The discussion in this thread began to veer from its original topic of projectors towards the AVM70 I ordered and have finally received, so I thought I'd start a new thread to discuss my initial impressions.
I ordered my AVM70 8K from Audio Advice and should have received it this past Sunday. Thanks to Fedex, it arrived today instead, but I digress. Anyone interested in this Pre/Pro should act fast as the current US sale price of $3399.00 may not be around much longer and supplies are limited.
This being my first foray into the Anthem world, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I'd seen @Dave Upton 's AVM60 a couple of years ago so I expected I'd be generally pleased, especially coming from a rather long in the tooth Marantz AV7702mkii. Here is what I've experienced thus far.
I transitioned my HT components from behind my AT screen to a separate rack a couple months back. This greatly simplified the physical installation of the AVM70. I wish I'd done this a long time ago as do my back and knees. The AVM70 is a clean, streamlined piece of kit. Gone are the plethora of legacy connections you find on some other contemporary gear. This one is unashamedly modern. I found this quite refreshing but those needing optical connections and such will have to look elsewhere.
While the physical installation of the Anthem was a breeze, the setup and configuration required quite a deal more patience. As I'd noticed last year when I first viewed the spec sheet for the AVM70 on Anthem's web site, they are not particularly verbose where documentation is concerned. The first thing I attempted to do was run ACR Genesis but I was greeted with an error message informing me a firmware upgrade would be required before I could proceed. Searching through the equally sparse web manual offered no detailed instructions on how to go about accomplishing this so I turned to our old friend, You Tube and still came up empty. I was able to initiate the firmware update from the front panel except it never actually completed. According to the documentation provided by Anthem, turning on "automatic updates" in the menus would force the update the next time the device power cycled. This also did not appear to work. In fact, the only way I finally did succeed was through the browser-based menu system. After this the update took about 20 minutes to complete and I was finally able to run ARC Genesis.
Coming from the Audyssey camp, I wasn't really ready for the power of ARC Genesis. The best way I can describe it is, it appears they designed a room correction system around the very popular Room EQ Wizard software. Those familiar with this amazing tool should have no trouble with ARC Genesis. Instead of making mostly obscured adjustments and allowing the user little to no control over them, ARC shows you exactly what it is doing to your system and allows you to compare before and after curves along with their own target curve. It's exactly what a true enthusiast would expect.
I only had time to complete a single session with ARC Genesis, which now includes independent phase and time alignment of two subs but the difference was pronounced and easily discerned. My first thought upon playing a few of my favorite musical selections was "are the subs engaged?" My Legacy Focus SE's can go plenty deep so I had to check. Turns out they were indeed but are now so well integrated as to not call attention to themselves. I boosted the bass a bit and sure enough, they came to life.
I haven't yet had time to sample any film content aside from a brief spin up of the original [and best, IMO] Marvel title, "Thor." The channel separation and dynamics I heard in the brief session I took in was nothing short of breathtaking. I can't wait to dig a little deeper into my film and music collections.
I don't know whether or not I'm the first here to own the AVM70 but I'll be commenting here as I continue to explore it.
Here are a few pics.
I ordered my AVM70 8K from Audio Advice and should have received it this past Sunday. Thanks to Fedex, it arrived today instead, but I digress. Anyone interested in this Pre/Pro should act fast as the current US sale price of $3399.00 may not be around much longer and supplies are limited.
This being my first foray into the Anthem world, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I'd seen @Dave Upton 's AVM60 a couple of years ago so I expected I'd be generally pleased, especially coming from a rather long in the tooth Marantz AV7702mkii. Here is what I've experienced thus far.
I transitioned my HT components from behind my AT screen to a separate rack a couple months back. This greatly simplified the physical installation of the AVM70. I wish I'd done this a long time ago as do my back and knees. The AVM70 is a clean, streamlined piece of kit. Gone are the plethora of legacy connections you find on some other contemporary gear. This one is unashamedly modern. I found this quite refreshing but those needing optical connections and such will have to look elsewhere.
While the physical installation of the Anthem was a breeze, the setup and configuration required quite a deal more patience. As I'd noticed last year when I first viewed the spec sheet for the AVM70 on Anthem's web site, they are not particularly verbose where documentation is concerned. The first thing I attempted to do was run ACR Genesis but I was greeted with an error message informing me a firmware upgrade would be required before I could proceed. Searching through the equally sparse web manual offered no detailed instructions on how to go about accomplishing this so I turned to our old friend, You Tube and still came up empty. I was able to initiate the firmware update from the front panel except it never actually completed. According to the documentation provided by Anthem, turning on "automatic updates" in the menus would force the update the next time the device power cycled. This also did not appear to work. In fact, the only way I finally did succeed was through the browser-based menu system. After this the update took about 20 minutes to complete and I was finally able to run ARC Genesis.
Coming from the Audyssey camp, I wasn't really ready for the power of ARC Genesis. The best way I can describe it is, it appears they designed a room correction system around the very popular Room EQ Wizard software. Those familiar with this amazing tool should have no trouble with ARC Genesis. Instead of making mostly obscured adjustments and allowing the user little to no control over them, ARC shows you exactly what it is doing to your system and allows you to compare before and after curves along with their own target curve. It's exactly what a true enthusiast would expect.
I only had time to complete a single session with ARC Genesis, which now includes independent phase and time alignment of two subs but the difference was pronounced and easily discerned. My first thought upon playing a few of my favorite musical selections was "are the subs engaged?" My Legacy Focus SE's can go plenty deep so I had to check. Turns out they were indeed but are now so well integrated as to not call attention to themselves. I boosted the bass a bit and sure enough, they came to life.
I haven't yet had time to sample any film content aside from a brief spin up of the original [and best, IMO] Marvel title, "Thor." The channel separation and dynamics I heard in the brief session I took in was nothing short of breathtaking. I can't wait to dig a little deeper into my film and music collections.
I don't know whether or not I'm the first here to own the AVM70 but I'll be commenting here as I continue to explore it.
Here are a few pics.
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