So I finally got the much-talked-about Anthem receiver (MRX700) home for personal evaluation. Been running it back-n-forth like crazy for the past few days. After all the hoopla that's been said over this receiver (and the brand in general) I was very anxious to see how well it would perform in my room with the kick-ass Apex speakers. Sadly, it hasn't impressd me. I agreed with my dealer for a 14-day trial, but I'm thinking it'll go back first thing monday morning. And here's why...
I went about the set-up of the advanced room correction system (ARC) with a lot of care and patience, as I knew this was key to exploring the supposed benifits of the receiver. Fresh in my mind was my evaluation of Pioneer's SC-LX83 and its MCACC this past summer, and how it failed to perform as I had hoped. It left a bitter aftertaste. And let's just say after the first 30 mins minutes of listening to some well-known music I was already missing my Denon AVR-3808. Not a good sign. But first impressions can be wrong. I tweaked a bit here, a bit there. Ran ARC thoughrougly a second time. Watched a bunch of blu-ray sequences. Ugh. The overall sound had a somewhat thin, slightly hollow, non-immersive character. A very un-inspiring listen and total difference compared to the results I get with Denon and it's Audyssey MultEQ, which works wonders with the Apex in my room.After the second day I switched back to the Denon, ran Audyssey all over, and everything simply fell into place. There was that palpable sense of power, scale, presence, dialogue delicacy and delightful vibrant tone to the sound I knew the Apex was capable of delivering. And the surround-channels were full of life in ways the Anthem was nowhere close to. Ok, my subwoofer weren't as firm and in a similarly tight grip as with the Anthem, but atleast it didn't lack the impact and integration I'd gotten to love. Again, I decided to put the Anthem to work and put it back. So I ran ARC yet again and continued to listen and tweak some settings and speakerpositions for a couple of days. Still no way near the Denon with Audyssey. And turning ARC off wasn't an improvement either.Some have said that it may take time getting use to the sound of the Anthem, but after what I've experienced there's no way I'd even want to get use to that sort of sound. Why should I when it came off so lackluster compard to what I had? Sure, one might argue that Audyssey's Dynamic EQ adds a bit of a loudness character to the reproduction. Perhaps its not a fair comparison. But never once have I felt as though Audyssey made things sound distorted, distracting or wrong to my ears. Quite the opposite infact. And yes, the Anthem with ARC might be more pin-point accurate but what good does accuracy do if it doesnt make your speakers sing and have you keep listening out of pure joy? Just the fact that the impact and immersiveness just dropped with the Anthem had me scratching my head. Not at all what I was expecting.Just like with the Pioneer I cant help ask myself what others possibly see in this machine and why it I didn't have anywhere near the same experience as they did? Now, I'm fully aware of the positive word-of-mouth and reviews for Anthem all over the place, and I'm glad some get alot of joy out of these machines (a select few have even called it em "game-changers"). I just shake my head at that after this trial. In my A/B comparison there is no way it tops the Denon in my room, with my speakers. In this case, there truly is a night-and-day difference. Perhaps its simple; the Anthem doesnt like my speakers? Or could it be my room, or whatever else? I dont know. So... another disappointing reciever to match my Apex. I doubt I'll try out another one for quite a while. The Denon is a match made in heaven it seems, and like they say: if it ain't broke don't fix it. But I cant imagine there aint nothing else out there that can not only match what I experience with the Denon but actually up the ant a bit. Perhaps it'll be another Denon model?And please dont get me wrong, I wasn't born a Denon Fanboy or anything, its just that ever since I got this receiver time and time again there hasn't been a single other machine that have won me over. I'll gladly switch to another brand, as long as it brings to the table what the Denon has, and then some. To ric71 - I know you were interested in this piece so don't take my word for it, but if I may say so I think you made the right choise going for the Arcam instead of this Anthem. You might have had a completely different experience than me though (would be cool if you got to test it aswell so we could compare, lol).So I finally got the much-talked-about Anthem receiver (MRX700) home for personal evaluation. Been running it back-n-forth like crazy for the past few days. After all the hoopla that's been said over this receiver (and the brand in general) I was very anxious to see how well it would perform in my room with the kick-ass Apex speakers. Sadly, it hasn't impressd me :-( I agreed with my dealer for a 14-day trial, but I'm thinking it'll go back first thing monday morning. And here's why...So I finally got the much-talked-about Anthem receiver (MRX700) home for personal evaluation. Been running it back-n-forth like crazy for the past few days. After all the hoopla that's been said over this receiver (and the brand in general) I was very anxious to see how well it would perform in my room with the kick-ass Apex speakers. Sadly, it hasn't impressd me. I agreed with my dealer for a 14-day trial, but I'm thinking it'll go back first thing monday morning. And here's why...
I went about the set-up of the advanced room correction system (ARC) with a lot of care and patience, as I knew this was key to exploring the supposed benifits of the receiver. Fresh in my mind was my evaluation of Pioneer's SC-LX83 and its MCACC this past summer, and how it failed to perform as I had hoped. It left a bitter aftertaste. And let's just say after the first 30 minutes of listening to some well-known music I was already missing my Denon AVR-3808. Not a good sign. But first impressions can be wrong. I tweaked a bit here, a bit there. Ran ARC thoughrougly a second time. Watched a bunch of blu-ray sequences. Ugh. The overall sound had a somewhat thin, slightly hollow, non-immersive character. A very un-inspiring listen and total difference compared to the results I get with Denon and it's Audyssey MultEQ, which works wonders with the Apex in my room.
After the second day I switched back to the Denon, ran Audyssey all over, and everything simply fell into place. There was that palpable sense of power, scale, presence, dialogue delicacy and delightful vibrant tone to the sound I knew the Apex was capable of delivering. And the surround-channels were full of life in ways the Anthem was nowhere close to. Ok, my subwoofer weren't as firm and in a similarly tight grip as with the Anthem, but atleast it didn't lack the impact and integration I'd gotten to love. Again, I decided to put the Anthem to work and put it back. So I ran ARC yet again and continued to listen and tweak some settings and speakerpositions for a couple of days. Still no way near the Denon with Audyssey. And turning ARC off wasn't an improvement either.
Some have said that it may take time getting use to the sound of the Anthem, but after what I've experienced there's no way I'd even want to get use to that sort of sound. Why should I when it came off so lackluster compard to what I had? Sure, one might argue that Audyssey's Dynamic EQ adds a bit of a loudness character to the reproduction. Perhaps its not a fair comparison. But never once have I felt as though Audyssey made things sound distorted, distracting or wrong to my ears. Quite the opposite infact. And yes, the Anthem with ARC might be more pin-point accurate but what good does accuracy do if it doesnt make your speakers sing so you keep listening out of pure joy? Just the fact that the impact and immersiveness just dropped with the Anthem had me scratching my head. Not at all what I was expecting.
Just like with the Pioneer I cant help ask myself what others possibly see in this machine cause I didn't have anywhere near the same experience as they did. Now, I'm fully aware of the positive word-of-mouth and reviews for Anthem all over the place, and I'm glad some people do get joy out of these machines (a select few have even called em "game-changers"). I just shake my head at that after this trial. In my A/B comparison there is no way it tops the Denon in my room, with my speakers. In this case, there truly is a night-and-day difference. Perhaps its simple; the Anthem doesnt like my speakers? Or could it be my room, or whatever else? I dont know.
So, another disappointing reciever to match my Apex. I doubt I'll try another one for a while. The Denon is a match made in heaven in my case it seems, and like they say: if it ain't broke don't fix it. But I cant imagine there aint nothing else out there that can not only match the I experience I get with the Denon but actually up the ant. Perhaps another Denon model? And please dont get me wrong, I wasn't born a Denon Fanboy or anything, just ever since I got this receiver time and time again there hasn't been anything to win me over. I'll gladly switch to another model, as long as it brings to the table what the this one has, and then some.
To
ric71 - I know you were interested in this piece but if I may say so I think you made the right choise going for the Arcam instead of this Anthem. You might have had a completely different experience than me though (would be cool if you got to test it aswell so we could compare, lol).
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