Company & Product Overview

Anthem is one of our favorite home theater brands at Audio Advice because their products sound so good for the money and Anthem puts all of their emphasis on giving you the best possible sound and home theater experience.

We were lucky enough to be part of the Anthem beta team to test out and have an advance look at their new products launched in late 2020.

• Anthem AVM 70 & AVM 90 Surround Sound Processors Overview
• New Anthem MRX Home Theater Receivers Overview
• Anthem MCA Gen 2 Amplifiers Overview

Due to a fire at a parts supplier for some of the components in the AVM90, it was delayed. This delay did have a silver lining as Anthem was able to come up with some improvements to make it even better than they originally envisioned. We just got our hands on one of the first models to make it to North America and we have to say - it’s been worth the wait.

Features & Technology

More Channels for Immersive Audio

At Audio Advice, we love immersive home theater audio. When Dolby Atmos and other object-based surround formats came on the scene a few years ago, we were totally thrilled! Dolby Atmos for the home maxed out at 11 channels plus subwoofer(s) until just recently. You can now find 9.4 and even 9.6 Dolby Atmos configurations guides on the Dolby website.

For larger spaces, this is pretty cool as the 8th and 9th lower channels place speakers on the side walls in front of you between your side surround speakers and your left and right front speakers making the soundfield even more seamless! And with 6 Atmos height speakers, the height effects will go to a new level!

Like the earlier released AVM70, the AVM90 has 15 channels of preamp outputs available with either regular RCA or balanced audio connections, but the AVM90 adds even more with the addition of 4 discrete subwoofer outputs.

New Streaming Platform

The streaming platform in the AVM90 includes Chromecast, Airplay2, Bluetooth, Spotify Connect and an upcoming update will add Roon.

Built-In Phono Preamp

Another nice bonus connection is a built-in moving magnet phono preamp. This is no afterthought either as the engineers spent some serious time developing a great moving magnet phono stage. This means the AVM90 is not only a terrific surround sound processor, but also can serve as an outstanding preamp for your music system. In fact, as Apple, Tidal and Amazon roll out music in Atmos, having a surround sound processor double as your music system makes total sense. If you have not experienced Atmos music yet, you are in for a treat. Check out our article listing the top 10 Dolby Atmos songs, play them through your Atmos theater, and you will have a whole new appreciation for great music.

All the Formats

The AVM90 has decoding for Dolby Atmos, DTS:X Pro, and IMAX Enhanced. These are somewhat competing formats for mixing the audio tracks of movies. Dolby Atmos is the most widely adopted and has clear guidance on where to place your speakers. IMAX enhanced uses DTS which can adapt to various speaker layouts. The great news is, no matter how that new movie was mastered or that classic one was remastered, the AVM90 has you totally covered no matter how the soundtrack was produced. And for those of you using a TV capable of Dolby Vision, you will be pleased to know the AVM 90 supports Dolby Vision as well.

8K Ready

The AVM90 comes with HDMI 2.1 full 8K video capabilities built-in. So you can connect all of your sources including 8k sources directly through the AMV90 and then connect the HDMI out to your television or projector. The AVM90 also has e-ARC so you could also use the sources on your television and have it send fully uncompressed object-based surround audio signals back to the AVM90 for processing.

30 Virtual Inputs With Great Lip Sync Capabilities

For inputs, you get 7 HDMI, 3 Toslink digital, 2 Coax Digital, 4 Analog, plus the MM phono preamp. Like the AVM70, the AVM90 also has zone 2 audio and HDMI outputs.

Most home theater products lock you into using an HDMI input only once. Not so with Anthem. You can create up to 30 inputs using any combination you wish. You basically create a source in the Anthem setup and then assign any HDMI video input and any audio input, whether from that HDMI feed or from any other audio input to the Anthem. As an example, think about watching a sporting event but having the audio tune into the local radio station so you can hear your local announcer. Or you could have a source where you listen to music while simultaneously watching the stock reports or a news feed.

Some of you who are serious listeners may have noticed there is a bit of difference in lip-sync between streaming platforms. Lip Sync problems usually occur when the audio arrives ahead of the video. You see this most often with projectors or when there is substantial video processing slowing down the video.

Another awesome feature that we love is the ability to assign a different lip sync for each input. There’s a range of adjustment from 0-500ms, which is very wide compared to some other products. If you are using a home theater with a separate video processor after your AVM90, like a MadVR Envy or Lumigen, you will really need this as video processors add a delay to the video of around 200-250ms before any delay caused by your projector or other display device. In the setup tips and tricks that we send to everyone who purchases their surround processor from Audio Advice, we include a link to our Lip Sync video that will help you dial it in perfectly.

Web Setup Interface

If typing in 30 names of your virtual inputs using the cursor makes you think that is going to be time-consuming, you’ll be super happy with the great web interface. All you have to do is look up the IP address of your processor, (which you can find by selecting the network display) then you have full access to every single part of the setup right from your laptop! This also means you can sit in your primary listening position and quickly fine-tune the settings to really dial in the audio if you wish. For those of you who have your processor in a rack that does not have easy line of sight from your primary listening position, being able to make adjustments wirelessly from laptop is a huge benefit versus most systems that require a direct connection to the processor for calibration and setup.

Anthem Room Correction

ARC Genesis is one big reason we love Anthem gear. The room correction they developed called ARC is simply one of the best on the market. The room itself has a tremendous impact on the ultimate sound of your system. The problem is every room will cause certain frequencies to be too loud and others to be canceled out.

Anthem Room Correction takes measurements of the room and smooths out the response. We have been beta testing the new version launching concurrently with the AVM90 and really love its ease of use and new capabilities. It adds even more great features to better phase align subwoofers to main speakers plus sets distances and levels. The result is extremely impressive. In room correction, the quality of the microphone has a big effect on the end result. The AVM90 comes with the same improved microphone as the AVM70. They even designed the microphone to be directional so the dot on the front faces forward just like a moviewatcher faces forward in theater seats. The end result is an even better calibration. The new microphone is a step up from the prior one, looks much beefier, and has a little indicator you will need to point exactly towards the front of the room.

We are most excited about the tech Anthem is using in the new version of ARC Genesis to blend the subwoofers with your speakers. It is pretty easy to use a tape measure to get the distances correct on your main speakers, but nailing subwoofer blending has been a task that can take some work. Most subs add some delay through their built-in digital signal processing and it was a bit of trial and error in the past to get them aligned properly. It makes such a massive difference in the sound that we have made a video just on how to calibrate multiple subs together. ARC Genesis now makes this simple and takes it a step further by looking at the phase response of both your main speakers and your subs to time-align them into one cohesive unit.

Historically, if you wanted more than 2 independent sub outs, you were spending over $20,000 on a processor. The AVM90 has it. This enables your combined sub output to be phase aligned such that you get the best response curve across your seating positions. We can tell you from experience, watching a movie or concert using a system with 4 fine tuned high performance subwoofers is like nothing you have heard before.

In our testing, we connected four subs independently to the AVM90. Once we had everything else connected and ARC Genesis run, our jaws dropped at how much time it saves and how great the bass impact is in the room across all key listening positions. We did find that if you want to go true audiophile-level, you may want to tweak the room gain and deep bass after ARC has run, but we walk you through that in the ARC Genesis Tips & Tricks video.

And speaking of subwoofers, ARC Genesis gives you the option to run your main speakers’ full range and send bass to a subwoofer at the same time for those audiophiles who prefer their left and right speakers to just roll off naturally.

Another thing we like about ARC is the fact it has 4 presets. This means you could set up one room correction for the best sound at your own favorite seat. You could do another that optimized across 2-4 seats for date nights, another for a room full of guests, and another for late-night listening with your subwoofers turned down or off. And along with these 4 ARC presets, they also have full adjustments for level, crossover, and distance for each one. For those of you who geek out on getting the most from your system, this literally has it all.

Audiophile Level DAC's

For the AVM90, Anthem uses very high-end audiophile-level DAC's that work at 32bit/768kHz. This is one of the improvements that came from the delay in the initial shipments of the AVM90. The Anthem engineers had more time to evaluate all of the best DAC’s available. We’ll digress a bit here, but one of our all-time favorite surround sound processors from a pure audio standpoint was the Classe SSP800. It just sounded like a high-end piece of two-channel gear. Interestingly enough, a few of the team at Anthem used to be associated with Classe and had their own personal SSP800’s to compare the test samples they made when developing the revised AVM90. They totally nailed the audio in the AVM90, it sounds much better than our old SSP800 for pure two-channel audio, which is saying a lot. With the AVM90 your sound will be smoother and sweeter with deeper bass extension and a more effortless presentation. If you are considering either the AVM70 or 90 and plan to use your home theater for music listening, you will definitely appreciate the great DAC’s in both of these units, but the AVM90 is a substantial jump up in audio quality.

Overall Recommendation

Anthem processors have always done a fantastic job at spatial imaging. They can locate effects in precise positions with special effects panning across or around the room sounding totally natural. With the better DAC’s and improved power supplies the AVM90 got even better. In our listening test, it could float effects with pinpoint accuracy all over the home theater soundfield.

I know a lot of you watching this are probably considering both the AVM70 and AVM90.

The question comes down to whether the AVM90 is worth the additional cost for your situation than the AVM70? Honestly, for most people, the AVM70 will be a perfect fit and offer excellent sound and spatial imaging in a great home theater. But, if you have the budget and want to get the very best sound and movie experience you will love the AVM90. Now that Apple, Tidal, and Amazon all have Atmos music, the music experience in an Atmos-enabled theater is unparalleled and is only getting better as new music is mastered in Atmos. For those of you who are diehard two-channel fans, check out our videos on the top 10 Atmos movies and music and you’ll experience a whole new level of audio that you never knew existed in the 2-channel world. I’ll admit that some of the remasters are a little hokey, but new music mastered in Atmos correctly will give you goosebumps.

Another scenario where you should choose the AVM90 over the AVM70 is if you have more than 2 subwoofers and want the advantage of ARC Genesis blending them perfectly into your system. Don’t underestimate the difference this can make if you have more than 2 subs!

Finally, if you have the budget and you love great audio and have more than 2 subs, you’d be crazy not to get the AVM90!

If you are trying to decide whether to invest in the AVM90 or not, feel free to give us a call or chat with us at AudioAdvice.com or stop by one of our award-winning showrooms. We’d be happy to help you figure out what is best for your situation. In addition to our price guarantee, we also offer free shipping and lifetime support.

At Audio Advice, we've been designing and installing high-performance home theaters & smart home systems for decades. In fact, we've delivered more custom theaters than anyone in the Southeast! We are now offering Home Theater Design no matter where you live in the United States. If you are interested in a custom home theater or upgrading your current system, give us a call at 888.899.8776, chat with us, or stop by one of our award-winning showrooms.

If you are thinking about building a home theater or updating yours, be sure to check out Home Theater Central, including our free 3D home theater designer where you can design your system, see lots of videos of complete installations, and browse our inspiration gallery and how-to videos.