Answered Arcam AVR8500 vs Denon AVC-X8500H vs Anthem mrx 1120

mrapbp

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Hi All,

I was hoping for some thoughts on the above AVC's. I am looking to get back into the world of home cinema, been away for a while as it was ruining my life!! Starting to remember why to be honest..... :)

I am fairly set on a B&W 700 series 7.1.4 setup (sub TBC) and am looking for a receiver to match. I have read all the reviews, thoughts and info on the above receivers and am looking for some thoughts on which way to jump. I know I should go and listen to them all but trying to find somewhere anywhere near me that has them all is fairly impossible. The price varies a bit also but I think broadly they should do a fairly similar job. I guess I want to get some thought on if there is enough of a difference between these 3 to justify that difference. I can get the following prices:

Denon - £2300 refurbished with warranty
Anthem - £3000 B stock with warranty
Arcam - £3300 new but will need another £1200 ish for a power amp for the extra channels so £4500 in reality

I know the Arcam is well regarded by just about everyone but is it worth the extra?

I can afford any of these and typically like to 'spend once spend right' but also don't want to waste money needlessly.

Another option is the Denon AVR-X6400H which can be had for £1300 now, seems like a relative bargain compared to the Arcam, I know its unlikely to be as good but may be good enough.....?

Any others I haven't thought of at this kind of level?

Any thoughts gratefully received!

Cheers!
 
All are good, all have their pros and cons. I’ve had all three manufacturers in the past. For movies I felt the Arcam lacked a bit.

Many people will give you their own preference, but in reality, they are all good in their own right and it depends on what you see as the most important aspect. A lot will also depend on your room layout/acoustic properties.

The anthem is great as it has excellent room EQ that is also very simple to use. Arcam has Dirac which people rave about but I didn’t really like. The denon is rock solid and very reliable.

After trying a number of different receivers and processors, I’ve finally settled on a marantz 8805 which for me, within a similar budget completely blew everything else out of the water in every aspect.
 
I have an Arcam 850, which I got nearly 3 years ago. I'm not a big fan of Dirac, but v2 has brought improvements and the forthcoming bass modules that they are promising to release may bring further improvements, so for now I will keep my Arcam.

In recent months, I've had the Anthem and Denon on 2 week long home trials. I could give the Denon back fast enough as I found it very flat sounding and boring, with and without Audyssey. I was surprised at this as previously I had tried a Marantz and quite liked it. It was just uninspiring and lacking in dynamics.

As for the Anthem, this was another disappointment. I found it muddy sounding and nothing seem to get rid of that impression. This was the case with and without ARC (tried ARC and ARC Genesis). I still wonder if I got a defective unit, but it came straight from the distributor after being at a trade show, so I would have thought it would have been OK. One day I'll likely try it again as my results seem at odds with demos I've attended and what other users have reported.

All of these results are of course based around my system in my room, so I would strongly advise getting demos and then some home trials. They are all relatively expensive, so it's important to get it right.

I'd certainly agree that the Marantz sounds better than the Denon. Well it did in my system.

As for the best I've heard so far in my system/room, that has to go to the Lyngdorfs with Room Perfect. That was a close decision as the cost was just too high for what I needed.
 
I have the Arcam and Anthem. The Arcam sounds a bit better but Dirac is more fiddly than ARC Genesis. I actually use the Anthem in conjunction with a good 2+2 stereo/sub amplifier (better for music than the Arcam) which drives the subs and FL and FR speakers. This combination is markedly better than the Arcam.
 
Agree with the previous posters regarding the Arcam. Dirac is fiddly but worthwhile, and the underlying capabilities of the Arcam amp makes it an excellent choice.

I'd also suggest taking the time to research the Arendal 1723 Tower speakers as these are within budget and blow the competition out of the water in that range (IMHO a league above the B&W you're looking at), and for some are felt to be better than speakers twice the price.
 
To add two things. Firstly re Dirac and Arcam it is supposed to be professionally installed and set up by a dealer. You are welcome to do it yourself but on the basis that Dirac run various training courses for installers it wasn’t really designed for non-professional use ie its not super intuitive. It is however, widely regarded as the best in the business within its scope.

Secondly we now have hdmi 2.1 appearing on this years TV’s, so make sure you look at whether you need it and whether any AVR you buy can support it or pass thru.
 
Sounds like the amps you’re after are all good quality and mid/high end, as such if it were me I’d not be constantly chasing the next new features like hdmi 2.1. I’ve done all that before and you get in an endless loop waiting for something that never arrives or is very delayed, only to find when it arrived you have no real need for it. Current hdmi does all I need for now. How long would you plan to keep the amp, if 10 years maybe wait, but if only 2-3 then meh...
You don’t say what your requirements are beyond 7.1.4, do you have a single 4k tv / pj or maybe both? Must you have an all in one box or as small as you can get or could you have space to squeeze in a power amp or amps? You also don’t say if it’s purely for films or films and music. Are your speakers confirmed yet, what you using for the ceiling ATMOS?
Denon have all the gadgets and do all I need, but whilst I find them ok they don’t set my pants on fire and I don’t tend to like their room eq so much in my setup so often turn it off, although others do like it. If you want an all in one and need 7.1.4 then the x6500/6400 is all you need or an x4500 and either a HiFi integrated with AV bypass or add a multi channel power amp such as IOTAVX 7 channel (@£1050) or Emotiva etc.. The Marantz have equal equivalents also, same company but mildly more musical for casual listening..
Arcam are VERY musical, their mantra was to make an AVR that could play musical instruments like a HiFi amp, so as they should sound, pianos etc.... To me DIRAC is the dogs danglies, has a mild learning curve, but if you’re even slightly technical, you should be fine. If you struggle to make beans on toast then look elsewhere.. :) People for some reason says it’s a nightmare to use, it’s not. Yes initially it’s not 100% intuitive and may appear daunting, but spend 30 mins playing, reading and understanding a few basic concepts, i.e. like get the measuring/recording levels correct, in the green and not clipping in the red and you’re 80% there. Yes there’s lots you can play with if you want advanced tweaking, but it’s not mandatory to get good results. Arcam only has 7 amps, so if you want 7.1.4 you need extra, Arcam do a very good one, but anything like an Emotiva BASX A-500 (@£699) will do for ATMOS.. This will give a pretty good AV and HiFi combo, an external HiFi amp around £1k+ will beat it, but it’s not a bad music amp on its own, it will make you smile...
Anthem is a good middle ground, simpler to setup and pretty good results, but not as musical to me and I do prefer DIRAC....

On the Arcam front the main difference between the 390, 550 & 850 is the power amp section, the 390 has a block PSU instead of toroidal, then each gets more / different power as you go up class A/B & G etc.. There’s nothing to say you couldn’t buy the cheaper 390 or 550 and spend the extra on a 7, 9 or 11 channel amp, you get all the features and arguably a more flexible setup. An all-in-1 amp is nice, but an external PA will probably have more power or at least better quality power which speakers like the 700’s will sound much better on.. Same goes with Marantz 60xx, 70xx and many other makes... Thing is AVRs change features every year or so, if you have your main power amps separate that match your speakers they can stay for many years and if your requirements and features change, say hdmi 2.1, you can change that bit separately..
Thing is there’s many options and everyone can tell you want they think or prefer or have, a few more must haves or could haves may help distill the list down...
Having said all that, at this level of spend there’s nothing that can replace the good old fashioned demo, maybe in ship first, but I’d also recommend at home if at all possible...
 
Thanks for all the responses so far, really appreciate it. Nice to see that even though I have been away for a while this is still a good/helpful community!

Thatsnotmynaim, thank you for the detailed response! -

I currently have a pair of B&WCM10's with a Naim Superuniti amp that I use for stereo duties. I may keep the amp for just stereo duties as its very good but not sure at the moment. Will depend on what I end up going for, the Arcam might be able to do both which means I could sell the Naim and will help with costs. Something like the Denon 6400 might not be up to the stereo job and is a lot cheaper so if I go that way might keep both. I can do anything really but I would prefer to go for a more simple solution that just works, that said I am open to whatever makes sense. The costs are also starting to rack up (need to have my front room completely moved around to accommodate all this and all the speakers installed etc etc and also need new seating if I do this!), so whilst budget isn't the main issue (would rather buy once and buy right!) with all the other costs I do need to make sure I keep an eye on things. We all know how this can escalate really quickly, started by upgrading my Sonos playbar to a Sennheiser Ambeo for £2k and am now at MANY more thousands!!

I want to go for a 7.1.4 setup and have no intention of going any further (at the moment!). I will probably get someone in to set this all up and calibrate, I believe Steve Withers is fairly local to me so might arrange to have him come in all get it all working correctly.

In terms of speakers I have the B&W CM10's at the front which I like and was planning to build a system around. The other I am looking to buy are:

1 x B&W HTM71 S2 - Centre Channel
2 x pairs of B&W CCM664 - for ceiling duties
2 x Pairs of B&W 707 S2 - for rear and surround
1 x subwoofer TBC - possible either Arendal Sub 2 or SVS SB400, still figuring that out.

I will be basing this system around a newly purchased Samsung Q90R 75". It will be for movies but also general TV watching. The room is around 21ft x 19ft with no obstructions or restrictions. I also don't have any neighbours and a very understanding wife!!
 
If you decide on a Denon X6400 I would certainly keep a stereo amp for music duties. I have the X6200, it's stereo performance is disappointing and as such I use a Rega Elicit-R and it's HT by-pass capabilities.
 
Arh you know Naim and you like 2ch, I’ll talk in terms of that then. None of the amps you mention will beat the Superuniti for stereo it's just in a Superleague that's why it cvost nearly £4k, I doubt any AVR will match it unless you're spending £10k+.
I'd say the Arcam is best, but more like 5si, XS2 territory....
As for x8500 vs x6400 for stereo, even if the x8500 is marginally better at 2ch than an x6400, both will be way worse than ANY Naim or cheaper HiFi amp, so way below a 5si even, it just won't have that timing and go so will just be flat...
If 2ch is important I'd say an Arcam or any good AVR with pre-outs and a HiFi Integrated. An x8500 will not vut it if you're already at Superunit stage now, despite what it says on paper, it's Naim watts with bags of control and reserve, with some amps you can sometimes rudimentary tell how good it is by weight if it's not class D, the Naim weighs a ton...
 
Thinking back to your requirements and the fact you have the SU, you basically really only need something like a Marantz 701x or Denon x4x00 if you keep your SU as they both have 9 ch of amps and you can reassign the unused fronts to ATMOS duties. It will by far give you the best for music (I’m know you will not match the SU with an AVR) and it’ll drive your fronts like nothing else out there... If you then bring into the mix room correction then that opens up a can of worms, so work out if you will benefit from it or not, most will, if your room is perfect the advantages are reduced... Let’s say you want / need room EQ, well for me that rules out anything that nots DIRAC or Anthem, but if you can get away with XT32 then the 701x or x4x00 are a nice reasonable price solution when paired with you SU and if you have change left over because they have full pre-outs you can always add a 5, 7 or 9 ch PA... The Arcam will still need 4 ch amp to drive ATMOS unfortunately.. Don’t loose the SU, it was £4k back in the day, I’d be surprised if you get 1/3 of that back now, but it still sounds like a £4k amp....
 
Some great advice in here and I also have a bit of an upgrade itch that I'd like to scratch. Just wondering what you ended up doing @mrapbp ?
 
I ended up going with the Denon 8500, got a decent deal on a new one. It has worked flawlessly and as far as I can tell the sound is excellent and has all the features I need. I can’t see anything else anywhere near that price that is worth upgrading to so pretty happy at the moment.

inalso ended up selling the Naim. I realised I wasn’t listening to stereo much and that the Denon was good enough to cover both duties (nowhere near as good as the Nail but good enough!)
 
Thanks. As tempted as I am to bite at the Arcam 850 or Denon 8500 (possibly even a Marantz) I think I'm leaning toward going for a high end stereo amp with HT passthrough. Cheers for the update.
 
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Thanks. As tempted as I am to bite at the Arcam 850 or Denon 8500 (possibly even a Marantz) I think I'm leaning toward going for a high and stereo amp with HT passthrough. Cheers for the update.
If HT by-pass is the chosen route then perhaps have a gander at the X6500. Fair saving in cost and an excellent receiver for film and TV. Smaller footprint than the 8500 is space is an issue. Little point in going for a Marantz if an integrated is going to be used. Cheapest I've seen the 6500 for a while at PT.

 
If you value your stereo music you won’t be disappointed as it gives much more flexibility, some claim all amps are the same, but people’s tastes are highly personal and ‘for me’ more critical with music. What is required for AV and what is required for serious music listening can be vastly different. Most people, or a larger majority of people, will agree when an AV system sounds good, but a music system devides opionions much more. That’s not to say one way is right and another is wrong, but people have different tastes. Having a music system integrated with an AV system allows you to get the best out of both in the same room without having to have 2 separate systems. Whilst people’s preferred sound for music may come less down to being technically perfect and more down to timing, pace and other aspects that are less easily measured. I find AV systems are much easier to measure if correct, but for music I find I prefer to use my ears over a microphone or someone else’s ears, although the later are useful to help you hone in one what potential kit you may like..
 
If HT by-pass is the chosen route then perhaps have a gander at the X6500. Fair saving in cost and an excellent receiver for film and TV. Smaller footprint than the 8500 is space is an issue. Little point in going for a Marantz if an integrated is going to be used. Cheapest I've seen the 6500 for a while at PT.


I guess I'm not going to gain much over my existing x6400 though?
 
I guess I'm not going to gain much over my existing x6400 though?
No. I have the 6200 and that will stay, hopefully, for a while longer. 6500 would be the progression I would make if forced into a change, the 6200 if over four years old now. Your improvement would come with a HT capable stereo amp for music as it did with me.
 
I think given the options I would be temped with the Arcam 390 @ £1400-1500 and add a power amp, say the otavx avxp1 7 channel amp @ £1049. Leaves £500 for say a media player.
 
First time poster, here. Thank you all for the great insights shared on this site. It's been a great education. I have a couple of comments about the Arcam 390, and a couple of questions about the Anthem 1120.

I recently picked up the Arcam 390 when it got discounted (due to the introduction of new models) to replace my old Onkyo AVR, thinking I would eventually do the Arcam/IOTA AVXP17 combo, as well. Unfortunately, the base 390 unit disappointed on several levels. First, for whatever reason, I just didn't feel that it delivered the same degree of "musicality" and soundstage that others have described. The Dirac correction did offer some noticeable benefit, but I was disappointed that the system allows you to save only one profile in it's memory "slot" at a time. (I had wanted to created and utilize different listening profiles for 2.1 vs 7.1 etc.). Changing to a different profile required connecting to the computer and going through a several minutes long process of uploading a different file. Of note, the newer Arcam AVR models allow 3 projects to be stored in memory, while the Anthem allows 4. Finally, despite a wired network connection (directly to the router, not through a switch), and having adequate bandwidth from my ISP, the system seemingly had a hard time connecting to and buffering the data stream from Spotify. There were no problems streaming to other connected devices, but the Arcam simply had a problem managing the initial buffering for the first track played. After 5-15 sec of sputtering stops and starts, it would settle down and behave itself. I really wanted to like the unit, but ended up returning it.

Anyway, that experience prompted my interest in the Anthem 1120. However, I noted that the model is nearly 4 years old. Should that be a concern, or is it robust enough that I should not try to wait for the "next upgrade"? I also discovered that Anthem ran a 20% off trade-in sale last spring/summer. Does anyone have any insight if they are likely to do that again?
 
I have an Arcam 850, which I got nearly 3 years ago. I'm not a big fan of Dirac, but v2 has brought improvements and the forthcoming bass modules that they are promising to release may bring further improvements, so for now I will keep my Arcam.

In recent months, I've had the Anthem and Denon on 2 week long home trials. I could give the Denon back fast enough as I found it very flat sounding and boring, with and without Audyssey. I was surprised at this as previously I had tried a Marantz and quite liked it. It was just uninspiring and lacking in dynamics.

As for the Anthem, this was another disappointment. I found it muddy sounding and nothing seem to get rid of that impression. This was the case with and without ARC (tried ARC and ARC Genesis). I still wonder if I got a defective unit, but it came straight from the distributor after being at a trade show, so I would have thought it would have been OK. One day I'll likely try it again as my results seem at odds with demos I've attended and what other users have reported.

All of these results are of course based around my system in my room, so I would strongly advise getting demos and then some home trials. They are all relatively expensive, so it's important to get it right.

I'd certainly agree that the Marantz sounds better than the Denon. Well it did in my system.

As for the best I've heard so far in my system/room, that has to go to the Lyngdorfs with Room Perfect. That was a close decision as the cost was just too high for what I needed.
Hi which denon did you have the 8500h and the anthem which the 1120? I had the 8500h and I did not find it flat and boring in cinema I had a hard time deciding between it and the arcam avr20 where I noticed the most differences was in music.
 
Hi which denon did you have the 8500h and the anthem which the 1120? I had the 8500h and I did not find it flat and boring in cinema I had a hard time deciding between it and the arcam avr20 where I noticed the most differences was in music.

It was the Denon 8500 that existed before the latest 2.1 update. The Anthem was the 1120.

The 8500 was OK for movies, but I found it poor for music, especially 2-channel music. That was with Audyssey on and off. The 1120 was a bit better for music, but still not on par with my Arcam.

Adding a Lyngdorf TDAi 3400 for stereo duties provided me with the music quality I was after and I'm still running an Arcam/Lyngdorf set up today and have been happy with it for the last 2 years or so.
 

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