Anthem 225 Integrated

Polkie2009

Congrats Paul! I've never looked into buying any Anthem gear, but within the last 5 years every time I check out reviews on their pre/pros, it's always rock solid and blows the doors off of the usual competition like Pioneer, Sony, Onkyo , Parasound, Rotel, B&K, Emotiva. I'm guessing all__ of their equipment is made with integrity. Sounds like the Anthem company is dead solid perfect.

hochpt21

Got her all hooked up. Haven't had time alone to do critical listening, but my initial general observations are quite good.

Bass like a ****. Not obnoxious, but tight and weighty. I like it.

Soundstage is wide, but not necessarily deep.

When I play a regular cd, the dynamics seem to be lacking, but at this point I attribute to taking the DAC out of the chain because SACD still sounds good. When I previously ran the Oppo through the DL3...regular cd's sounded pretty much as good as SACD straight from the Oppo, but now that's not the case.

I'll have to spend more time with it for sure and possibly look into getting a universal player with a better DAC to really compare.

A big part of the reason for the big change in my system was to get everything to fit into a built-in shelf. It now does and it looks fantastic.

I'll post pictures when I get the chance.

hochpt21

hochpt21

hochpt21

tonyb

Kinda makes it hard to use the fireplace eh ? Nice amp bro, congrats.

Erik Tracy

Congrats - enjoy the sonic goodness!

EndersShadow

Thats purdy sexy!

Hows it sound?

hochpt21

tonyb wrote: »

Kinda makes it hard to use the fireplace eh ? Nice amp bro, congrats.

We had a wood burning fireplace in our last house. We used it, and liked it but it would kinda make the walls gunky after awhile and once we started having kids we stopped using it.

When we moved into this house from the top of the fireplace (where the tv is right now) to the ceiling was black with soot. 5 hours, some oxyclean and a LOT of elbow grease, coupled with the three kids now, we decided not to use this fireplace right now.

Plus I really wanted to use the built-in and this is the best TT isolation I've ever had.

hochpt21

EndersShadow wrote: »

Thats purdy sexy!

Hows it sound?

Still haven't had the chance to light it up alone, so my initial thoughts above still hold true. One thing I have noticed with cd's (again, this may be the fact that I have taken the separate DAC out of the chain right now) is that when the music is simple it sounds REALLY good. When there is a lot going on, however, it tends to sound congested/loud/harsh and lack dynamics.

I still have a lot of listening to do.

hochpt21

Erik Tracy wrote: »

Congrats - enjoy the sonic goodness!

Thank you.

Wow, wife's Ipad doesn't take very good pictures.

hochpt21

A glimmer of hope!!

I've been listening a lot, but regular cd's and vinyl just weren't sounding as good as what I had before. I was starting to get a little bummed.

I finally had the chance to hook up the GCPH rather than the built in phono stage on the Anthem, and wow what a difference. I was hoping to consolidate a lot of boxes into one, but looks like the phono stage in the Anthem isn't where I need it to be.

Next will be testing it with a DAC to see if the cd's will get back to where I need them to be.

More testing and evaluation needed, but today gave me a glimmer of hope!

tonyb

Why did you take the dac out of the loop to begin with ? Every system can benefit from a good dac.

hochpt21

tonyb wrote: »

Why did you take the dac out of the loop to begin with ? Every system can benefit from a good dac.

I'm trying to get everything to fit in the cubby. The ultimate plan was to see if the 225 was a keeper, and then get an Oppo 105 to replace the 83 to save space.

I could maybe fit the DLIII on top of the 83 currently, but it would be a tight squeeze.

Christo

I had one briefly. I could not get it to sound good in my system. It seemed very fatiguing. I don't know why, all reviews I read were very complimentary.

hochpt21

Had half a minute today, so I switched the B&K back in the loop.

GCPH direct to B&K 200.2 Reference.

Damn...simply more engaging. My ear is still developing, but it pisses me off because this is obvious.

I want the Anthem to work because I need the space.

Although I have the Oppo 105 arriving this week. I'll try the Oppo as my digital pre and the GCPH as my analogue.

Baby steps.

TNHNDYMAN

^ Why are you not going to use to analog section of the oppo? Or better question that may answer the first- how many 2ch analog source inputs do you need?

hochpt21

I think I said that wrong.

My B&K has switchable balanced and unbalanced connections.

I plan to run the turntable to the GCPH (it has it's own gain control) than directly to the B&K via balanced interconnects.

I plan to run the Oppo unbalanced directly to the B&K (using the Oppo as a pre), and hook the satellite tv box and a Roku to the Oppo via the DAC inputs.

Potentially run Rhapsody through the oppo for streaming services.

I'll just switch between balanced and unbalanced depending on my source.