hi i'm scott newnam ceo of audio advice anthem home theater receivers have been an
audio advice favorite for the past few years if you were to ask anyone in our stores what brand
of receiver sounds the best for the money almost all are going to say anthem and for good reason
anthem has concurrently released two new surround sound processors and 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 video is focused on the three home theater receivers
i'm going to go over all the cool features and talk about how these products performed during
our tests but if we didn't quite answer all your questions in this video you can check out our
full written review on anthem's new receivers that we've linked down below if you also want
to learn about the amplifiers or the processors there are links in the description of this video
for those of you who have been audio advice customers for a while you know that we don't
waste time making videos on bad products every once in a while though we come across
a game changer i'm going to cut to the chase and tell you that these receivers are simply fantastic
audio advice has been working with anthem for over a year on the implementation
and testing of the features and they really nailed it the prior versions already sounded great so it
was hard to believe that anthem could make them even better for roughly the same cost but they did
when they upgraded all their separate power amps they came up with several new circuit ideas they
also applied to the new receivers in this video i'm first going to talk about the technology the
units share then go over the differences to help you determine which new anthem receiver is best
for your system we've always felt the anthem mca amps sounded great for the money and when
they redid the amps they utilized improved output transistors and also updated the analog circuits
these same types of audio improvements were then applied to the new receivers anthem receivers have
always had a similar sound to separate components with a full rich and warm sound that had fantastic
bass impact for those of you who are just getting into this dac stands for digital to analog converter
and it's what converts the zeros and ones to analog audio signal that you actually hear so
add to these new receivers and they delivered all three of the new receivers have more processing
channels on board than they have amp channels in the past if you wanted to add a separate power amp
to an anthem receiver to better power your main speakers for 2-channel listening you had to just
waste the existing amp channels for the left and right with amp matrixing you can assign unused
channels to zone 2 height or surround channels which is super cool in our tips and tricks video
that we send out to all audio advice purchasers i cover how to most easily utilize the amp matrixing
since rooms have such a big impact on sound most receivers today have some kind of room calibration
software i've personally used most of them and i can tell you that anthem room correction or arc is
one of the best if not the best on the market the difference it can make in most systems is
just stunning after you run an arc on your system you will notice the dialog is much clearer and it is
easier to pick up the subtle emotional details in the performers' voices bass is much tighter
and more accurate plus every sound is much more separated from the others pulling you even closer
into the soundtrack about a year ago anthem had a big free update to arc and is now called arc
genesis this year arc genesis has been improved to allow you to send a full range signal to your main
speakers while simultaneously also rolling off bass to the subs however the big advancement that
you get with the new receivers is a beefier and better microphone i've personally calibrated my
own theater room with arc genesis and my martinlogan 2 channel set up so that should tell you
what i think about anthem room correction and by the way i've already purchased my own anthem from
the new lineup every anthem receiver comes with an arc kit that includes the microphone stand for the
microphone and connecting cables i can tell you from experience with other room correction systems
the quality of the microphone can make a huge difference in the final outcome not only is
the mic itself better but the mic now even has a small dot you point towards the front of the
room so the system knows how to pick up spatial information from the test tones so if making your
room sound a lot better was not great enough anthem gives you something even more special
there are four settings for arc that might not sound too groundbreaking but let's think about
some use cases for a second this means you could have multiple different setups so you could have
the best sound when it's for instance just you watching by yourself in the center of the room all
the way to when you have an entire family enjoying a movie across all seats that's pretty powerful
and a super cool feature on the streaming side anthem has removed dts play-fi and gone with
everything you will need for the best possible streaming experience the new receivers all have
chromecast airplay 2 and bluetooth as well as spotify connect and roon in certification at
launch for those of you who have set up a lot of processors you know how much time it takes
to scroll through the menus and set up input names etc after having set this up in my own theater
what i realized is the web interface is just incredible on these and there's so much you can do
so what i did was i created one of our famous tips and tricks videos and i set it up in a way that
you can literally just watch me walk through all of the setup that you can do and in that
i'm essentially giving you not just what you can do but also what are the recommended settings
what does audio advice think you should do and what are sort of the little neat things
that most people probably would skip for those of you who are already audio advice
customers you know we send these tips and tricks videos out to customers with a lot
of our products so know that i've gone over the top on this one to really make it powerful
another bonus is all the new units do updates over the web and it works seamlessly anthem
pulled in the design from their award-winning str series for the new receivers one big plus
of this design is they now have a multi-line front display which means it's super easy
to set things up from the front panel although it's still way easier to use the web interface
the receivers are hdmi 2.0b in hdcp 2.2 compliant they decided to do this as opposed to doing a full
8k board out of the gate because there's a lot of debate as to whether 8k has been standardized
yet or not what is great though is that they will offer a hardware upgrade to an hdmi 2.1 meaning an
8k board when it becomes available making these an even longer lasting investment for you all the
receivers have the new hdmi e-arc input output if you have an 8k television you can plug your
8k source into the television and the tv will feed a full dolby atmos signal or whatever the
object based surround format is out through the e-arc port to the anthem receiver this means many
customers will never need to upgrade the board and can still get 8k straight through your television
every single receiver has seven hdmi inputs for great flexibility and is compatible with dolby
vision and supports imax enhanced video they all also have five analog inputs two coax digital and
three toslink when you get into assigning video to audio inputs the new receivers are just super
flexible you can assign the audio and video from an hdmi into a named input but you can also mix
and match with up to 30 virtual inputs what this means is that you could create your own custom
input where you assign for instance hdmi one from a satellite box video feed of a football game
while simultaneously using a radio feed from a local station for the audio and so i show you how
to do this in the tips and tricks video let's now take a look at what each of the receivers offers
the base level mrx 540 delivers 100 watts per channel to 5 channels however it does have 7
channels of processing with dolby atmos so you could add a power amp to get 5.2.2 or better yet
add the great new anthem mca 225 for your main speakers and re-route the front channels to the
atmos height channels now you've got a killer stereo setup and seven full atmos channels if
you're not sure exactly what all this 5.2.2 means jump over to audioadvice.com and we've got a full
video explaining all the different nomenclature we've also linked it in the description
the mrx740 is the model i think will be our most popular one it has seven power channels built in
offering 140 watts per channel the amp section is a lot beefier than the mrx 540 so you will
get better dynamics and speaker control with the mrx740 however the processor in the mrx 740 can
decode 11.2 channels and has preamp outputs for all 11.2 channels this means you could start out
with a 5.2.2 system with the mrx740 then later add another pair of atmos and a pair of rears for a
super immersive dolby atmos surround sound system the mrx 740 adds zone 2 audio and video outputs
for sending both sound and picture over to another room when you consider how good the mrx 740 sounds
with its great features this is probably the best audio value on the market for home theater
the mrx 1140 uses the same amp section as the mrx 740 but has 11 powered channels on board it can
however decode up to 15.2 channels and has preamp outputs for every channel that's impressive like
the other models you can reroute the amp channels any way you want when you add on a separate power
amp even though they have the same amp section the mrx 1140 does sound better due to the fact that it
has toroidal power supply toroidal power supplies can deliver more current and are quieter this type
of power supply also allows the dacs to do a better job so the mrx 1140 will sound a little sweeter
and smoother with better dynamics as well over the mrx 740 the mrx 1140 adds another feature
we really like while the mrx 740 and mrx 540 both have two subwoofer outputs they're in parallel
and all adjustments apply the same to each one the mrx 1140 has two independent sub outputs when you
run arc each sub will be calibrated individually plus you can adjust level and phase separately for
each sub if you are building a full blown dolby atmos home theater with 11 or more speakers the
mrx 1140 is a fantastic choice from both the sound and flexibility standpoint it will cost less than
adding a separate power amp or amps to the mrx 740 to get 11 channels and will drive most speakers
with ease 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 when anthem
introduced the last mrx series almost five years ago they became an instant audio advice favorite
the new models take everything great about the ones we loved and add better sound streaming
enhancements great amp flexibility upgraded arc and very cool web interface for setup if you're
considering moving all the way up to separates check out our video on the anthem processors and
amplifiers that are linked in the description and also on audioadvice.com as i mentioned earlier if
you decide to purchase your new anthem pieces from audio advice you'll get the exclusive tips and
tricks guide where i walk you through everything you need to know to get up and running fast
but also to implement a more detailed and expert setup i hope this overview of the new anthem
receivers has given you some insight as to which is the best match for your home theater system
and if you have any questions at all be sure to give us a call chat with one of our home theater
experts at audioadvice.com or stop into one of our award-winning raleigh or charlotte stores
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never miss out on the latest home audio and home theater content we'll see you next time