Sound and Vision takes a shine to Anthem's Room Correction

The lucky folks at Sound and Vision Magazine put Anthem's ARC-1 Room Correction System to test and liked it pretty well. It was evaluated in combination with the top o' the line Statement D2 processor, so the bar set by the associated gear was pretty high. Setup of the $399 add-on -- gratis if you've got a D2 -- sounds pretty straightforward: connect a PC running the ARC-1 software to the Anthem processor via RS-232 and use the included mic to gather some tone sweeps. From there, bumps and wrinkles in your in-room frequency response curve are smoothed out and multichannel levels, crossovers and delays are all set up. The correction (and the rest of the D2's performance) got a solid endorsement from the audiophiles at S&V: they liked it enough to leave it engaged at all times for both music and movie performances.

[Thanks, Rob]

[(Unverified) Posted May 27th 2008 8:01PM]

I can't wait to order mine. Unfortunately Athem doesn't allow their products to be sold via the internet so I have to find time to make it to my local dealer which is a pain. I still believe there is no better SSP and scaler than the D2. It is the best purchase I have me. Secrets of Home Theater did a great review as well.

[(Unverified) Posted May 28th 2008 12:38AM]

It looks like a wonderful machine and all, but it's only a HDMI 1.1 device. It won't do all the sexy lossless formats, handle deep color, or handle lip sync. If I'm gonna drop $8k on a preamp/processor it sure as hell better decode everything currently on the market.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 6th 2008 5:23PM]

If you want something that handles all the latest general-purpose-computer-based formats, you're stuck with general-purpose-computers. And once you've done that, you've likely compromised the sound quality for *every* format, lossless or not.

I own a D2. Everything the D2 does right now, it does exceptionally well. With the frequently-upgraded firmware (several times per year), the capabilities of the D2 grow broader. My D2 is so good that I don't care if I can't play flac through it directly -- I own CDs and DVDs and don't mind walking across the room to insert them in a transport's drawer. But if I did care, I'd find the highest-quality pc->spdif adapter and connect that to my D2.

If you just want a super-high-quality bridge from your PC to your amplifiers, consider the Slim Media (now owned by Logitech) Transporter. Anecdotal reports suggest it sounds nearly as good as a D2, for a lot less money. It has far fewer features and flexibility than the D2, but if you are in the target audience, it is a fabulous device.

[(Unverified) Posted May 28th 2008 9:49AM]

The D2 actually does handle lip sync already and from what I hear they will be doing HDMI 1.3 upgrades (required for the new formats) for D2's sometime before the end of the summer. IMO it's worth waiting rather than skimping on a lesser pre/pro.