Anthem AVM90 AV Processor Review

[Descartes]

If we look carefully, the AVM 90 beats the AVM 70 in SINAD mainly because of its much lower noise floor. In terms of distortion, audibility aside, I actually prefer the AVM 70 as it clearly has much lower higher order harmonics. It is academic though as we all know distortions at such low level is not much of a factor in terms of audibility. That's as long as people don't claim the 90 has a warmer sound haha (no one has yet)... The 2nd and 3 rd harmonics are probably about the same as the 90. It looks like the so called upgraded audio circuitry of the 90 succeeded in lower the noise, but not the distortions. Good to see that Amthem's claim wasn't just marketing hype.

This is assuming the RCA output is exactly 1/2 that of the XLR's output. That is a reasonable assumption (Amir said "I asked Anthem if the XLR output was derived from unbalanced and they said that was the case"), though it may still not be 100% sure as it could still somewhat depend on implementation.

Well the Anthem AVM90 is much warmer especially when it’s turned on for 24h
On an other note what is the implications of VMRS? I am not an engineer so please explain it in plain English

 

[mglobe]

The same way your 2 ch setup sounds better than a sound a portable Bluetooth speaker, a dedicated home theater adds a level of performance beyond the soundbar. That said, I do have a Sonos Arc system which I enjoy in a bedroom setup. I think many small rooms do great with a soundbar. It’s really larger rooms where you benefit the most from a dedicated system since the demands on the speakers are logarithmic not linear.



We don’t know since the AV10’s RCA and XLR look the same so it’s hard to know.



+1

In real world applications, I *believe* typical voltages are low and the Yamaha is great up to about 0.5V. Low noise, high distortion (which is less obnoxious). The surround decoders are excellent given their DSP and 3D microphone measurement.

View attachment 336578

At 300 mV, it’s about 94.5 SINAD which puts it in the same class as the Anthem AV90 and Marantz AV10.

300mV + 23 dB gain = about 4.5 watts into 4 ohms.

A THX Dominus speaker like the Perlisten is 92.2 dB/2.83V and that gets plenty loud

Peak SPL Calculator

I had a 5.1 system back in the 90’s through about 2016. For various reasons, mostly a desire to have less visual clutter in our living room I went the soundbar route. Both have their pluses and minuses.

 

[peng]

Well the Anthem AVM90 is much warmer especially when it’s turned on for 24h
On an other note what is the implications of VMRS? I am not an engineer so please explain it in plain English

Did you mean Vrms?

My point to @GXAlan is that when comparing the SINAD (in dB) vs output level (in Vrmd) curves of a unit like the AVM 90, to another one like AV10, if you compare them using Amir's graphs, same ones GXAlan posted in post#48, then they ae practically the same, at about 94 dB. You can take a look of post#48 and will see what I am talking about. The implication is, he was looking the the SINAD on the AV10 at 300 mV as well (my apology if I am assume that incorrectly), but he should be looking at 600 mV, because in that test, Amir measured the XLR voltage and for those two units, the XLR output voltage is always going to be 2X that of the RCA output voltage.

Let me know if that answers your question.

 

[Descartes]

Did you mean Vrms?

My point to @GXAlan is that when comparing the SINAD (in dB) vs output level (in Vrmd) curves of a unit like the AVM 90, to another one like AV10, if you compare them using Amir's graphs, same ones GXAlan posted in post#48, then they ae practically the same, at about 94 dB. You can take a look of post#48 and will see what I am talking about. The implication is, he was looking the the SINAD on the AV10 at 300 mV as well (my apology if I am assume that incorrectly), but he should be looking at 600 mV, because in that test, Amir measured the XLR voltage and for those two units, the XLR output voltage is always going to be 2X that of the RCA output voltage.

Let me know if that answers your question.

Yes, ok what does that mean? Will the unit sound better if one uses the RCA vs XLR cables?

 

[peng]

Yes, ok what does that mean? Will the unit sound better if one uses the RCA vs XLR cables?

No, it should be the same, but if you have amps that have lower gains, such as many of the Hypex, or Purifi based amps, XLR may be better because of the higher voltage. Also, as GXAlan mentioned a few times, and on that I agree with him, that if you have higher gain amps, say 29 dB or higher, there is a good chance that RCA will do better, in terms of lower THD+N, aka higher SINAD, over the range of the output range you will likely be within when watching movies or music.

That being said, the AVM 90 has such lower distortions and noise, any such differences will likely be only on paper, but not really audible. Some people may disagree as they might have much better ears and more discerning than average and may have very quiet room that needs noise level to be exceptionally low.

 

[MetalBOX]

Nice to see an A/V pre/pro with this level of performance; however, I am disappointed to see no legacy video connection options. As someone who enjoys retro video gaming I do like having a couple of composite/s-video inputs to connect the old SNES or Playstation. Annoying to have to have a separate analog-to-HDMI box on top of a $6k pre/pro.

You shouldn't be using those inputs into modern TVs without upscale conversion anyway. Some modern TVs won't even output the video, and the ones that do look terrible. So while it may bother you to use analog-to-HDMI, you should be doing it anyway because no receiver or processor is going to do what a RetroTINK 5X Pro or 4K does. I feel like anyone serious about retro videogames on modern TVs should have a RetroTINK or OSSC, and it's not even a debate.

It's not about omitting legacy inputs, but about them being used correctly in the first place.

 

[MetalBOX]

I'll stick with my A/V receiver that has a couple of analog video ins.

It's going to look a lot like the far left instead of the far right.

 

[Ajax]

20 years ago I purchased a Rotel 1066 AV processor and paired it with a Rotel RMB1075 5 channel power amp. It worked great.

I think the AV manufacturers today would achieve better performance for less money if they stopped trying to fit so much into one case.

IMO the ideal system would be a well measuring pre amp, with all the necessary HDMI inputs and DSP codecs for movies & surround sound, paired with an 8 channel hypex amp by the likes of Buckeye or VTV. The amp could consists of a mix of 502 modules (fronts/centre) and 252 (surround and heights).

When you consider the high performance of the modestly priced minidsp flex 8 (with DSP for only US$600) it's not hard to visualise a high quality AV pre amp with all the bells and whistles for say twice that ($1,200) with another $2,000 for the power amp i.e. half the cost of the AVM90 with most likely better performance.

It would also be much more pleasing aesthetically (WAF) as the pre amp could now be a slimline unit and the power amp hidden from view.

 

[ban25]

Where is this in the Atmos spec? I have never heard that there are options to "hard code" an Atmos file for a specific configuration. That seems to go against one of the primary benefits of Atmos tools. To just place the sound where you want it and let the client system determine the discreet channels at run time.

Audioholics published an interview with mixing engineer John Traunwieser that covers the process of creating Atmos mixes in depth. John has a long list of credits to his name, including The Hunger Games, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and much more. One point of particular interest is that he notes that lossless Dolby Atmos mixes for Blu-ray play back exclusively as static TrueHD 7.1 base layer tracks when the playback system is only 7.1 or less. In other words, without Atmos speakers specifically, no dynamic objects will be heard in the mix at all.

He also mentioned that the bitrate of objects (generally SFX) is shockingly low. He doesn't say what it is exactly, but I imagine they are in the range of 8-16 kHz. You can watch the full interview here:

 

[restorer-john]

It's going to look a lot like the far left instead of the far right.

Far left is way more 'authentic', man.

 

[EWL5]

@amirm So why did you use HDMI this time? Didn't you just say that it gives false readings because of your noisy PC? So are Marantz Cinema 40's bad HDMI results also valid? And your SINAD chart gives false data because it contains mixed input measurements?

A much more poignant and valid observation compared to the drivel we got towards the end of the 3800 thread. The conspiracist in me thinks Marantz had to be better at something...I guess...

 

[MetalBOX]

Far left is way more 'authentic', man.

Don't you be sarcastic with me.

 

[Celty]

Ohh an early Christmas present! I had been watching for this review

 

[pseudoid]

Dear Santa...

You know where my chimney is...

 

[yanm]

I cannot wait until Topping or Minidsp enter the preamp av market. I know minidsp can now do 7 channels but they need 11 or more and decode dolby and dts with 3rd party room correction like Dirac. I could see them beat these results at half the price.

Well, miniDSP has already entered the home theatre market: it got me excited for ten seconds. Then I read the specs and meh, not for my use case (or many use cases I guess, except if you use your TV or projector as an HDMI hub / decoder).

miniDSP Flex HT

miniDSP Flex HT, 400MHz Sharc DSP audio processor, toolbox for subwoofer or multiway speaker tuning, USB/HDMI ARC/EARC, WISA, Optional Multichannel Dirac Live license for room correction,

www.minidsp.com

and no, there is no native decoding of Dolby and DTS, you need a third party box for that. When accounting the costs of the decoder, and room correction, one ends up at $1300 - for the difference in price I would personally clearly go for a MRX740 (which has also amplification) rather than the miniDSP route.

 

[SuicideSquid]

You shouldn't be using those inputs into modern TVs without upscale conversion anyway. Some modern TVs won't even output the video, and the ones that do look terrible. So while it may bother you to use analog-to-HDMI, you should be doing it anyway because no receiver or processor is going to do what a RetroTINK 5X Pro or 4K does. I feel like anyone serious about retro videogames on modern TVs should have a RetroTINK or OSSC, and it's not even a debate.

It's not about omitting legacy inputs, but about them being used correctly in the first place.

Upscale conversion is something I expect in a $6000 Pre/Pro. And I'm not a speedrunner or competitive gamer, I like to play a game of Mario World or Punch Out!! on original hardware from time to time.

 

[pseudoid]

And I'm not a speedrunner or competitive gamer, I like to play a game of Mario World or Punch Out!! on original hardware from time to time.

Is this what they call "youthful indulgence"?
I got that disease at least 5 years ahead of you and haven't stopped yet.
My addiction requires only a PC... any PC... built on or after 1980... to the latest Intel i7-13700K.
The ONLY game I have ever - indulgently - played, to this day:

[<< pacman.swf @ mere 56KB]
Grow up will yah!

 

[MetalBOX]

Upscale conversion is something I expect in a $6000 Pre/Pro. And I'm not a speedrunner or competitive gamer, I like to play a game of Mario World or Punch Out!! on original hardware from time to time.

It's not simple upscaling. There's a lot of processing that goes into units like the OSSC or RetroTINK. Your misconception is that this is a simple 1-to-1 process. There's no reason for an audio company to invest the money into accommodating a niche into an already niche item.

It's also not about speed running or competitive gaming, it's about appropriate image quality, in much the same way we're here for audio quality.

Take a look at the length of the RetroTINK 4K WIKI and then ask yourself if you actually expect an audio company to build in this kind of product for people mostly interested in movies:
RetroTINK 4K wiki

 

[SuicideSquid]

Is this what they call "youthful indulgence"?
I got that disease at least 5 years ahead of you and haven't stopped yet.
My addiction requires only a PC... any PC... built on or after 1980... to the latest Intel i7-13700K.
The ONLY game I have ever - indulgently - played, to this day:
View attachment 336829 [<< pacman.swf @ mere 56KB]
Grow up will yah!

Oh I play a ton of modern games. But sometimes you have to relive the classics. And sometimes you have to drag out the old VHS player to sort through a pile of black spines that might have family movies on them.

 

[375HP2482]

Not a gamer, but I have one glaring weakness: Wii Golf. Elegant yet sophisticated. One of the first inertial hand controllers, still a gem. Its takes on hooks, slices and backspin are uncanny. And no one gets killed, virtually or otherwise.