lots of cable connections, one of the advantages of a Pre-Pro and separate amps is if the amp has the capability, being able to hook-up the Pre-Pro with the amps through "balanced" connections can, potentially make a big difference in the noise floor. I was having an issue with a a quiet, however, noticeable ground loop hum that I pinpointed through my cable box, the balanced connections ultimately, totally silenced. For that reason alone, personally, in future, I don't think I would ever go back to an AVR.

I don't have the disposable income at the moment for the 70 or the 90, but I'm interested in both. I will wait until I know HDMI 2.1 without issues is included. I've been waiting for a new pre-pro for a long time. I'm on my second or third intermediary AVR while I've been waiting for something with all of the features I'm looking for. I had an Integra pre-pro at one point, and I miss the balanced connections. I can't say how much they affected the noise floor versus just better design overall, but I will always prefer the click-in connection point to that of RCA. Everything else in my system is close to what I want (as always, FOR NOW), with the pre-pro/AVR being the final piece. I just need to save up some money again!

I will probably not be in the market this year ... I'll will get by with the 8805 till something changes my mind ... I need to evaluate if more channels would be a help. I suspect that content will play a big role in that. That said I alway reserve the right to upgrade just because.

If the 90 was a lot less it would be temping for subwoofer control (I have 4). But I'm almost certain that I won't hear the difference between the 70 and the 90.

ARC would be interesting to try. I have no trouble doing that with an App. I rather do it by touch then on screen. I actually would not mind it if they got rid of all the on screen stuff. I'd dedicate an old iPad to it.

Anyway, I mainly set up manually and its been working out well. Much better than Audacity although I may try the Audacity App and see if that makes a difference.


I'm not sure I follow ... sounds like your blaming a ground loop on the AVR.

For point of clarification it wasn't an AVR that was causing any ground loop issue, but, the adjacent cable box which is not uncommon. Initially, I was using the regular RCA(unbalanced)connections with my current Pre-Pro because the amp I previously had connected had no balanced connection option and at that point I actually had no problem with the ground loop hum. It started when I upgraded to a considerably more powerful pair of multi channel amps that had both connection options and although a filter I purchased got rid of most of the hum, late at night when I was watching a movie at low volume , some hum was audible, so it still bothered me. It seems sometimes when you introduce larger power supplies into the picture cable boxes don't want to "play nice" with them, hence, the hum. My audio friend suggested trying the balanced connections so I bought a set on-line, connected them which ultimately, got rid of the balance of the hum. Of course, this was my experience so others may not have the same problem, it was just a case of a Pre-Pro would give one that connection option that an AVR wouldn't.

I have seen on-line alot of A/V "coinosseurs" with "separates" recommending the "balanced" connection route anyway because they are built in such a way to deal more efficiently with any potential noise issues and the connections are more secure.

I can't say i've had any issues with the AVR either when it comes to noise floor. With nothing playing and everything turned on, there's zero noise. On the most quiet tracks i could find, i never heard any 'background' noise that couldn't be attributed still to the recording. Certainly no evident hiss like there is playing old cassettes.

I've read through a number of the Amir reviews and had the question about what is audible. They've described it a few times if you can find those posts and what he measures provides the "potential" for sound issues at which depending in part on some gear, most especially things like speaker sensitivity, then something like a noise floor or a spike in a frequency could become noticeable, BUT if that happens when playing back music for example, could you ever pick it out? Or are these artefacts mostly noticeable if only playing pure tones? At what point could these background noises be picked out during music playback?

Really, Amir puts the gear into various categories and if anything, those in the red are the ones you might question at least with a cocked eye. The bulk, certainly over 50%, of what he's measured falls into the yellow and green so probability of hearing something substantial that actually takes away from the listening experience decreases.
Plug into all that the question about cost, and everyone has themselves up in arms. Would i want to pay $3000 for an Anthem processor that falls into the yellow or (eech) the red category?
Hell no.
When you have Denon AVRs measuring high in the greens for half that price....i mean come on. Try and complain about that if you will at an engineering level, but them show me the proof how the Anthem outperforms the Denon. Much like others have noted, chances are side by side in a sound A/B comparison, you would notice little difference as overall quality goes unless that ugly, measurable artefact is bad enough that it becomes relevant.

Bottom line, overpriced stuff is often just overpriced. It doesn't equate to better sound.
Just like wine...