Scheer Home Theater Systems Portfolio

Anthem Statement D1 Surround Sound Controller, Audiophile Preamplifier, and Home Theater A/V Control Center

Author: Brian Florian - www.hometheaterhifi.com | Source: statement.anthemav.com

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The Pro Logic II Music non-mandatory adjustments are available to the user. Panorama, Dimension, and Center Width can be set. Similarly, DTS:Neo6's Center Image adjustment is available. To the best of our knowledge the AVM-20 and D1 are the only home theater Dolby Digital decoders on the planet which read the Surr.Encode flag in two-channel Dolby Digital. The original idea with Dolby was that if the two channel soundtrack is surround encoded, and the author set the flag properly, a processor would automatically go into Pro Logic II Movie. The other flag settings are not surr encoded (where the SSP would go into stereo mode) and not specified (where the SSP would just stay in its current mode). It's sort of a moot point at this time because content authors did not embrace setting it properly, but I will continue to point it out if for no other reason than to demonstrate how Anthem does a thorough job, while most other companies have not bothered.

THX Surround EX (and Dolby Digital EX) playback executes flawlessly, and there are options to force it, kill it, or have it respond to the flag in the bitstream. THX's Re-Eq can be turned off independently of the THX Cinema/THX Surround EX, and this choice is by input.

As per THX requirements, the Anthem home theater D1 attenuates DTS material by 4 dB, equating it with Dolby Digital material encoded with what was once the default Dialnorm value of -27. When Dolby Digital and DTS first came to consumers, this made sense as it put the two on the same level. Now, unfortunately, the industry has not stuck with their original way of doing things, and some studios are moving to a Dialnorm of -31 as their standard. What to do? Ultimately, if you don't care at all to know what your volume is relative to reference, none of this matters. For the rest of us, I can foresee asking companies like Anthem in the future to break the rules and start offering an option whereby the SSP will "re-normalize" AC-3 soundtracks to a -27 equivalent (in other words, apply the same -4 dB attenuation to -31 Dialnorm AC-3 material as is done to DTS) so that everything is on the same page. That's one idea anyway (and I admit, not a very good one).

All material is down-mixable to two-channel for the other zones, headphones, or tape/CD recording. This includes all muti-channel digital formats as well as the 5.1 analog input.

For old untreated soundtracks, the industry standard Academy Filter is available as is a non-filtered mono mode, an all-channel mono mode, and an all-channel stereo mode. Anthem's own matrix decoders, Anthem Logic, are still on the table and present a subjective alternative to Pro Logic IIx.

At the start of a bitstream, the display will show the difference in Dialnorm assertion with reference to -27. So for example, if you see "Dialnorm: +4 dB", that means the output of the decoder has been raised by 4 dB. Cycling through "Status" will show you such things as current software version, bitrate of the current bitstream, and output configuration.

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