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Review 2 of 2
Price Paid:
$3600.00
from Cherry Creek Audio Summary:
Price is for bothe A5 and A2 amps.I bought these amps to replace an anthem pva-7 because I wanted a little more power. About a year ago I tried replacing the pva-7 with a B&K reference200.7. To be honest, I didn't notice much of a difference between the two. After a couple of weeks the B&K started to make a hissing noise thru one of the channels so I returned it and went back to the Anthem pva-7. A coulple of months ago I decided to try to upgrade again, this time to Bob Carver's Sunfire Cinema Grand signature 400.7. I did notice a marked improvement with this this amp, but unfortunatly the rt. front amp section blew out after 2 weeks and I was having difficulty getting Sunfire to work with my local dealer to replace the unit, and because of my displeasure with the customer service at Sunfire I decided to return the amp and continue my search.
I then decided to look into Anthems other larger amps. The reason I hadn't looked into the more powerful Anthems before was that they didn't have a 200 watt amp in seven channels and I thought because of space restraints in my home theater rack I wouldn't be able to use a 5 and 2 channel amp set-up, but after some re-thinking and shifting things around I figured it was feasible and worth a try, so I ordered the A5 and A2.
When I received them I hooked them up with balanced cables to my Anthem avm30 pre/pro and paradigm signature s4,c3 and adps and fired them up.
At under 200 watts into all channels I was worried I might be disappointed in the A5/2 compared to the Sunfire(which I had really liked). No problem. They were at least as good as the Sunfire IMHO and much better than the B&K.(In fairness I should note that the B&K was hooked up via unbalced rca connections as was the pva-7).
All the clarity, depth and Bang! I had gotten from the Sunfire was there with the Anthems. No step down at all. And surprisingly the Anthems run as cool as the Sunfire, Which is good since I have the A2 in the bottom part of my storage unit behind closed doors.
Now, Anthem suggests that you break in the units before doing any critical listening but they sounded fantastic right out of the box. Of course,if they get better I won't be upset but if they don't get any better I will still be very, very satisfied.
The biggest differences I noticed wirh the A2/5 over the pva-7 and B&K ref 200.7 is the clarity and detail and reality these amps give to both dvd's and cd's. Strengths:
Clarity. Great sound stage with music. Run cool.As much bang out of the 200w/ch as the Sunfire 400w/ch with action movies. Weaknesses:
The amps have a blue light that stays on all the time and 2/5 blue lights that come on when the unit is powered up that can be distracting,but i coverd all the lights up with black electrical tape except one that goes on and off and its much better. Similar Products Used:
sunfire cinema grand signature 400.7 -I liked amp, very disappointed with customer service.
B&K Reference 200.7- I personally feel this amp was no improvemnt over the Anthem pva-7 and cost almost twice as much.
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5 of 5
5 of 5
