Anthem AVM70 Review (AV Processor)

[Descartes]

if you compare Trinnov Altitude 16 AV Processor US $17,000. The Anthem AVM70 is a steal!
Still very expensive IMHO

 

[quat]

Registered here to make some remarks. I have had the Denon 3700 here at home. Scientifically it measures well at this site, but for my taste it sounds too bright, a bit unnatural. After 100 hours running it still the same. I ran it in pre amp mode without using Audyssey or other changes made, just the bare receiver-sound. After two weeks I also had an Anthem 540 at my hands. Fresh out of the box as soon as I listened to it, the sound opened up, quite a difference! A more pleasing sound to the ears and I never looked back at the the Denon 3700, brought it back to the shop. I'm curious how the 540 will measure here, but I think how it sounds that counts! I'm surprised people are still complaining about software bugs in the new Anthem-line. Yes one ARC measurement went wrong (interrupted with empty battery laptop, couldn't upload it) , but after that I haven't seen wrong operating software. The web interface is a killer feature, not to mention ARC that does a better job with bassmanagement compared with my Audyssey experience in the past with other receivers.

 

[JDS]

As I explained, a while a go I decided to grade AV products in their own class. This is why they have their own SINAD chart and such.

Part of this is justified due to processing in AVRs require (independent) headroom reservation which cuts into dynamic range. This doesn't happen in a straight DAC (although may happen in a player that performs EQ for example).

My feeling is that manufactures have received the signal though that they need to step up their performance. So me putting them down more relative to desktop products may not have a lot of value.

I'm curious about what you mean by "headroom reservation." Do you mean literal signal level headroom, or CPU cycles, or?

I'm guessing you mean dynamic range to allow for things like Audyssey/Dirac, but I would like to better understand the problem.

 

[PeteL]

These companies have proven/mastered technical knowledge and capabilities regarding sound quality/transparency. It'd be interesting to see an AVR who's design goal was such, rather than a features game. Even if they weren't the manufacturer, at least they could collaborate and release a cross-branded product or with some sort of seal of approval from these DAC manufacturers. Many enthusiasts have a home theater system and a HiFi system as their objectives and quality most often don't coexist. And good point about the availability of usable DSPs, this may ultimately be the weak link. However, some AVRs with a "pure" mode still can't seem to compete.

What make you think Transparency/sound quality was not a design goal? It's in the top ten AVR ever measured at ASR. SINAD is only 4 dB less than the highest one in the chart. (The M33 and MiniDSP are not AVRs). If they didn't care about that they wouldn't have sent it to Amir.

 

[polmuaddib]

For me and many we would like to see an AVP in a smaller factor, limited in outputs, but significantly cheaper, such as this.

IOTAVX AVX1

IOTAVX 7.1 4K / HDR HOME THEATRE AV PROCESSOR Overview The IOTAVX AVX1 is the successor to the highly acclaimed AV1.Developed from the ground up, the AVX1 is a high-performance Home Theatre AV Processor that supports 4k UHD HDR video and all the current 5.1 and 7.1 channel surround sound...

www.iotaenterprises.co.uk

I agree. I am also interested in a AVP with the latest immersive formats and balanced outputs (most important features).
Those IOTA HT products do appear attractive, but are never in stock and that is very suspicious.

For 11.2 system now, if you ignore 4k 120hz and 8k signal, I see Marantz av7705 the cheapest option if it is still in stock. Sure, it's SINAD is in the nineties, but is that audible?

What I do find odd is to wait for AV products from companies that didn't even announce development of such. The wait could take a while.
Why not enjoy music and movies now with what we have?

 

[RichB]

What make you think Transparency/sound quality was not a design goal? It's in the top ten AVR ever measured at ASR. SINAD is only 4 dB less than the highest one in the chart. (The M33 and MiniDSP are not AVRs).

The MiniDSP is not an AVP but can bass manage, PEQ, and Dirac with SINAD of 112.

- Rich

 

[phoenixdogfan]

The MiniDSP is not an AVP but can bass manage, PEQ, and Dirac with SINAD of 112.

- Rich

That is a 2 x 4. This is 17 channels. So it can do either a 9.1.6 Atmos or a 7.2.4 DTS-X layout. I guess it's possible to live without Auro 3D if this has its own proprietary remixer. Likewise, Dirac Live, if it has its own DSP as well.

Seems like a bargain to me. Nice cosmetics, too.

 

[PeteL]

The MiniDSP is not an AVP but can bass manage, PEQ, and Dirac with SINAD of 112.

- Rich

Which one? I was talking of the chart in this review. It can do all that but this SINAD is only when you don't use the features the actual product is design to do.... Side question, even if we where talking pure Dacs with no fluff, did we ever seen one with a HDMI input in the >103dB SINAD territory? Until we see one, what do we know what the limitations are?

 

[chelgrian]

SOTA DAC being at 120db and SOTA AVRs being at 100db.
Are you saying room correction is eating 20db of dynamic range / SINAD ?
So if I use a SOTA DAC like Okto on a PC, and I add Dirac Live as a VST, I will have similar performance of about 100 db SINAD ?

Yes the first thing any room correction system does is reduce the overall level by 10db in order for it to be able to provide boosts to even frequency response even at full 'digital zero' level. Otherwise the system would only ever be able to provide cuts.

This is only a problem if you are processing and feeding the DAC at the same bit depth as you are accepting as input.

Now you only accept input up to 24 bit but do DSP processing internally and feed the DAC at 32 bit there wouldn't be an issue.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Why so sure those companies will make a better AVR/AVP?
Maybe the price will be better, hopefully.
But, there are so many things going on in AV products... codecs, dsp, video processing...
Do you really believe they will make a good reliable product on the first try?

And why are you so sure that the SINAD will be better? Most AV signal is finally routed through a DSP chip and who knows, maybe no one can make a better SINAD with current tech.
Finally, this AVP has 108 db of dynamic range and 99 SINAD. Do you really need more? Can you hear the difference in 120db vs 100db?

Don't get me wrong, I wish more companies made AV products, because competition makes better product and great respect to Topping, JDS, SMSL for their engineering and dedication. We just don't have any evidence that they will make an AV product so much better then the rest.

Seems like a very transparent product. Besides, the amps or, most especially, the speakers will set the level of overall system SINAD. While there is no reason not to buy the product with a higher SINAD, particularly in a desktop DAC, and most particularly when no price premium attaches to the higher measured performance, a 17 channel AV processor having a SINAD on "only" 100db, should in no way be a deal breaker, IMHO.

 

[RichB]

I'm curious about what you mean by "headroom reservation." Do you mean literal signal level headroom, or CPU cycles, or?

I'm guessing you mean dynamic range to allow for things like Audyssey/Dirac, but I would like to better understand the problem.

Conceptually (because implementations differ), a digital processor can receive a input signal at full reference (0 dBFS) but still must be capable of applying bass management and DSP REQ/PEO functions. The signal must be attenuated to avoid running out of bits or volts.
Implementations may also attenuate Pure/Direct mode to provide consistent output, but again, this is implementation specific.

Some headroom was provided in the original Dolby spec for 7.1 for bass management but a fully-utilized 16-channel process is likely to have small speakers on most channels, so greater attenuation may be required to avoid overloading or digital clipping.

- Rich

 

[GWolfman]

What make you think Transparency/sound quality was not a design goal? It's in the top ten AVR ever measured at ASR. SINAD is only 4 dB less than the highest one in the chart. (The M33 and MiniDSP are not AVRs). If they didn't care about that they wouldn't have sent it to Amir.

Just look where 99 SINAD puts you on the DAC chart. It'd be interesting to see an AVR company put out a DAC and see where they land.

Either way, not utterly important. Just food for thought.

 

[RichB]

Which one? I was talking of the chart in this review. It can do all that but this SINAD is only when you don't use the features the actual product is design to do.... Side question, even if we where talking pure Dacs with no fluff, did we ever seen one with a HDMI input in the >103dB SINAD territory? Until we see one, what do we know what the limitations are?

Minidsp SHD Review Updated (DSP, DAC & Streamer)

This is an update to the review of minidsp SHD that I did a couple of years ago. My tests have evolved since then and company has stated that they fixed a few issues I found in that test. The SHD costs US $1,195 and includes a USB DAC, streaming engine (based on Volumio) and of course, DSP...

www.audiosciencereview.com

- Rich

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

Looks like this supports ARC room correction as well, so another benefit!

Hugh benefit.

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

Anthem has had a couple of their own up mixers in their models to date, all of which have been worthwhile (AnthemLogic is the current flavor). It's not the same as Auro3D. Instead of adding reverb overhead it relies on analyzing the content and making (arguably) more nuanced choices about how to expand the signal. As with all such systems, you may or may not find it to be "the one" that you like.

My impression in terms of how much manipulation goes on (from most to least) is something like:

DTS
Dolby
Anthem
Auro

But since there is no single unit that does them all, it is even more fraught than a traditional sighted comparison.

520 owner. Anthem logic is really good.

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

Registered here to make some remarks. I have had the Denon 3700 here at home. Scientifically it measures well at this site, but for my taste it sounds too bright, a bit unnatural. After 100 hours running it still the same. I ran it in pre amp mode without using Audyssey or other changes made, just the bare receiver-sound. After two weeks I also had an Anthem 540 at my hands. Fresh out of the box as soon as I listened to it, the sound opened up, quite a difference! A more pleasing sound to the ears and I never looked back at the the Denon 3700, brought it back to the shop. I'm curious how the 540 will measure here, but I think how it sounds that counts! I'm surprised people are still complaining about software bugs in the new Anthem-line. Yes one ARC measurement went wrong (interrupted with empty battery laptop, couldn't upload it) , but after that I haven't seen wrong operating software. The web interface is a killer feature, not to mention ARC that does a better job with bassmanagement compared with my Audyssey experience in the past with other receivers.

Same experience with 520. Only room correction thar has satisfied me.

 

[jhaider]

They have gone to a lot of trouble to create their own bespoke upmixer, so why dismiss it out of hand? Did you dismiss their bespoke room correction out of hand?

What makes you think anyone's "dismissing it out of hand?" AnthemLogic in their pre-immersive products just wasn't very compelling. For one thing, it basically ignored the center channel. Perhaps they have improved it for immersive.

ARC, by contrast, has been a fine choice for going on two decades now. It also has one feature that unfortunately nobody else has been smart enough to copy - Quick Measure.

 

[Newman]

What makes you think anyone's "dismissing it out of hand?"

Well I was quoting someone who said not having Auro-3D was a dealbreaker - that's dismissing Anthem Logic out of hand.

AnthemLogic in their pre-immersive products just wasn't very compelling. For one thing, it basically ignored the center channel.

There has always been Cinema and Music settings, and IIRC only the Music setting ignored centre channel, and got a lot of praise for doing so and avoiding the widespread criticism of up-mixers that the centre image collapses into the centre speaker.

 

[amirm]

I'm curious about what you mean by "headroom reservation." Do you mean literal signal level headroom, or CPU cycles, or?

Digital clipping. AV companies license binaries for each processing block such as CODEC. Each vendor of that technology demands independent headroom meaning the core software has to reduce the levels before handing the bits to that subsystem -- whether it needs it or not. Do this across a few of them (room EQ, bass management, upmixer, etc.) and you wing up wasting good bit of dynamic range. It is a problem with siloed implementation rather than one integrated system you get in a software player with such pipeline.

 

[jhaider]

Well I was quoting someone who said not having Auro-3D was a dealbreaker - that's dismissing Anthem Logic out of hand.

I believe I was the first to voice that sentiment on this thread, so I endorse it completely. IMO Auromatic is a required feature on any AVR/P offered at a 4-figure price tag. I get on entry level stuff it may cost too much to add.

There has always been Cinema and Music settings, and IIRC only the Music setting ignored centre channel, and got a lot of praise for doing so and avoiding the widespread criticism of up-mixers that the centre image collapses into the centre speaker.

Except that in pre-immersive times AnthemLogic sucked compared to Dolby Pro Logic II as a music upmixer. It did absolutely nothing to firm up or widen the front soundstage, because it didn't employ the speaker required to do so.