Anthem AVR : emperor's clothes?

[Enkay78]

Never would have imagined Anthem AVR would be massacred with objective scientific measurements !

Review and Measurements of Anthem MRX 520 AVR

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Anthem MRX 520 Home Theater Audio/Video Receiver (AVR). The MRX 520 costs US $1,399 so it is a premium product. The sample I have was kindly sent to me by a member. The Anthem MRX 520 leaves a decent impression as far as look and feel: The...

www.audiosciencereview.com

My views of AVRs are changing fast.

I guess we will be continually plagued with myths, heresays, subjective conformational bias..... especially in the highly subjective audiophile world.


ASR is a fresh air and breather to the industry, I guess.



Feel free to disagree

 

[RajithKumar]

OMG ! I believed Anthem components will be good...Its high Time that Anthem Engineers to fix these issues.

 

[MaSh]

Yeah I'll disagree to his experiments and findings. In my opinion he has no connection between a device's numbers through his tests and real world actual listening.

I could be wrong, but that's just me.

MaSh

 

[firearm12]

ASR is one sick thing to me. I mean are we making equipment to please us as humans or to please other machines. Feels like he only measures to satisfy his ego and some of his followers. Most of the equipment that is considered good by users or reviewers is considered pathetic in his measurements. I turn a blind eye nowadays.

 

[Amarendra]

Never would have imagined Anthem AVR would be massacred with objective scientific measurements !

Review and Measurements of Anthem MRX 520 AVR

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Anthem MRX 520 Home Theater Audio/Video Receiver (AVR). The MRX 520 costs US $1,399 so it is a premium product. The sample I have was kindly sent to me by a member. The Anthem MRX 520 leaves a decent impression as far as look and feel: The...

www.audiosciencereview.com

My views of AVRs are changing fast.

I guess we will be continually plagued with myths, heresays, subjective conformational bias..... especially in the highly subjective audiophile world.


ASR is a fresh air and breather to the industry, I guess.



Feel free to disagree

Quite an eye opener. I couldn't understand all of his measurements but his angst seems to be based on the point that this is supposed to be a premium product and doesn't live up to objective measurements.

 

[Nitin K]

Never would have imagined Anthem AVR would be massacred with objective scientific measurements !

Review and Measurements of Anthem MRX 520 AVR

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Anthem MRX 520 Home Theater Audio/Video Receiver (AVR). The MRX 520 costs US $1,399 so it is a premium product. The sample I have was kindly sent to me by a member. The Anthem MRX 520 leaves a decent impression as far as look and feel: The...

www.audiosciencereview.com

My views of AVRs are changing fast.

I guess we will be continually plagued with myths, heresays, subjective conformational bias..... especially in the highly subjective audiophile world.


ASR is a fresh air and breather to the industry, I guess.



Feel free to disagree

That was an interesting thread. Sad truth that most of the manufacturers out there engage in marketing tactics & brand image to sell their stuff. The good honest ones cannot sustain themselves for long.
I guess the best way out is to trust your ears only & buy what sounds good as per your budget.

 

[Enkay78]

Imho,
As a collective we shouldn't shy away any objective assessment of our devices. For me , as also my field of expertise, being clinical or objective has to be a second nature.
So naturally such reviews are welcoming......atleast to know WHAT level of engineering was involved, and especially to separate the marketing chaff away.


However i do know this is quite a touchy subject in audiophile world.

 

[dillihifi]

That was an interesting thread. Sad truth that most of the manufacturers out there engage in marketing tactics & brand image to sell their stuff. The good honest ones cannot sustain themselves for long.
I guess the best way out is to trust your ears only & buy what sounds good as per your budget.

Agreed, not a few years ago there was quite a controversy regarding a Lexicon Blu Ray Player which was in fact a re-badged Oppo

 

[Amarendra]

Imho,
As a collective we shouldn't shy away any objective assessment of our devices. For me , as also my field of expertise, being clinical or objective has to be a second nature.
So naturally such reviews are welcoming......atleast to know WHAT level of engineering was involved, and especially to separate the marketing chaff away.


However i do know this is quite a touchy subject in audiophile world.

Very true otherwise the product will enter the grey area of BOSE.

 

[alpha1]

ASR is one sick thing to me. I mean are we making equipment to please us as humans or to please other machines. Feels like he only measures to satisfy his ego and some of his followers. Most of the equipment that is considered good by users or reviewers is considered pathetic in his measurements. I turn a blind eye nowadays.

The funny thing is that people design and manufacture everything, even the "audiophile grade" components and items using OBJECTIVE measurements.
Everything bit of technology that man is using has an objective basis to it.

What you may say is that he perhaps is measuring the wrong things. While I would dispute that, but at least that line of argument is scientific and not hokum based.

 

[sidvee]

For music I never heard any A/V receiver that could satisfy my ears. For movies I am generally ok with them as long as they can do the surround effects well, but this level of measurement (if true) for a so called premium product is quite pathetic. Also see the review of the Marantz AV8805 processor which has bad measured performance as well.
Cheers,
Sid

 

[firearm12]

I have extensive experience of chord qutest and audiogd dac 19 both of which i owned. One is measured very highly on asr and one is bashed. Fortunately or unfortunately, my ears could not bear the one that was measured highly but loved the one that measured so much poorly. From that moment on, i decided to trust my ears on anything and stopped reading measurements anymore especially on asr.

 

[Hiten]

Please dont misunderstand me. I love objectivist and subjectivists.
My personal view is Audio hobby is not only and only about listening. People DIY, Upgrade, modify, downgrade, learn the workings of things, Setup speakers, collect music media, have multiple equipments, All is part of hobby. Otherwise we buy what sounds good to us then what ? I say Model X sounds good to me. I recommend it. Some may like model X some may not. then all will be quiet. Then we do What ? Everybody will be happy and no discussion, no sharing information, no debates, no online virtual fighting . It is misunderstood that objectivist listen to 0.0001 thd. NO. There are some rules based on physics and electronics which helps improve High Fidelity reproduction of music at our home. Common people like me do not understand these technical aspects. But Exploring that is part of hobby. As for reports on "Audio Science Review" it is great site. Lots of information. the measurements tells us not only about products but about companies. Long back there were terrible reports on some other site about High End Speaker measurements, so if one is paying money companies should not compromise on quality and basic foundation of this hobby. Some Big speaker manufactures deliberataly give mid dip or little bass boost. Nothing wrong in that too. if played within limits. Sometimes problem is people dont like clean amplification/reproduction of music. It brings out badly recorded
irregularities. Then we can always use tone controls to our liking. Nelson Pass introduced H2 Harmonic distortion circuit module to see if people like that sound. Psychoacoustics is part of this hobby too...
...in short lots of avenues to be explored.... choose the one which one likes.
Regards

 

[raghupb]

The objective/subjective debate is never ending.
Here is a quote from Robert Pirsig's - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:
“And what is good, Phaedrus,
And what is not good—
Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?”

Very applicable to the audio world, listen for yourself and decide.
Cheers,
Raghu

 

[square_wave]

I am not into home theatre but from what I hear from high end cinema fans who are also quite finicky about their sound, they pretty much agree that most all in one AVRs ( even the premium ones ) are not so great when it comes to stringent measurements and performance. They say it does not matter so much because movies is 50 / 50 sound and picture. There so many things in a movie that distracts you from the actual quality of the sound. And then with so many speakers and subs, there is a bigger elephant in the room ( called acoustics ). All these are bigger problems for the home theatre fan. The truly high end home theatre fanatic with a great room usually invests in home theatre separates. Those are quite nice ! And should measure well too.

 

[Enkay78]

Well atleast i say let this objectivism increases and predominate the manufacturing process as much as SQ (a good engineered product will have less chances to sound bad)....so that it improves our subjective aspirations.


And at whatever budgets we are comfortable.

I would naturally favour such directions in the industry.....as a consumer and as a enthusiast.

 

[Nitin K]

Well atleast i say let this objectivism increases and predominate the manufacturing process as much as SQ (a good engineered product will have less chances to sound bad)....so that it improves our subjective aspirations.


And at whatever budgets we are comfortable.

I would naturally favour such directions in the industry.....as a consumer and as a enthusiast.

Totally agree with you Enkay. Along with good quality sound, should come good quality components too as per the money paid by the audio enthusiast. Sound analysis in this direction should favour the consumer.