Specifications

by entering the distance from the listening
area to the various speakers. Surround and
rear speakers can be designated as dipoles,
in which case no delay is used for them.
Bass Peak Level is set by gradually increas-
ing the subwoofer level (using the calibra-
tion signal) until the subwoofer distorts
audibly, then backing off a bit from that
level. You can set the power-on volume and
the relative volume of each source so that
they’re all at approximately the same level.
You can even specify the speed of volume
change (Slow or Fast) for each turn of the
knob or press of the remote-control button.
Although the AVM 20 is highly complex,
I’m pleased to report that, once I figured
out its capabilities, setup was logical and
straightforward, and everything worked
without any glitches or annoying idiosyn-
crasies. Switching sources and advancing
chapters on a DVD did not result in clicks or
any other noises. One feature that I really
appreciated was the bright front-panel dis-
play, which was easy to see from across the
room, and which provided enough infor-
mation for me to adjust various parameters
just by using this display rather than having
to switch the video projector from compo-
nent to S-video for access to OSD. (The
component-video outputs, which I used for
most of my viewing, do not have OSD.)
The AVM 20’s remote control is generally
well-laid out and comfortable to hold, but I
have a few quibbles about its design. Many
of the buttons have two functions, depend-
ing on which component is being con-
trolled, and for some of them, pressing the
button briefly has a different effect than
press-and-hold. What is presumed to be the
primary function is printed on the button
itself; the secondary function is printed
above. The backlighting makes it easy to see
what’s written on the button, but it doesn’t
help at all with seeing what’s written above,
and I found that I wanted to access the sec-
ondary functions more than the primary
ones. Thus, the Input button also controls
the engagement of THX processing, and
Enter also selects the various surround
modes. In both cases, I would have liked it
better had the button been labeled by its
supposed secondary function. And while
it’s nice to have buttons that light up, they
do so for only five seconds—with 53 but-
tons, finding the right one sometimes took
more than five seconds, so I had to press
some buttons again to turn on the light.
Listening
I started by introducing only the AVM 20 to
my home theater system, leaving the ampli-
fication chores to the Bryston 9B-ST
(120Wx5) that’s been in this system for the
past couple of years. The program material
was mostly movie DVDs (Dolby Digital, a
sprinkling of DTS), with a few familiar CDs
thrown in to check out how the AVM 20 fared
with music. Then, when I felt I had a sense of
the AVM 20’s sonic contribution, I swapped
the Bryston 9B-ST for the PVA 7, listening
first in the 5-channel configuration, then
finally adding two more speakers in the rear.
Surround preamp-processors I’ve re-
viewed in the AVM 20’s price range include
the Parasound AVC-2500, Thule PR-250B,
Theta Casa Nova, and the Myryad Systems
MDP 500—fine performers all, and the
Myryad was awarded the Guide’s Editors’
Choice Gold Award for 2001. It didn’t take a
lot of listening for me to conclude that the
sound of the AVM 20 was well up to the
standard set by this illustrious group. For
me, the ultimate test of any audio compo-
nent is the extent to which it contributes to
the impression of the sound being live, not
reproduced. Of course, any single compo-
nent is part of a chain that starts with the
recording microphones and ends with the
speakers (or, arguably, the room’s
acoustics). In the case of surround pre-
pros, the task is made more difficult by the
component not only having to preserve all
the sonic attributes important to 2-channel
reproduction (tonal balance, imaging,
dynamics, etc.), but to do it in five or more
channels. What I heard from the AVM 20
was what I hope to hear from a high-quality
2-channel preamplifier: a smooth, natural,
unfatiguing sound, with excellent trans-
parency and detail, avoiding the sort of
etched, overhyped sound that might be ini-
tially impressive but leads to dissatisfaction
in the long run.
I suspect that Sonic Frontiers’ experience
in building tube equipment served as a
guide in the design of the AVM 20. The tonal
character was very slightly on the laid-
back/forgiving/liquid side, which helped to
minimize the overly aggressive tonal bal-
ance of some DVD soundtracks. Surround-
sound decoder performance in Dolby Digi-
tal 5.1 or DTS 5.1 was about as good as I’ve
heard, with excellent specificity of imaging
within the 360° soundfield. In fact, the sur-
round-sound experience in these modes
was good enough that adding THX process-
ing was not always beneficial. In general,
THX seemed to add a blurring that made it
more difficult to identify the speakers as
sources of sound, and bright, harsh sound-
tracks became more listenable, but for really
good soundtracks (like Tomorrow Never
Dies, my favorite of the recent Bond movies),
I actually preferred the sound without THX.
The AVM 20’s simulated-venue modes (Sta-
dium, etc.) were about what I expected (i.e.,
pretty phony-sounding), but Cinema Logic
provided a pleasant enhancement of Dolby
SONIC FRONTIERS ANTHEM AVM 20 & ANTHEM PVA 7
Stereophile Guide to Home Theater