See the complete review of the Anthem MRX 1120 A/V Receiver

Earlier this year at CES 2016, the fine folks at Anthem Electronics revealed their updated MRX receiver line.

Anthem MRX1120 Home Theater Receiver

These new units featured Dolby Atmos and would be upgradable to DTS:X capability via firmware download. Having had an enjoyable experience when I reviewed their entry level MRX310 two years ago, I asked if I might take the top-dog MRX1120 out for a walk this time around. About a month ago, they kindly obliged, and having just installed four overhead height speakers in my home theater, the timing was perfect.

Anthem MRX1120 Front Panel

On the audio side, the Anthem MRX1120 features 11 channels of onboard amplification and two subwoofer outputs, so you can configure up to a full 7.2.4 Dolby Atmos theater. It also incorporates the latest iteration of their acclaimed ARC room correction system. On the video end, the MRX1120 has several HDMI 2.0a ports (eight inputs and two outputs) which are HDCP 2.2 compliant. This means they should cleanly switch and pass a 4K/60 video signal. There are, however, no onboard analog video switching or scaling resources of any sort. It’s the future silly, get used to it!

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Initial Impressions:

The Anthem MRX1120 continues the understated look and design of the previous generation which is not a bad thing in my eyes. On the surface, it feels heavy and seems solidly built. All the connections on the rear of the unit are intelligently color coded and easy to read. And, peeking through the top ventilation grille, one can plainly see a substantial toroidal power transformer which inspires some confidence in the amplifier section of this bad boy. Anthem has also finally come to the streaming party as the MRX1120 has twin wireless antennas and sports Spotify and DTS Play-Fi compatibility.

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Getting the MRX1120 set up in my theater has been a relative breeze and the quality of what I’ve been hearing so far has been very promising!

Stay Tuned:

In the next few days I will be wrapping up on the watching, listening, taking pictures and making measurements. I’ll get my thoughts and observations distilled into a somewhat coherent presentation which will hopefully be online in the coming weeks.

See the complete review of the Anthem MRX 1120 A/V Receiver