LATEST ADDITIONS

Audio Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Pristine audio plus 4K passthrough video
Clean, simple, eminently usable design
Excellent proprietary auto-setup/EQ system
DTS Play-Fi streaming/multiroom wireless capability
Minus
Lacks Bluetooth, USB playback
No legacy video connections or scaling

THE VERDICT
The AVM 60 has everything you want in an A/V preamp/processor—and less. The stuff that Anthem has left off their more affordable pre/pro model contributes to simplicity and usability, and most buyers will end up thanking them in the long run.

For much of the home theater epoch, system builders who (for whatever reasons) have favored a separates-based system— built around an A/V preamplifier/processor and a suitable amplifier or amps—and have preferred such a system over the more usual A/V receiver approach have had, in essence, two choices. They could select one of a few very expensive, esoteric, high-end American or European designs, with the knowledge that they would probably lag a generation or two behind in HDMI version and latest-greatest surround and video processing. Or they could select a latest-model Japanese offering—recently, this has meant, effect-ively, Integra/Onkyo, Marantz, or Yamaha—and get more up-tothe-minute tech and more digestible pricing, at a certain cost in audiophile street-cred and (perhaps, depending on your belief system) sonic refinement.