Famed audio manufacturer Anthem is rolling out its first-ever distribution amplifiers. The new MDX Series will be offered in 8- and 16-channel configurations (MDX-8, MDX-16) with – get this – the company’s ARC Genesis room-correction technology for every single zone (four and eight zones, respectively).
“Nobody has room correction for every zone,” says Paradigm/Anthem sales manager Chris Sipes. “They might have DSPs for every zone, but that’s not the same thing.”
Anthem showcased the new series this week at the spring meeting of ProSource, the big buying group for the home-technology channel.
It’s surprising that Anthem hasn’t offered multiroom amps before, given the Canadian company’s 20-year history making high-performance products in most of the other big audio-electronics categories – A/V processors, A/V receivers, amplifiers, integrated preamp/amplifiers and monaural amplifiers.
ARC (Genesis) Room Correction for Every Zone
The company decided to create the line in response to dealer pleas for a whole-house audio system that incorporated the same beloved ARC (Anthem Room Correction) technology available with so many Anthem (and Paradigm and MartinLogan) products since the original solution was launched in 2007.
The third-generation room-correction software, ARC Genesis, was announced earlier this year at ISE 2019 and will be released today, May 3. The new version, available as a free download from the Anthem website, is backwards-compatible with most ARC-enabled products released in the last decade (except early-gen products that that relied solely on RS-232 for data).
Sipes tells CE Pro that most good A/V specialists know the secret to home-theater audio is to “take the room out of the equation” through electronic measurements and adjustments, i.e., room corrections.
“There’s no reason you shouldn’t have the same feature for every room in the house,” he says of the new ARC-endowed MDX products.
Two MDX models, are expected to ship in July 2019 – the 16-channel (up to eight zones) MDX-16 and 8-channel (four zones) MDX-8. Power output per channel at 8 Ohms is 65 watts, with all channels driven.
Retail prices are $3,000 and $2,000, respectively.
Sipes says the other unique feature of the line is subwoofer outputs for each zone: “Nobody has sub-out for every zone.”
Sipes tells us that the Web-based programming software for MDX is pretty sweet, and he’s fairly confident the products will be some of the most flexible in the market. Check out the video above for additional insights on the forthcoming MDX Series.
Related: Anthem Unveils ARC Genesis Third-Gen Room Correction Software at ISE 2019
