Emotiva or Anthem or Something Else?


Hi,

Does anyone have any experience comparing Emotiva to Anthem?

I am about to buy a new system for the livingroom that we are building over here.  This system in this space will be tasked with driving a 5.2.4 home theater system for TV and Movies but it will also need to provide excellent sound quality for listening to music. The sound quality for the music is a top priority.  The source material for this system will be Netflicks and Apple TV for the video content and Amazon HD Music for the Music.

I am considering either the Emotiva RMC-1L processor and XPA9 Gen3 Amp combo or the Anthem MRX 1140 8K.  The Emotiva combo is a bit more expensive and would also require a network streamer for Amazon HD Music which will be a bit more $$.

What is considered to have the better sound quality between these two options? 

Is there something else that I should be looking at?

 

128x128melchionda

@melchionda I recently purchased an Anthem MRK 540 8K...Please hear me out.

The Anthem has far exceeded my expectations as I was considering an Onkyo RZ50 etc however I have a 5.2 room that really cannot accept much more so I did not need the additional channel inputs. The Anthem actually does music incredibly well to my surprise and keep in mind the power rating for the Anthem are WPC all main channels driven not just 2 (in my case 5 channels all getting killer 100 watts). Now for the elephant in the room software set up issues,yes I too struggled with the setup because the instructions are not clear ,long story short run Chromecast or airplay first and your unit will connect if wireless,In a wired setup you will have not problems. And my unit makes ZERO fan noise even after an afternoon of big boom movies.I used the 540 8K for the first week without implementing the ARC Genesis room correction and was impressed with the unit out of the box.When I ran the ARC room correction OMG what a difference everything opened up and it made full use of the power on tap to its fullest. (ARC does give the bass a leaner presentation but simply increase the sub(s) gain by a tad in my case).

I’d suggest my units big brother(s) in your case.Buy it from Crutchfield (don’t like send it back Hassle free) try the anthem alone without any additional amps first. I suspect you’ll find you will not need any additional amplification .I cannot crank my MRX 540 8k beyond 35% without discomfort the detail,bass slam in movies & music its all there you cannot do better than an Anthem witout spending crazy money,it truly is a complete package and all that!

owned an Anthem AVM60 and wanted to step up to higher speaker count. i had a 7.1.4 Home Theater system and wanted to step up to 9.3.6.

2 years ago, i decided to go all in and purchase a Trinnov Altitude 16. it does not use off the shelf chip sets that become obsolete. it’s completely software based. how many HT processors will you buy? if you buy a Trinnov you will be done. forever. amazing customer service and support. top level performance.

https://www.trinnov.com/en/products/altitude-sup-16-sup/

@balooo2

when i purchased mine the list price was $16,995. right now i think it’s $18,500 list price. likely your dealer would work with you some on the price, you can’t buy it on line from a big box store.

the support is phenomenal. once you install the Trinnov in your system and connect it to your network it’s automatically connected to the Tinnov service network and they will assist you in the set-up and trouble shoot any issues on line.

here is a used one listed for sale....

https://www.usaudiomart.com/details/649920084-trinnov-altitude-16-4-home-theater-processor-20-channels/

if you want to know anything about Trinnov here is a thread on AVS where you can get any question answered.

https://www.avsforum.com/threads/trinnov-altitude.1516103/page-1123#post-62244596

here are some pictures of my Home Theater room from 2 years ago when my -3- Funk Audio 18.0 subs arrived....

https://www.avsforum.com/threads/official-funk-audio-thread.1682418/page-95#post-60708790

i’m mainly a 2 channel guy.....you can see my 2 channel system on my detail link with my name.....and that will show you how serious i am about great sound. the Trinnov delivers.....GREAT SOUND.

 

Latest thought after doing more reading reviews...

Option 1 - NAD is out.  I just dont see their feature set being comparable and I'm not seeing any reviews of anyone saying that the products I'm considering are all that amazing.

Option 2 - Yamaha 20280 receiver is the front runner.  I'd like to find a better deal on the integrated amp though.  Also, as much as I've seen good reviews I have yet to see one that says its amazing.

Option 3 - Marantz Still in the running but not by much.  I really want an A/B amp and the Marantz is class D

Option 4 - Emotiva  - Out

Option 5 - Onkyo is out.  I think I can find the Yamaha 2080 for equal to or less than the Onkyo and the Yamaha is better

Option X - Now considering a Rotel RB-1592 MKII as the integrated amp.  I saw a review on Youtube by a guy who reviews a ton of stuff and he really liked it.  He thought that it was as good as the Yamaha A-S3200... while being the same price as the 2200.