I have the Arcam AVR850 in one room, and a combination of Anthem MRX1120/ Lyngdorf TDAI3400 in the 'cinema room' with 3400 in 'home theater' mode. The addition of the Lyngdorf massively improved the performance of the AVR - this despite its relatively poor measurements as done here. On AV duties, the Lyngdorf drives the Fr Lt and Fr Rt speakers and the two subwoofers. I think this allows the Anthem to drive the other speakers better ((5,2,4 setup).
For music listening, there is no comparison. I originally got the Arcam as a single-box solution for music and movies. The Lyngdorf is far far better for music and does a good job of room correction driving a 2+2 speaker setup.
My conclusions:
- it will always be better to have a separate amp for music.
- Room correction is a big deal (here RoomPerfect and Anthem Room Correction are easy, RoomPerfect is superior to ARC, Dirac is fiddly and poorly implemented by Arcam due to bass module limitations but probably more powerful when configured by an expert)
- stereo subwoofers combined with cinema speakers and room correction can attain the quality of full-range speakers for music listening. Anyone thinking of listening to music through their AV setup should have a front lt and rt subwoofer that is driven by a stereo amp that room-corrects