My wallet is on the slim side compared to many people who can afford to buy the Krells, Lexicons, and Brystons of the home theater world. Even the Anthem D2 is out of reach for me. What does Anthem offer people like me who want everything but can’t afford it? Well, nothing. But to those people with just a bit more money than me, but who also can’t afford an Anthem D2, they offer the AVM 50 A/V Processor. The AVM 50 does basically everything the D2 does, but lacks that extra step of refinement that the D2 offers. And sells for significantly less with an MSRP of $4,699.

Which includes four HDMI inputs, and video upscaling of any source on any input to up to 1080p on the HDMI output. Now that’s cool. I have a PS2 that uses component video, a DVD player with the same, an HD PVR with HDMI, an S-VHS VCR (that’s still in use - don’t ask!), and this fall I’ll be adding an HDMI PS3 to that stack. A pre/pro like the AVM50 is exactly the kind of pre/pro I’d look for were I shopping today and had a little more money. Except for one thing. I guess it’s not fair to knock the AVM50 for not having this one thing, because nobody else does either. But that one thing is HDMI 1.3 support and support for the new audio formats on HD DVD and BD discs, like DD+ and DD TrueHD.

You can’t have your cake and eat it too. But at least the AVM50 certainly looks nice!

Anthem Intros AVM 50 A/V Processor