Specifications

Pro Logic and 2-channel stereo material.
Just a couple of weeks before deadline, I
found out that there was a software update for
the AVM 20 available at www.anthemAV.com.
Following the simple instructions, I down-
loaded and installed the software in the
AVM 20 using a serial cable, and it worked like
a charm. In addition to fixing some minor
bugs, the software update makes available the
option of maintaining THX processing but
turning off its RE-EQ. This was quite useful: as
noted above, I often found THX processing to
produce too much softening of the sound,
and the aspect of THX that’s thought to be
responsible for this effect is RE-EQ. With
RE-EQ turned off, I preferred Tomorrow Never
Dies in THX rather than straight Dolby 5.1.
This review is already shaping up to be the
longest I’ve written for SGHT, so I won’t say
much about the AVM 20’s tuner section,
except that it worked and sounded fine.
(Tuner quality is not the highest priority for
me; the only time I listen to radio is in the car.)
Power Play
The Bryston 9B-ST ($3695, 120Wx5) is an
excellent amplifier that, power aside, I pre-
fer even to Bryston’s top-of-the-line 7B-ST
monoblocks. Its Class A rating in Stereo-
phile’s “Recommended Components” is
well-deserved, in my opinion. (Class A is
Stereophile’s top classification, equivalent
to the Guide’s Class AAA.) According to the
principle of getting what you pay for, you’d
expect the PVA 7, offering seven channels of
comparable power at less than half the
price, to sound markedly inferior.
It didn’t. The PVA 7’s highs were a bit more
on the forward side, but by no means harsh
or grainy, and actually complemented the
slightly laid-back AVM 20. Like the 9B-ST,
the PVA 7 allowed the sound to develop a
good sense of depth. Dynamics were excel-
lent, and there was never any indication
that the PVA 7’s current-limiting ALM was
being engaged. And, boy, was it quiet! Sonic
Frontiers claims a signal/noise ratio of
122dB, and I believe it. The combination of
AVM 20 and PVA 7 produced absolutely the
lowest noise level of any processor-amplifi-
er combo I’ve had in my home-theater sys-
tem. Given the PVA 7’s superbly low level of
electrical noise, it’s ironic that the mechani-
cal noise level (a buzzing transformer) was
on the high side. With nothing playing and
the video projector turned off, I could hear it
faintly from the listening area (15 feet from
the amplifier); but with the projector turned
on, the fan noise was loud enough to mask
the amplifier’s transformer buzz even
before playing any program material.
With seven channels of amplification on
tap, I was able to check out the value—if
any—of adding two more speakers in the
rear. (The additional speakers were Paradigm
Studio/20 v.2s—a great little speaker that I’d
consider using for the other five channels if I
were to start all over again.) My normal setup
has two speakers that are designated Sur-
round, but they’re on the side walls a couple
of feet behind the listening area, so they
might be considered in between the Sur-
round and Rear designations. The two extra
speakers were placed in the center rear, atop
a 4-foot-high cabinet about 7 feet behind the
listening area. This did not seem like an ideal
setup for demonstrating the benefits of 7.1
over 5.1, so I was quite surprised by the gain
in ambience and the enhanced sense of
being enveloped in the sound. The flyovers in
the EX-encoded The Phantom Menace were
much more realistic in 7.1-channel mode.
I’m still not convinced that one must have
seven channels for home theater, but the
extra two are definitely worthwhile.
Video
Early surround preamp-processors were
notorious for causing noticeable degrada-
tion of the video signals routed through
them, degradation that was visible even with
composite video. They’ve been getting bet-
ter, but HDTV signals place much greater
demands on the bandwidth of the proces-
sor’s video switching circuitry, and the last
processor that I had a chance to check out
with HDTV signals caused a significant soft-
ening of the fine detail in the picture.
My initial test of the AVM 20’s video perfor-
mance was with the Marantz VP8000 video
projector, which has been in my system for
the past year or so. The VP8000, a DLP projec-
tor with SVGA (800x600) resolution, produces
quite a bright, sharp picture for its class. With
DVD as the source, through S-video or com-
ponent (non-progressive) video cables, there
was no noticeable difference visible in the
image between the direct DVD-to-projector
and the DVD-to-AVM-20-to-projector con-
nections. Although the VP8000 will display
HDTV images, it does so at lower resolution,
so it can’t be used to assess true HDTV per-
formance. For this, I needed a display with
full 1080i/720p performance.
I borrowed a Sharp XV-Z9000U, an HDTV-
capable DLP projector that got a rave review
from Michael Fremer in SGHT. This is
indeed a great projector, and represents a
significant advance over earlier DLPs.
DVDs—especially through the progressive-
scan output of the Sony DVP-NS900V
player—looked superb, and HDTV material
via the StarChoice digital satellite system
was breathtaking in its clarity. Routing the
HDTV signal through the AVM 20 fully main-
tained this clarity, with no loss of fine detail
or increase in video noise or color shift that I
could detect. Logic tells me that the addi-
tional cable and contact surfaces, as well as
the video circuitry itself, must have some
effect on the video signal, but the AVM 20 was
good enough that I’d have no reservations
about using it for video switching for any
current video source, including HDTV.
The other video-related issue concerns
the potential lip-sync problem caused by
the video scaling circuitry in projectors and
outboard scalers. I’ve seen comments on
the Internet about this being a potential
problem with the Sharp XV-Z9000U, but I
noticed no real difficulties of this sort when
using it for DVD playback. Where I did find
synchronization problems was with some
HDTV programs. There was a Christmas
special on PBS with Jessye Norman that
had her voice arriving well before she
opened her mouth. I found this most dis-
concerting, I think because this type of
SONIC FRONTIERS ANTHEM AVM 20 & ANTHEM PVA 7
Stereophile Guide to Home Theater