Anthem vs Krell vs Meridian

Thanks for the feedback. I should have been more detailed on what I need. I want the processor for 80-90 percent movies and 10-20 percent multi-channel music.

I will play 2 channel music thru a system consisting of Oracle, Tri-Planer, Lyra feeding a Pass Labs Xono, Esoteric DV50S DVD player(Highly modified by Reference Audio Mods) Pass Labs pre amp, Pass X-600 monos and Legacy Focous speakers. Milti-channel speakers are also from Legacy and a 5 channel amp from Pass Labs. All cables are Synergistic.

I guess what I want is a processor that will go with the rest of my system.

Thanks again for taking time to respond to this.

Hands down...Meridian.

IMO, the Anthem doesn't come close. The Krell is better than before. So many hated Krell because its "cold." The designers have revamped a few things and its products have really improved over the recent year or so.

However, hands down its the Meridian. Its, IMO the best anything out there. Be it 2CH (why you would even use it for 2CH is beyond me), MC, whatever. The 861...it gets no better! We won't even discuss Trifield. It was revolutionary in its inception some years ago. No one have come up with anything better to date. The 861 can be somewhat attention grabbing, but once you get the thing up and running....its all over.

I have a similar system as you. I used to have Focus 20/20s, but now use Whispers. Everything else is Legacy for surround as well as the subs. Even my source is an Upgrade Company improved DV-50. I think I have a pretty good idea how resolving your system is from my own experience.

With this in mind, I have more food for thought for you - The Krell HTS 7.1 has only one multi-channel input and it is a pass-through only with not even level adjustments. It does however do level adjustments, bass management and time alignment through the digital inputs.

Why do I mention this you might ask...?

I bring this up because although the new generation of blu-ray players has digital audio outputs [either coax or HDMI] the analog outputs are a huge improvement due to their higher resolution. My local A/V store did a demo for me with an HTS 7.1 and a blu-ray player, the difference in audio via coax and analog was gigantic [analog being the clear winner – pun intended]. This improvement is much more significant than the image quality improvement yielded from the Blu-ray disk...IMO.

What surprises me the most is that the Sony BDP-S1 I have sitting on my shelf right now for demo purposes has no adjustments [level control, time alignment, and bass management] from either its digital or analog outputs. This is something that your DV-50 does have to a limited degree…at least it has level adjustments for its multi-channel outputs. For me, this player is a no-go for this and some other reasons not related to this thread.

Thus, all this adds more complication if you "want it all." Not only might you have two multi-channel sources [the DV-50 for DVD-A/SACD multi-channel audio AND a new Blu-ray and/or HD-DVD], but if you need to adjust anything with the multi-channel pre-amp, then the HTS 7.1 isn't for you from a feature standpoint.

Also, HDMI connectivity should be seriously looked at, not for video, but higher resolution audio. This is something I really don’t know much about though, but could help to replace those multi-channel analog inputs for the newer sources. I believe there is a newer HDMI standard for these higher resolutions that are available with HD-DVD and Blu-ray, or will be some time in the near future.

I am sorry if I am confusing matters. It is all rather confusing even to me.

Dbld, sorry about the lack of clarity on my post.

It was the Krell at $3999. Maybe it was the showcase.

I would guess you have the krell processor that was retailing at $8,000 at that time. If thats the case it should perform more then a $3,000 processor.

For 2 channel the D1 and avm20/30 sounds close from what I gathered. I was going to upgrade to the D1 so I asked several D1 owners who replaced their avm20. None of their responses concluded it was much different in two channel. My salesman also said the same thing.

Michaelmk,

Is your MC system 7.1? Or do you plan to go to 7.1 at some point? If so, then you'll want to have DPLIIx and / or Logic 7.

Krell PrePros only have DPLII, not DPLIIx, and DPLII only suppports 5.1.

AFAIK, the other PrePros mentioned have DPLIIx, or in the case of Lexicon both DPLIIx and Logic 7.

FWIW, I evolved from 5.1 to 7.1 and found 7.1 provides a much better surround envelopment.

Thanks
Bruce