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Anthem AVM60 Review (AV Processor)

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amirm

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OK, an update. I tested the AVM60. I have given my results to Anthem but have not yet heard back. It has been just a few days so maybe they are busy. Since they sent me the unit, my rule is to get their feedback before publishing anything. AMV70 is still in the box.
 

danzilla31

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OK, an update. I tested the AVM60. I have given my results to Anthem but have not yet heard back. It has been just a few days so maybe they are busy. Since they sent me the unit, my rule is to get their feedback before publishing anything. AMV70 is still in the box.
They very well could be. I have an issue with my AVM 60 and it's taking them a while to get back to me. On another forum they were saying they have they're hands full with the AVM 70 issues plus Covid has taken a toll as well.
You could be right about them being busy
 

SimpleTheater

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On another forum they were saying they have they're hands full with the AVM 70 issues plus.
I just went to AVS and if this is the forum you’re talking about, you’re not joking. After reading just that one page I discovered
  • You shouldn’t upload a new ARC sound file or you’ll get no sound and then have to do a bunch of additional steps to basically unbrick it
  • DTS-X isn’t enabled yet, but maybe next year
  • ARC itself is messed up
  • Issues with Dolby, Neural and other bugs.
I’ve come to the conclusion that companies like Anthem, JBL, Arcam, Emotiva simply over promise and under deliver when it comes to home theater processing. If the name Monoprice/Denon/Yamaha had ‘audiophile cache’ these companies wouldn’t exist in this market.
 

peng

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I just went to AVS and if this is the forum you’re talking about, you’re not joking. After reading just that one page I discovered
  • You shouldn’t upload a new ARC sound file or you’ll get no sound and then have to do a bunch of additional steps to basically unbrick it
  • DTS-X isn’t enabled yet, but maybe next year
  • ARC itself is messed up
  • Issues with Dolby, Neural and other bugs.
I’ve come to the conclusion that companies like Anthem, JBL, Arcam, Emotiva simply over promise and under deliver when it comes to home theater processing. If the name Monoprice/Denon/Yamaha had ‘audiophile cache’ these companies wouldn’t exist in this market.

I have always been skeptical about the ability of those small(er) producers of the increasingly complicated AVRs and AVP/Cs. People who can afford those brands naturally get attracted by what they advertised and, combined with the much higher price, assume they must "sound better". This is not to say the bigger producers of the same are bug free, but they mass produce so can afford to throw more resource behind their products.
 

BdoUK

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I just went to AVS and if this is the forum you’re talking about, you’re not joking. After reading just that one page I discovered
  • You shouldn’t upload a new ARC sound file or you’ll get no sound and then have to do a bunch of additional steps to basically unbrick it
  • DTS-X isn’t enabled yet, but maybe next year
  • ARC itself is messed up
  • Issues with Dolby, Neural and other bugs.
I’ve come to the conclusion that companies like Anthem, JBL, Arcam, Emotiva simply over promise and under deliver when it comes to home theater processing. If the name Monoprice/Denon/Yamaha had ‘audiophile cache’ these companies wouldn’t exist in this market.

I've owned the AVM70 since late January 2021 and honestly haven't had many issues with it at all. I'm not using eARC and have it as part of a projector setup in my theater.

ARC Genesis wasn't available for the first 3-4 weeks that the unit was available but has been since. I've never had any issues uploading an ARC file to the unit although I did have some trouble fully removing ARC files but that has since been resolved. Over the past week I've been trying to better understand what ARC does in the lower frequencies as compared to what I see from REW without ARC and I am seeing some oddities there, but I need to dedicate more time to make sure I'm not doing something wrong.

There have been some struggles with the new ARC mic and getting ARC to read the right speaker levels during calibration. Basically the mic sensitivity is set very low and it can result in ARC really driving up the trim on each speaker to compensate. Thankfully there are posted workarounds to this but for someone who doesn't know them I'm sure it's frustrating.

Some have reported losing center channel audio but that seems to be mostly related to people using certain cable boxes from what I understand. I haven't had this issue personally as I'm using AppleTV as a streaming source.

The one "bug" that I'd like to see addressed is that 24 bit DTS-MA multichannel content shows as only processing at 16 bit. I'm not sure if this is a UI issue or something actually wrong in processing. Dolby Atmos also shows the same 16 bit tag but a straight TrueHD multichannel track reads 24 bit. This makes me think it's fixable and not some limitation of the hardware, but time will tell.

Overall I'm really enjoying the Anthem and things should only improve from here.
 
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My patience ran out long ago when I bought my A110. I enjoy reading reviews on all gear. According to other forums the AVM 70 is still a disaster, leads me to believe Amir has found similar results. Without any correspondence what else is one to conclude?
Hmmm, if Amir did the work I'm sure he'd be vested in posting the results - good or bad. Lots of products here get poor ratings, are you saying Amir is uniquely shy about revealing bad Anthem results? Why, then, slam the AVM 60?
EDIT: Yes, Anthem closed for a couple weeks due to Covid so if we are waiting for a reply from Anthem that explains why we are waiting.
 
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Rottmannash

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One thing I can say Amir runs a very great site I know I have benefited greatly from the site and forums. Very transperant very fact based driven by the science. I just really enjoy the way Amir does things his competency and his sincere desire to do right by us members. I mean who else tests things at the level he does?
Based off of that respect I feel for him I'm just going to wait until he comes out and says something. Until then I don't want to speculate and that's based on the trust he's earned. If he says he's back logged I believe him.
Not saying you cant be right though. You very well could be. That's just how I'm going to look at it that's all
Amir should take a photo of the stacks of equipment in his garage waiting to be measured. I'm sure it's an imposing number of devices.
 

Rottmannash

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I've got a speaker in Amir's garage since March 2nd :D he's a busy fellow.
He's had an Emotiva class D monobloc amp since January that I sent him.
 

danzilla31

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I just went to AVS and if this is the forum you’re talking about, you’re not joking. After reading just that one page I discovered
  • You shouldn’t upload a new ARC sound file or you’ll get no sound and then have to do a bunch of additional steps to basically unbrick it
  • DTS-X isn’t enabled yet, but maybe next year
  • ARC itself is messed up
  • Issues with Dolby, Neural and other bugs.
I’ve come to the conclusion that companies like Anthem, JBL, Arcam, Emotiva simply over promise and under deliver when it comes to home theater processing. If the name Monoprice/Denon/Yamaha had ‘audiophile cache’ these companies wouldn’t exist in this market.
You bring up an excellent point
One of the biggest things I've learned from this forum is a lot of companies are just taking they're avrs and basically stripping them puttinh in the prepro gear needed slapping some cosmetic lipstick on them and calling it a separate and charging you a lot more for it

Whats sad is that might be efficient (I get they're need to maximize profit by efficiency) if they would at least design them well but some of them don't appear to be doing even that

And it seems like they are relying on the fact that the average consumer like me won't understand and be wowed by the price tag and advertising.

That's what makes a site like this so invaluable in my opinion. Thanks to Amir and the members here someone like me actually has a chance to make the best decision for they're money and to know what to look for. Let's face it none of these are cheap even at the lower end of the price pool. That should buy you something.

Hopefully a site like this can actually make an impact on that happening giving us a chance to get more for what we pay for
 

Head_Unit

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completely garbage software implementation
That's because the really good developers end up at industries/companies that pay them way more. I had one working for me designing a connection from iPod to factory BMW systems. By total reverse hacking, no documentation at all, not even the hardware we found out later was required, she got it all working with ZERO complaints from tens of thousands sold. That lasted about a minute and she took a job elsewhere for lots more money.
 
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amirm

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And who will pay the armed guards after this? ;)
Stuff piled up so much that I had to get serious amount of insurance. Costing me a fortune now!
 

SimpleTheater

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OK, an update. I tested the AVM60. I have given my results to Anthem but have not yet heard back. It has been just a few days so maybe they are busy. Since they sent me the unit, my rule is to get their feedback before publishing anything. AMV70 is still in the box.
This post was made almost 2 weeks ago, add the few days, and it’s safe to say Anthem hasn’t responded in two weeks. I think @amirm should publish the results and use the standard line on all news reports “We contacted Anthem two weeks prior to the publishing of this review and did not hear back from them.”
 

danzilla31

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This post was made almost 2 weeks ago, add the few days, and it’s safe to say Anthem hasn’t responded in two weeks. I think @amirm should publish the results and use the standard line on all news reports “We contacted Anthem two weeks prior to the publishing of this review and did not hear back from them.”
Yeah this is getting old. A lot of us have skin in this outcome. And I can tell you since I need to send my Anthem AVM 60 in for repair the response I've gotten back has been nil as well. I know they're staff had COVID recently and they're dealing with the AVM 70 roll out but still how long can a fella wait?

Its going to take so long that I scored a Yamaha CX-A5200 from my dealer to hold me over and I love it. Once I get the Anthem fixed I'm going to flip it and keep this Yamaha. Just a fantastic 11.2. And I don't need extra speakers
 

SilverWolf

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I may also look to a different option for surround pre/pro, seems Anthem are in no rush to get back to Amir. I am very interested to see what the outcome was, as I'm sure many are.

I'm not an owner yet, I was looking at the MRX 720 or AVM 60 while close-out sales are still about, was also wondering if not to just go the new740 or 70 but seems full O bugs still.
 

JSmith

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seems Anthem are in no rush to get back to Amir.
Agree, which really just implies they don't care about this issue and yet are happy to keep selling these units. One can only assume their main customer base doesn't frequent ASR... as one would think sales would be affected.



JSmith
 
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amirm

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Yeh, it is a quandary. Not sure what to do. My protocol is to get companies to agree to measurements when they send me equipment. Hate to break that promise.
 

Mkaram

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Yeh, it is a quandary. Not sure what to do. My protocol is to get companies to agree to measurements when they send me equipment. Hate to break that promise.

Is it the case that they sent you a unit to measure, you've measured it, but you're waiting for agreement or consent to publish?

I'm not sure I understand the situation you're describing
 
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