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I had been searching for a new pre/pro that would properly present uncompressed LPCM and the new lossless audio codecs, Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio and I found my choices to be extremely limited at this point in time. After getting an education in this forum as to why I didn't need to wait for HDMI 1.3, I searched for a pre/pro to serve my needs and came up with the Lex MC-12HD and the Anthem AVM-40. Since the AVM-40 was about 1/3 the MSRP of the Lex, I decided to give it a go.
I got the Anthem from my local authorized dealer on Wednesday and spent 6 hours integrating it into my system and then another 6 hours setting it up just to find out that when I fired it up almost none of my sources were working correctly. HDMI was not working at all - no video, no audio...nothing. Component video was not switching properly and even the digital coax audio inputs did not seem to function consistently. The only thing that actually worked as expected were the optical digital inputs. I was pretty tired and frustrated to say the least and my first thought was to pack it up and bring it back to the dealer the next day. Instead I decided to email Nick at Anthem for some help and then attack things the next day after getting some much needed rest.
I received a very fast response from Nick and he pointed out a couple of places in the setup that could be causing me problems, and sure enough he was right. At this point I figured it was best to approach things by setting up the simplest devices first (leaving out all HDMI for the time being) and at least getting the basic pre/pro functionality under control. A few simple menu changes and some undocumented discoveries (like the fact that when you are in the setup menu all audio changes take place on the fly, but video changes require exiting the setup before they take place) later and I had component video working properly as well as all of my digital audio connects and my 6 channel analog input. So far so good, but my Lex MC-12 could already do all of this and the reason I bought the AVM-40 was for its HDMI abilities, so I still needed to get that working.
On day three I decided to attack HDMI, and now that I knew how to get around in the setup menus and how they behaved, I was much better prepared. I also rethought my HDMI chain of events to work as easily and reliably as possible. Since I already owned a top notch video processor, the Crystalio 2, I had to find a chain that would allow me to properly process video and at the same time extract HDMI audio, so I opted to go this way:
source -> AVM-40 (for audio extraction and switching) -> Crystalio 2 -> Ruby (1080p display)
After all of the other problems I had encountered I was expecting a struggle simply because HDMI is so darned finicky due to all of the DRM measures employed, but to my surprise I was able to set up my 2 HDMI sources (HD-XA2 and PS3) and 2 DVI sources (HTPC and MyHD) with minimum problems. In less than an hour I had all video passing properly and all HDMI audio being extracted and processed by the AVM-40! How wonderful!
Now that I have everything working, I really like this unit a LOT! The sonics are second to none - beautiful, crisp, detailed, transparent sound, a full compliment of all of the latest and greatest surround modes, playback of uncompressed audio tracks (Blu-ray) as well as Dolby TrueHD, DD+, and DTS HD MA, and all switching seamlessly with a single button press of the remote. It is almost impossible to compare the audio quality to that of my Lex (as it would involve carefully setting up level field conditions which would be almost impossible in a home environment), but after listening to this unit yesterday and today I don't feel that I am losing any quality whatsoever, and that is saying a lot since the Lex is such an excellent sounding and performing unit.
There are a couple of caveats, though, as this unit is not perfect:
1. 1080p is not passing properly. When I send 1080p from either HD-DVD or Blu-ray I get green horizontal streaks and video dropouts. If I send 1080i everything looks and works fine, and it really is not a big deal because the Crystalio 2 does a superb job of deinterlacing, but at this point 1080p is not working correctly. My cables are all of very high quality and pass 1080p without issue if I leave the AVM-40 out of the path.
2. When HDMI video is passed from the source through the AVM-40 and then to the video processor, is the signal bing altered? It might be just my imagination but it appears as if the image is very slightly softer when it passes through the AVM-40. If it isn't there already, I would like to request that Anthem install a pure video passthrough option for HDMI where the signal going in passes directly through the AVM-40 without being altered in any way whatsoever, much in the same way that 2 channel analog audio can be directly passed.
3. What remote control protocols match the AVM-40? The ones I have available so far are AVM-20, AVM-30, and Statement D1 - Which would be the best match or are the AVM-40 codes all different?
All in all I am very pleased with this unit and plan on keeping it in my system for the foreseeable future. Please note that where HDMI is concerned, all equipment is not made equal, so I can not tell anyone how well this unit would work with other equipment. There are plenty of reports of HDMI compatibility problems with various components from audio processors, video processors, source devices, and displays, so just because MY equipment all worked fine please do not assume that the same will happen for you. But since this is a new model and to the best of my knowledge the first report on it in this forum, I am giving it a big thumbs up, but with caveats as mentioned...
I got the Anthem from my local authorized dealer on Wednesday and spent 6 hours integrating it into my system and then another 6 hours setting it up just to find out that when I fired it up almost none of my sources were working correctly. HDMI was not working at all - no video, no audio...nothing. Component video was not switching properly and even the digital coax audio inputs did not seem to function consistently. The only thing that actually worked as expected were the optical digital inputs. I was pretty tired and frustrated to say the least and my first thought was to pack it up and bring it back to the dealer the next day. Instead I decided to email Nick at Anthem for some help and then attack things the next day after getting some much needed rest.
I received a very fast response from Nick and he pointed out a couple of places in the setup that could be causing me problems, and sure enough he was right. At this point I figured it was best to approach things by setting up the simplest devices first (leaving out all HDMI for the time being) and at least getting the basic pre/pro functionality under control. A few simple menu changes and some undocumented discoveries (like the fact that when you are in the setup menu all audio changes take place on the fly, but video changes require exiting the setup before they take place) later and I had component video working properly as well as all of my digital audio connects and my 6 channel analog input. So far so good, but my Lex MC-12 could already do all of this and the reason I bought the AVM-40 was for its HDMI abilities, so I still needed to get that working.
On day three I decided to attack HDMI, and now that I knew how to get around in the setup menus and how they behaved, I was much better prepared. I also rethought my HDMI chain of events to work as easily and reliably as possible. Since I already owned a top notch video processor, the Crystalio 2, I had to find a chain that would allow me to properly process video and at the same time extract HDMI audio, so I opted to go this way:
source -> AVM-40 (for audio extraction and switching) -> Crystalio 2 -> Ruby (1080p display)
After all of the other problems I had encountered I was expecting a struggle simply because HDMI is so darned finicky due to all of the DRM measures employed, but to my surprise I was able to set up my 2 HDMI sources (HD-XA2 and PS3) and 2 DVI sources (HTPC and MyHD) with minimum problems. In less than an hour I had all video passing properly and all HDMI audio being extracted and processed by the AVM-40! How wonderful!

Now that I have everything working, I really like this unit a LOT! The sonics are second to none - beautiful, crisp, detailed, transparent sound, a full compliment of all of the latest and greatest surround modes, playback of uncompressed audio tracks (Blu-ray) as well as Dolby TrueHD, DD+, and DTS HD MA, and all switching seamlessly with a single button press of the remote. It is almost impossible to compare the audio quality to that of my Lex (as it would involve carefully setting up level field conditions which would be almost impossible in a home environment), but after listening to this unit yesterday and today I don't feel that I am losing any quality whatsoever, and that is saying a lot since the Lex is such an excellent sounding and performing unit.
There are a couple of caveats, though, as this unit is not perfect:
1. 1080p is not passing properly. When I send 1080p from either HD-DVD or Blu-ray I get green horizontal streaks and video dropouts. If I send 1080i everything looks and works fine, and it really is not a big deal because the Crystalio 2 does a superb job of deinterlacing, but at this point 1080p is not working correctly. My cables are all of very high quality and pass 1080p without issue if I leave the AVM-40 out of the path.
2. When HDMI video is passed from the source through the AVM-40 and then to the video processor, is the signal bing altered? It might be just my imagination but it appears as if the image is very slightly softer when it passes through the AVM-40. If it isn't there already, I would like to request that Anthem install a pure video passthrough option for HDMI where the signal going in passes directly through the AVM-40 without being altered in any way whatsoever, much in the same way that 2 channel analog audio can be directly passed.
3. What remote control protocols match the AVM-40? The ones I have available so far are AVM-20, AVM-30, and Statement D1 - Which would be the best match or are the AVM-40 codes all different?
All in all I am very pleased with this unit and plan on keeping it in my system for the foreseeable future. Please note that where HDMI is concerned, all equipment is not made equal, so I can not tell anyone how well this unit would work with other equipment. There are plenty of reports of HDMI compatibility problems with various components from audio processors, video processors, source devices, and displays, so just because MY equipment all worked fine please do not assume that the same will happen for you. But since this is a new model and to the best of my knowledge the first report on it in this forum, I am giving it a big thumbs up, but with caveats as mentioned...
