Home Theatre Processor reccomendation

I own a Theta Cassanova and am thrilled with its performance.Its forte is its musicality making it ideal for 2 ch. and HT duties. Theta also has an aggressive program for updates.According to Theta their will be a new software driven processor card available in mid 2003 that will encompass sacd,dvd audio.They are waiting for the chip to digitize sacd. They say you will be able to receive software updates via internet with this new card.

anybody have any experience with the new audio refinement processor? retails for something like 1400

Im looking at the Bryston SP 1.7 and Anthem AVM20. In fact im going to audition both side by side on monday. The main reason im interested in these units is the analog bypass mode. This bypasses all the HT processing within each unit making a solid 2ch preamp.

The Anthem has internal high bandwidth video switching and VERY flexible crossover settings for each speaker. A huge +

The Bryston is "supposed" to have a higher emphasis on the 2ch analog mode equal to the bryston BP-25 2ch preamp. Although lacking video switching and crossover flexibility. Including the SPV-1 video switcher the Bryston path will set you back atleast $2000.00 more USD. Is that warranty (20 years) worth it?

Can anyone else add anything to this thread?

Vedric:

I'm very curious about your results. Living in Maine, doing an A-B is impossible for me. I'm more interested in the musicality of each unit. Let us know what you think. Thanks.

If you want the best sound for your 2 channel, you can use the Adcom GFP-750, which is about as clean as you will ever get and loop through for the surrounds. Adcom has some newer surround systems that are coming out I am anxious to hear. The engineers bought out the company, apparently, and are back to building the way they used to be. They don't have specs yet on their new GTP-880, which is going to be their new flagship, but it looks promising.