Anthem STR pre-amp

[Treblehead]

I will use ARC Genesis to set it up. But after that, I read that ARC corrections can be turned on/off (if only for comparison). Will turning ARC off also nullify the sub setup and result in no subs?

I think the "comparison" is only about using two 2CH things, you still need to use the ARC setting to connect your 2 subs.
However, you can try the professional mode to create a setting that only cuts off, for example, 80Hz of your main L/R speaker and provides the 20- 80Hz to your 2 subs without ARC correction.

But I think my Sonus Faber speakers are a bit starved, sometimes I play at 90dB, and the space is huge. Living room is open to the kitchen and the second floor with 7m high ceilings, approximately 80 square meters.

How far is your listening position? Seems that you need a more powerful amp than the NAD M27.

 

[vddobrev]

I think the "comparison" is only about using two 2CH things, you still need to use the ARC setting to connect your 2 subs.
However, you can try the professional mode to create a setting that only cuts off, for example, 80Hz of your main L/R speaker and provides the 20- 80Hz to your 2 subs without ARC correction.


How far is your listening position? Seems that you need a more powerful amp than the NAD M27.

I will definitely try ARC professional mode when I get it.
My listening position is about 4 meters far.

Edit: Using SPL caclulators online, the M27 rated power of 180W should be enough. Accounting for distance losses, my 90dB sensitivity should reach 99dB SPL with 128W. But in practice, I feel when I push it a bit harder above 85dB, the sound changes and it feels the amp is clipping.

 

[Treblehead]

I will definitely try ARC professional mode when I get it.
My listening position is about 4 meters far.

Edit: Using SPL caclulators online, the M27 rated power of 180W should be enough. Accounting for distance losses, my 90dB sensitivity should reach 99dB SPL with 128W. But in practice, I feel when I push it a bit harder above 85dB, the sound changes and it feels the amp is clipping.

Your feeling is right. It is clipping.
Sonus Faber Sonetto V G2 is 89 dB SPL at 2.83 V/1m, but it's a 4Ω speaker, so the sensitivity is about 86 db/w(Sensitivity (dB/W)=Sensitivity (dB/2.83V)+10log10(Impedance1×8).
And we are not done yet,
First, all room correction will need extra power to do the Job.
Second, you need at least 10 dB of headroom above the average listening SPL.

 

[vddobrev]

Your feeling is right. It is clipping.
Sonus Faber Sonetto V G2 is 89 dB SPL at 2.83 V/1m, but it's a 4Ω speaker, so the sensitivity is about 86 db/w(Sensitivity (dB/W)=Sensitivity (dB/2.83V)+10log10(Impedance1×8).
And we are not done yet,
First, all room correction will need extra power to do the Job.
Second, you need at least 10 dB of headroom above the average listening SPL.

All my Sonettos are version 1, and the Vs are 90dB (not that 1dB matters, just FYI). I was not aware of this formula. So if we use 86dB at 1m 1W, then at 4m SPL will drop to 74dB... then the purchase of STR amp is well justified.
Thank you very much, appreciate your help!

 

[GXAlan]

Not sure what an update of the preamp would offer, maybe a built in streamer, 4 sub outs, better spec DAC perhaps.

The big one is HDMI ARC/CEC support. We see McIntosh and other companies like Classe offering premium 2 ch preamps with hdmi input for use in a mixed TV/audio setup or for family convenience of single remote use. Since Anthem has more experience with HDMI that countless other 2 channel companies from their home theater lineup, I bet their first try at adding HDMI to their STR Pre will go smoothly.

 

[Mike-48]

I read that ARC corrections can be turned on/off (if only for comparison). Will turning ARC off also nullify the sub setup and result in no subs?

When running ARC, you make "profiles" (up to 4 at a time in the STR Pre) that control how many speakers are attached and what room-correction filters to use. After you make the ARC measurement, you can generate those four profiles, which will be stored in one .arc3 file with the measurements and uploaded to your device, where you can select among them. You can also make a pdf file to document them. You can even make a copy of the .arc3 file, change some parameters of the correction, and have ARC recompute, then replace the four profiles in your STR with four new ones.

 

[vddobrev]

So this is worse than expected

As a reminder, I'm trying to set up my STR Pre in HT Bypass mode with a Marantz Processor in order to share L/R speakers and the amp that drives them.

The dilemma is, how do I trigger the amp ON when either one or the other pre amps is in use

So, having played about a bit, it turns out that HT Bypass mode seems to only engage when the STR Pre is in standby. It's not possible to select HT Bypass when the STR is powered on (the XLR input disappears from the menu when HT Bypass is enabled).

As the STR is in standby, no trigger voltage is output. Therefore, the STR cannot trigger the amp in HT Bypass, and I"ll need to trigger it from the AV Processor

That's fine until I want to listen to some stereo through the STR alone - there's no way to trigger the PA in this case and I'd need to redundantly power up the AV or, sacrilege, manually power on the power amp by pressing a button.

Unless I'm missing something fundamental here, this looks like a very half-arsed design on the Anthem for shared power amp management which is kind of the main point of HT Bypass

I am in the process of purchasing Anthem STR stack pre+amp, and I read the user manuals.
Well, it looks like Anthem thought about this situation, which makes me even more in love with it before I have purchased and received the units.
The Anthem STR Poweramp can be turned on by either 12V trigger, signal detection, or both. There are switches on the back to enable/disable both of these.

Edit: I just wanted to say that I am also in the same situation, where I need to power the amp from 2 pre-amps, and I am glad Anthem has thought about this, like when the STR pre is off, the HT signall will be bypassed, and the amp will detect the signal input and power on by itself. Other amps do not have this feature.

 

[vddobrev]

The big one is HDMI ARC/CEC support. We see McIntosh and other companies like Classe offering premium 2 ch preamps with hdmi input for use in a mixed TV/audio setup or for family convenience of single remote use. Since Anthem has more experience with HDMI that countless other 2 channel companies from their home theater lineup, I bet their first try at adding HDMI to their STR Pre will go smoothly.

OK, this is huge in theory. The use-case is a TV and a stereo system.
Regular TV signal is 2 channel. Streaming TV up to Dolby Atmos.
But in practice, this does not make sense to me.
What is a stereo pre-amp going to do with an incoming Dolby Atmos signal? Downmix to 2 channel? The TV can do this, and every TV has optical out, that can be configured.
I personally do not want HDMI in a 2 channel pre-amp, unless it can do a phantom center channel...
And I have tried this on NAD M66 HDMI ARC - I do not like TV/dialogue in stereo. This is why I have the TV connected to NAD T778 and engaged Dolby Surround processing so that dialogue comes from the center channel.

Edit: I can see a huge usage for music via apps on the smart TV, like YouTube and alike... but again this can be via optical out.

 

[GXAlan]

OK, this is huge in theory. …
But in practice, this does not make sense to me.

I personally do not want HDMI in a 2 channel pre-amp,

The big advantage is HDMI CEC. When you power on the TV or even an attached source like AppleTV, your pre-amp ALSO powers on and ALSO switches to the HDMI ARC input even if it was configured to something else.

Once powered on, using the volume control on your TV remote or your AppleTV remote will also directly control the volume of your pre-amp, even if there isn’t line of sight.

Last, when you are done, when you power off your AppleTV or main TV, all attached devices power down into standby.

I agree that true Atmos / AVR decoding is superior to just 2 ch, but the real advantage of HDMI ARC with CEC over optical is the convenience factor.

This is assuming that the display and attached devices are all HDMI CEC compliant and work well together.

At least in my experience, HDMI CEC has been 100% reliable with established AV/CE manufacturers like Sony, Panasonic, Yamaha, Denon, Bluesound/NAD, Sonos, Marantz, Apple, NVIDIA. My Monolith HTP-1 was perfect. My Fosi ZD3 was not.

 

[vddobrev]

I have a question for STR owners. Do you have the black or the silver?
If silver - is the whole body silver or just the faceplate?
If black - is it fingerprint magnet, i.e. if touched, is it marked easily?

A few close-up pictures will be appreciated, as online I am only finding marketing pictures, or lower quality and from a distance.

 

[Treblehead]

I have a question for STR owners. Do you have the black or the silver?
If silver - is the whole body silver or just the faceplate?
If black - is it fingerprint magnet, i.e. if touched, is it marked easily?

A few close-up pictures will be appreciated, as online I am only finding marketing pictures, or lower quality and from a distance.

I've got one close-up picture on my pc.

...It always says pics too big

 

[Mike-48]

I have a question for STR owners. Do you have the black or the silver?
If silver - is the whole body silver or just the faceplate?
If black - is it fingerprint magnet, i.e. if touched, is it marked easily?

A few close-up pictures will be appreciated, as online I am only finding marketing pictures, or lower quality and from a distance.

I have a silver one. It's the whole housing that is finished that way.

There is a pretty good photo of the silver one on this page. Scroll down past the photo of the black one in the rack. BTW, that black one does show some indication of handling and skin-oil residue. I've found that with a lot of black gear, especially if the finish is smooth. My silver STR Pre does not show that.

 

[vddobrev]

I have a silver one. It's the whole housing that is finished that way.

There is a pretty good photo of the silver one on this page. Scroll down past the photo of the black one in the rack. BTW, that black one does show some indication of handling and skin-oil residue. I've found that with a lot of black gear, especially if the finish is smooth. My silver STR Pre does not show that.

Excellent info, thank you! Exactly what I needed to hear/see, now I am decided on silver!

 

[vddobrev]

Everywhere I see pictures of STR pre+amp - they are stacked, the pre is on top of the amp. Is that safe? Isn't the amp getting hot, and heat going in the pre?

 

[Mike-48]

Everywhere I see pictures of STR pre+amp - they are stacked, the pre is on top of the amp. Is that safe? Isn't the amp getting hot, and heat going in the pre?

I don't like to stack any gear. I certainly would not stack a preamp on top of a power amp.

With separate components, it makes sense from an engineering standpoint to use long, balanced interconnects and put the power amp near the speakers. That maximizes damping factor. Then, the preamp and other source components can be near the listener, where their controls can be read easily.

Perhaps such photos are made just for advertising purposes?

 

[vddobrev]

Perhaps such photos are made just for advertising purposes?

Exactly my thought! But all reviewers had them pictured like that. I will never stack them either. I have separate shelves on my rack, with about 20cm breathing space for the amp, before the upper shelf for the preamp.

Edit: Oh, and BTW - I just ordered the STR pre+amp combo in silver. Paid 30% advance, delivery in 3-4 weeks.

 

[WillBrink]

I have a question for STR owners. Do you have the black or the silver?
If silver - is the whole body silver or just the faceplate?
If black - is it fingerprint magnet, i.e. if touched, is it marked easily?

A few close-up pictures will be appreciated, as online I am only finding marketing pictures, or lower quality and from a distance.

I have black, and use the remote 99% of the time, so no fingerprints. Only time I needed to touch the unit was during set up. It has an excellent simple remote.

 

[vddobrev]

I have black, and use the remote 99% of the time, so no fingerprints. Only time I needed to touch the unit was during set up. It has an excellent simple remote.

Thank you! I settled on the silver.

 

[WillBrink]

Thank you! I settled on the silver.

I went with black mostly because my other gear is black. Regardless, no real reason to touch the unit other then to set it up.

 

[vddobrev]

I went with black mostly because my other gear is black. Regardless, no real reason to touch the unit other then to set it up.

True indeed, but my better half voted for silver, especially when forum member @Mike-48 pointed me to online review with this great photo and I showed it to her: