Anthem AVM 30 vs. Parasound Halo C2


Anyone care to chime-in on these two Pre/Pros? I'm in the process of upgrading from a Rotel RB-1055 receiver.

Thanks...
128x128teonyc
The self calibration on the parasound was 'ok' at best, it did a HORRIBLE job with the sub - it wanted to think our DD15 was 45ft away and cranked the gain up by approx. 15db!!!! can you say oops? any person even without an SPL meter can manually enter speaker distances and guess gain better than most auto-setup things, it's for (no offense to anyone on the 'gon) folks with far more money than knowledge who are either too cheap to have someone configure it for them, or don't know well enough to set it up themselves.
The AVM20 is very competitive with the C2, and i'd expect the AVM30 to me better than the parasound.

Now that TAG McLaren is on the shelf, Bryston and Krell do figure in at this price point. Also with no Meridian peice at $5K anylonger it is wide open.

If you find yourself not making a decision until closer to the new year, the re-emergence of the TAG processors as Audiolab would be the only processor available that is significantly better than the three brands mentioned above.

So Anthem, Krell, Bryston...all winners, and if it matter I would buy the Anthem, although the Bryston has the best analog line stage, its over simplicity is still a bit of an achilles heal vs the Anthem and the Krell.

Plus Bryston with video switching gets into Meridian $$$ and then there is no comparison. Hope that helps.
Not to complicate things, but I have the Cary Cinema 6. It sounds fantastic with movies, but even more importantly to me is that 2 channel audio sounds better than any pre/pro I've heard.

One review (I think absolute sound) said it was the top sounding unit in its price range ($2500 list).
Hey ! now i am really confused.

I was just about setteled on the AVM-30 untill I saw the Cary Audio Cinema 6. Its so hard to hear a side by side. Can any of you folks help me out?
thanks
nick
--
I too have been going back and forth between the AVM30 and the C2.
I spoke to a dealer in another state then I live in and he has both of them in his showroom. Wish I could compare them. He tells me that sonicly the C2 sounds a little better. Feature wise the C2 is ahead of everyone. No one has bass management and DSP's for the 5.1 analog inputs for SCAD's and DVD-Audio the way the AVM30 does. Anthem also has been coming out with updates every 2 to 3 months. Others just say they can be updated, then don't release any.

I'm going to go with the AVM30. Multi-channel music and movies are important to me. Two channel is dead.