Review and Measurements of Anthem MRX 520 AVR

[Dj7675]

You want to send it to me for measurement? The specs on their website shows better performance than anything I have measured here.

I now know .1% of what you go through buying gear to send in! I haven't decided yet but I am leaning toward getting it. Several here have the XMC1 and it would be an excellent data point. Also the XMC-2 is now for sale which adds Atmos and I think up to 16 channels. Hmmm

 

[peng]

I am also not very interested in SINAD measurements. I prefer to focus on SNR-A, THD + N and harmonic profile.

I am a little confused, SINAD and THD+N are directly related so if you are interested in one I would think you should be interested in the other.

https://www.analog.com/media/en/training-seminars/tutorials/MT-003.pdf
"SINAD is equal to THD + N, provided the bandwidth for the noise measurement is the same for both (the Nyquist bandwidth)."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_harmonic_distortion
"For a given input frequency and amplitude, THD+N is reciprocal to SINAD, provided that both measurements are made over the same bandwidth."

http://www.ni.com/product-documentation/3359/en/

 

[amirm]

Also the XMC-2 is now for sale which adds Atmos and I think up to 16 channels. Hmmm

They use AK4490 DAC in there. Sadly unlike the XMC-1 they don't have any performance specs for it. But here is a thought: send them a message and ask them to send one in for review. Maybe point them to how bad other AVRs are performing under our tests. Maybe they respond and send one in for review.

 

[Dj7675]

Will do

 

[SimpleTheater]

I now know .1% of what you go through buying gear to send in! I haven't decided yet but I am leaning toward getting it. Several here have the XMC1 and it would be an excellent data point. Also the XMC-2 is now for sale which adds Atmos and I think up to 16 channels. Hmmm

I am thinking of purchasing the XMC-2, but until I see REAL specs from @amirm I'm sitting on the sidelines. Maybe Emotiva can send one in for testing, as a good showing would guarantee them at least my money.

 

[Crane]

They use AK4490 DAC in there. Sadly unlike the XMC-1 they don't have any performance specs for it. But here is a thought: send them a message and ask them to send one in for review. Maybe point them to how bad other AVRs are performing under our tests. Maybe they respond and send one in for review.

@amirm is Monoprice planning on sending their unit in before release like they did with the THX HA. That one is supposed to have AK4493 with all the bells & whistles, so curious for how it would perform.

 

[Blumlein 88]

You can get a number of media players like JRiver that do the decoding. Unfortunately you still can't replace an AVR.

The typical scenario for an AVR is a cable or satellite box and a Blu-ray player as two physical inputs. Hardware is needed to switch between those two sources. Software alone won't work. Even having "cable card" support and built-in disc player won't work because the former won't support the user interface for on-demand content.

Yes, I suppose what would work is if someone made an HDMI switcher which would pass the HDMI signal off to a computer so it could handle the sound, and output that to a multi-channel DAC. There are some devices that do that, but not any good ones I've seen though they may be out there. Those I've seen are limited to Dolby Digital.

 

[Blumlein 88]

While a little off topic, I think it is a relevant enough to ask here. While neither have been measured here yet what would be possible to make an educated guess on the SINAD of these 2 products: Emotiva XMC1 and a multichannel amp based on the NC252 hypex module. XMC1 does not do Atmos and limited to Dirac Version 1, but otherwise am I correct that this combo would likely exceed a combined 96 SINAD? Granted, this would be quite a bit more expensive that either the MRX520 or NAD T758 V3 but I think the performance would also be a big jump it would seem as well. I have located an XMC1 for $950 and am thinking about getting it for either our living room 2.1 setup, or our theater setup and skipping atmos.

A friend has the XMC-1, but the stars haven't aligned for me to measure it. I don't have an AP, but could find out if it beats the other AV gear so far.

As for the XMC-2, if Emotiva doesn't list specs it is because they aren't good. See my measurement of the UMC200 which lists no specs. Maybe I'm wrong, but until proven otherwise assume no specs means no good specs.

 

[MSNWatch]

Some Emotiva XMC-1 measurements here:

https://www.soundandvision.com/content/emotiva-xmc-1-surround-processor-review-test-bench

 

[maty]

The problem is how to measure / specify the SNR!

To compare I only need SNR-A at 1 watt or a max power (8 Ohms).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-weighting

 

[leonroy]

I would love to see if the Bryston SP3 bucks the trend of mediocre performance from home cinema products (anyone here know James Tanner VP at Bryston perchance?). Disappointing to see so many AVRs failing to distinguish themselves despite the high reputation of their manufacturers.

 

[RichB]

Some Emotiva XMC-1 measurements here:

https://www.soundandvision.com/content/emotiva-xmc-1-surround-processor-review-test-bench

There are more measurements at Home Theater HiFi:

https://hometheaterhifi.com/reviews/receiver-processor/processors/emotiva-xmc-1-processor-review/

They look pretty good, better than what I see here.

- Rich

 

[audimus]

If we could do software Dolby and DTS decoding in say VLC, we wouldn't need this overpriced under-performing gear. Decode into a digital stream and shoot it to an 8 channel pro interface and onto amps. Great performance for relatively peanuts. An example of why MQA is a bad idea for stereo.

You can already do that for almost all encoders right now but ...

It is not as simple as it sounds depending on use case. Most music sources do not need decoders (except DSD, multi-channel formats, etc). Music players already handle this to convert to PCM, although some people swear that handling DSD near the DAC is better.

There are decoders available for almost every format in HT. Kodi or VLC with embedded decoders or MPC-BE with LAV decoders can decode to multi-channel lossless PCM into HDMI or USB. But then it depends on what you are going to do with it.

Some formats (these are not encoders but metadata enhanced formats like Atmos) cannot be reproduced via PCM channels, so you will lose those. You don’t want a DAC inside the PC to process those, they usually do much worse than external DACs.

Things get even more complicated when DRM is involved in what you can do even if you could decode.

And this is not even considering the convenience features like switching sources, ARC/CEC, unified remote operations, power triggers, etc.

So typically people who can use these systems (and effectively) have much simpler use cases (in content or sources or DRM) than the requirements for the AVR market and they can convince themselves nobody needs any of the above! They are not even close to being representative of the primary market for AVRs and so these are not equivalent replacements for AVRs.

The software vs hardware decoding part of the format is not the problem with AVRs here. Otherwise, you can just do that on a PC right now and feed multi-channel PCM into an AVR or an integrated multi-channel amp. This is what many of the Kodi/MPC users do right now but with the above limitations.

 

[Dj7675]

There are more measurements at Home Theater HiFi:

https://hometheaterhifi.com/reviews/receiver-processor/processors/emotiva-xmc-1-processor-review/

They look pretty good, better than what I see here.

- Rich

I had been looking at that review as well. It seems pretty detailed and seems to show very good performance (at least to me).

 

[Ron Texas]

Just another reminder of how hard it is to find an amplifier with a SINAD of even 85db or better, not to mention 96db. In the reasonable price category are Hypex amps. moving although the budget priced NC252MP is yet to be measured. There are budget well measuring amps with limited power (gaincard clones) and some uber expensive Class A/B offerings. The amp section of this AVR makes my cheap high powered Crown XLS 1502 seem great @76db SINAD and they throw in a DSP which can be used for bass management.

I also wonder about the budget priced Emotiva PA-1 monoblocks, not measured, but expected to perform in the Mid 80's for SINAD

 

[vkvedam]

@amirm perhaps now is the time for you to build a technically capable AVR, I know that you didn't want to for stereo HiFi based on Toppings' and SMSL's offerings but this needs some serious work I believe

 

[GrimSurfer]

As for the XMC-2, if Emotiva doesn't list specs it is because they aren't good. See my measurement of the UMC200 which lists no specs. Maybe I'm wrong, but until proven otherwise assume no specs means no good specs.

That was my fear after visiting the Emotiva site, wading through a bunch of prose, and failing to find any listed specs.

 

[peng]

I would love to see if the Bryston SP3 bucks the trend of mediocre performance from home cinema products (anyone here know James Tanner VP at Bryston perchance?). Disappointing to see so many AVRs failing to distinguish themselves despite the high reputation of their manufacturers.

I emailed back and forth with Brian Russell some years ago, but not Tanner. They are responsive to questions, I like that company a lot. Tanner seems very active over at the AudioCircle.com but I am sure you know that already.

 

[digitalfrost]

Just another reminder of how hard it is to find an amplifier with a SINAD of even 85db or better, not to mention 96db.

I would be interested in measurments of 80s "end-game" amps. I have a feeling we could find excpetional performance there. At least the data sheets suggest better performance than today. A lot of components were still discrete, and I think that could certinaly contribute to less cross-talk and good SNR.

 

[starfly]

I have bought the RX-A1080. Is that different in this regard?

Well, the RX A20xx/A30xx are considered the real high-end with both of those being quite similar, just the A30xx having a slightly beefier amp stage (10W extra output power 2ch driven, so no big difference), a slighly better DAC and 2 XLR Pre-Outs and 2 XLR inputs.

I have the A2070 myself as the A30xx just wasn't worth the extra cost to me.

But I think measuring the A1080 should give a good enough indication of how Yamaha's higher-end stuff performs.