hi i'm scott newnam ceo of audio advice anthem is one of our favorite home theater brands at
audio advice because their products sound so good for the money and anthem puts all of their
emphasis on giving you the best possible home theater experience anthem concurrently released
two new surround sound processors the avm 70 and the no holds barred avm 90 as well as three
new receivers all using the same base software and hardware platform there are also matching amplifiers
in the same lineup to pair with the surround sound processors this particular video is on the
avm 70 and the avm 90 surround sound processors if you are even considering buying one of these
processors you should watch this entire video we tested these with anthem during the development
stage and i'll cut to the chase and tell you they were incredible at integrating our input to build
what i believe is a breakthrough product at these price points if you also want to learn about the
amplifiers or the receivers they're linked in the description of this video we also have super
in-depth written reviews and videos on each of these at audioadvice.com now let's get started
at audio advice we just love immersive home theater audio the new anthem processors go
all the way to 15 channels plus subwoofer outputs plus both models give you a complete set of both
balanced audio and rca outputs for every single channel in terms of streaming anthem had relied
on dts play-fi in the past which was okay but we were pleased to see them move to chromecast
airplay 2 bluetooth as well as spotify connect and roon which were in certification at launch
also with the resurgence in vinyl anthem even included a built-in moving magnet phono preamp
this is no afterthought either as the engineers spent some serious time developing a great moving
magnet phono stage both surround sound processors have decoding for dolby atmos dts x pro and imax
enhanced dolby atmos is the most widely adopted and has clear guidance on where to place your speakers
imax enhanced uses dts which can adapt to various speaker layouts the great news is no matter how
that new movie was mastered or remastered the two new processors have you totally covered one
thing i want to talk about is calibration software increasingly getting your home theater sound right
relates a lot to calibrating to the room itself every room is going to have modes and nodes areas
and frequencies where you've got louder sound and then frequencies where things cancel out
so pretty much every good receiver and processor in the world now has some kind of calibration
software on it honestly i've tried virtually all of them and anthem's arc genesis software
is one of the best if not the best in the market i personally have used it in my own theater
and in my own martinlogan two channel setup they even went a step further in the new processors and
the new receivers which was to include a better microphone and in fact this new microphone has
got a dot on the front that when you set it up you put the dot forward and it actually
gets the sounds much much better knowing where every single speaker is another point about the
arc genesis software is that these enable four different presets what this means is you could
set up one room correction for the best sound at your own favorite seat another setting for when
you got two or four people in the room another for a room full of guests and maybe another for
late night listening with your subwoofers turned down and along with these four arc presets they
also have full adjustments for level crossover and distance for each one you also have the option to
run your main speakers full range and send bass to a subwoofer at the same time for those audiophiles
who prefer their smaller speakers to just roll off naturally both units have seven hdmi inputs three
toslink digital two coax digital four analog plus the moving magnet phono preamp there's also a new
e-arc hdmi connector so you can get a full dolby digital signal back from your tv if you like to
use apps like netflix directly on your television both also have zone 2 audio and hdmi outputs
most home theater products lock you into using an hdmi input only once not so with these new anthems
you can create up to 30 different inputs with any combination of video and audio you want a
good example of this would be watching a sporting event on hdmi one while simultaneously having the
audio come from a local radio station you can do any combination of cool things like this
i'm going to pause here and talk briefly about the browser interface they've built
for setting up upgrading and managing the processors it is incredible for those of you who
have set up a lot of processors you know how much time it takes to scroll through the menu setup
and input names etc i don't know how to say this but the browser interface makes setting it up both
super fast but also way better there's so much you can do after having it in my own theater
i decided to shoot one of our famous tips and tricks videos using the web interface so customers
can just follow my video and simultaneously set it up way faster as well as get an expert setup
as i walk through the details of every single option and what i suggest you do in each situation
for those of you who are audio advice customers you know we send these tips and tricks videos out with a
lot of our products so know that i've gone over the top on this one to really make it
truly powerful for our customers the processors are designed with 8k in mind meaning
all of the hardware and platform is designed to enable you to upgrade to it so at some point
they will actually come out with a new board that will enable these to be 8k enabled should you want
to for many customers they will never need to do this since the processors have the enhanced audio
return channel built in what this means is if your television is e-arc capable the cable connecting the
video feed from your anthem to your tv can also get a full object-based surround sound signal
back down the cable using e-arc any 8k source connected to your tv could easily feed the audio
back to the anthem processor this connection also makes it great for those who like to use the apps
built into their smart televisions anthem took the great look of their str two channel separates
and used it for all the new receivers amps and processors one big advantage in addition to the
fact everything perfectly matches is the fact that the display now has five lines so you can actually do
quite a bit of setup right from the front panel display easily if you want to the volume is also
big enough to easily see across from the room you can also set the screen to dim if it's in an open
room they did such a good job getting feedback from audio advice and other experts that they've
thought about just about everything so let me just tell you a little bit about what's in the box
obviously there's the processor itself it comes with a power cable it comes with the full
mic and the boom stand for holding the mic when you do your arc calibration
you'll get obviously your warranty card in a tiny little instruction manual that's
uh like a sheet of paper but we're sending out as i said the tips and tricks so everybody's going
to get a very detailed video walking through everything that you need to do step by step
you also by the way don't forget about these there's two antennas in here for those of you that
are plugging in your processor with an ethernet cable you might think you don't need these
wireless antennas it turns out you actually do need them so put the antennas on one goes on
each end i go into this into more detail why you need them and how to put them on all that kind of
stuff in the tips and tricks but suffice it to say even if you're not using wireless you will
want these on and again i go into more detail later and then obviously the remote control the
old school day though of having to use this remote to set it up are totally gone if you plug in the
ethernet cable and go into the setup follow my video super super simple i think you'll love it
with all the great features built into both units what's the advantage of the avm 90 over the anthem
avm 70. there's one main reason better sound the anthem avm 70 gets an upgraded set of dacs
over those used in the anthem receivers coupled with the low noise toroidal transformer the avm
70 gives us a big improvement over the previous model the dacs in the avm 70 are the ak-4490eq
32-bit 768khz from akm which is pretty impressive on its own the avm 90 also uses a
32-bit 768khz chip but steps up to the incredible ak-4490eq dac that's the type of dac
you would expect to see in a multi-thousand dollar separate dac by itself this means your sound will
be smoother and sweeter with deeper bass extension and more effortless presentation if you plan to
use your home theater for music listening you will definitely appreciate the greater dacs
in both of these units but the avm 90 is another jump in audio the other difference between the
two is subwoofer control the avm 70 has two independent subwoofer outputs these are calibrated
individually when you run arc which is fantastic but there are those of us who love our bass but
also want to be super controlled we live in the world of more than two subs and the avm 90 has
four independent subwoofer outputs yes four you can all calibrate individually
i can tell you from personal experience watching a movie or concert using a system with four
fine-tuned high-performance subs is like nothing you've heard before in the past you had to go to
fifteen thousand dollar plus processors to find something that had individual control for
two or more subs with the avm 90 you can now get this for way under 10 grand which is fantastic
anthem processors have always done a fantastic job at spatial imaging they can locate effects
in precise positions with special effects panning across and around the room sounding totally
natural with the better dacs and improved power supplies on the new models they're even better
the anthem avm 60 was an amazing value but now with everything you get in the new upgraded avm
70 it is an even better value the question comes down to is the avm 90 worth double the price of
the avm 70. for most people the avm 70 will be a perfect fit and offer excellent sound and spatial
imaging in a great home theater i personally had the previous avm 60 in my theater and
loved the jump to the avm 70 when i put it in so i can tell you that you will not be disappointed
but if you are really serious about music listening the much better dacs in the avm 90 will
offer a big upgrade for your two-channel listening or if you've always wanted more than two subs
but could not find a processor under 15k to handle them you will be as happy as we were when we saw
the avm 90 had four independent sub channels by way of perspective i've had a lot of processors
in my own theater and i immediately purchased the avm 90 for myself that should tell you something
if you're in the design phase for your home theater or deciding how best to upgrade your
current theater you should definitely use our free home theater design tool at audioadvice.com
it will take the dimensions of your room and help you map out how many channels are ideal and
locations of speakers and pretty much everything else you need to know for nailing your theater
for those of you that watch our videos you know we do not produce videos or take the time to do
them on products that we don't believe in but every once in a while you've got to pause and go
this is an incredible product for the money we've been working with anthem for over a year on the
development of this including doing beta testing giving input working on everything we could
dream up to put into it and i can tell you they nailed it these processors are no joke and you're
definitely going to want to make sure you have them set up in a way that takes advantage of every
single feature so we're sending out our exclusive tips and tricks set up video to all audio advice
purchasers that will make sure you get every ounce of performance out of these great processors
in that video i get into the super details of everything you can do and try to make it
as simple and fun as possible if you have any questions on either of these processors
or any other home audio or home theater gear give us a call chat with one of our experts at
audioadvice.com or stop into one of our raleigh or charlotte showrooms thanks for watching and
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up to date with all the latest home audio and home theater content we'll see you next time