I recently had both in my system hooked up to Aragon 8008BB amp and B&W 805N speakers. The Anthem AVM20 is in a different class. The Carver sounds flat and lifeless (IMO). It also has this annoying auto input switching feature that gets confused a lot. The Anthem has an almost tube like sound. When it comes to customer service, I would give the nod to Sunfire. Sonic Frontiers customer service can be frustration at times. I had an AVM2 that died and sent it back for repair. Service beat the hell out of the unit and when I got it back there were scratches on the face and case and the unit was still dead. Sent it back a second time and they returned the unit in the same condition (still not working and with scratches) and said that they replaced the face and case. They even sent me an invoice for this repair! Afer many phone calls and threats of legal and criminal action they agreed to replace the unit. They few times I call Sunfire with questions they were curtious and they even returned phone calls when they said they would!!!!! I ended up returning the Sunfire to the dealer who loaned it to me while he was on vacation.
I sat down yesterday and watched the Matrix Reloaded yesterday. I kept getting distracted from the movie because the sound was so da__ good in some of the scenes. I guess that says a lot about the Anthems HT capibilities.
I currently have my DVD player hooked up 4 different ways to the Anthem: 2 channel analog for bypass and stereo and 2 channel SACD listening, coax digital for stereo listening with sub, Toslink digital for movies, and 6 Channel input for Multi-Channel SACD. That should give you an idea of how flexible the inputs are on the Anthem.
I sat down yesterday and watched the Matrix Reloaded yesterday. I kept getting distracted from the movie because the sound was so da__ good in some of the scenes. I guess that says a lot about the Anthems HT capibilities.
I currently have my DVD player hooked up 4 different ways to the Anthem: 2 channel analog for bypass and stereo and 2 channel SACD listening, coax digital for stereo listening with sub, Toslink digital for movies, and 6 Channel input for Multi-Channel SACD. That should give you an idea of how flexible the inputs are on the Anthem.