Anthem PVA-7 7 Channel AmpusedAnthem  PVA-7 7 Channel Amp near San Francisco...................Edwards Home Entertainment and Design is offering a fabulous Anthem PVA-7.You can contact me via email directly at [email protected] or via phone, voice or text, 925.324.2897. Edwards Home En...650.00

Anthem PVA-7 7 Channel Amp near San Francisco...................

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porschecab 

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Ships fromSan Mateo, CA, 94403
Ships toUnited States
Package dimensions25.0" × 25.0" × 21.0" (70.0 lbs.)
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Edwards Home Entertainment and Design is offering a fabulous Anthem PVA-7.

You can contact me via email directly at [email protected] or via phone, voice or text, 925.324.2897.  Edwards Home Entertainment and
Design is a preloved, high end audio shop that is open by appointment
only in the South San Francisco area, about 3 minutes from the San
Francisco airport.

The amp is functionally perfect, but does have a ding on the top corner.  The amp will come without power cord as high end cords were used and retained.  I do not have boxes.  The local UPS
Stores charge about $75 to pack this - plus at $3 per $100 of
insured value PLUS shipping - it is not an inexpensive endeavor to
ship.  I did FLAT RATE the costs just as an estimate.  Real figures will
be charged, thought likely not far off?  I am open to splitting the
set.

LOTS OF DETAILS, SPECS, REVIEWS:

The sound of the Anthem PVA7 is distinctly music first. As soon as you cue up a compact disc or, better yet, a DVD-Audio or SACD, you can hear the control this amp has over any number of good speakers. Anthem would prefer that you use Paradigm speakers (as they are owned by the same company), but you can power nearly anything with an Anthem PVA7, including B&Ws, PSBs, MartinLogans, Revels, Cantons and Orb Audio speakers. The sonic characteristic that grabbed me most was the Anthem's ability to present a controlled yet open midrange sound that made voices palpable. With the newest surround sound formats, like Dolby TrueHD and/or DTS Master Audio, the Anthem PVA7 also shines. Its ability to resolve the finest details only makes your movie soundtracks sound better when the resolution is beaming at HD levels.

 

Anthem PVA-7 Power Amplifier
7 Channels of Amplification
3 Power Modes: Auto-On/Off, Manual-On, Trigger-On
7 x 105watts into 8 Ohms / 7 x 140 watts into 4 Ohms Continuous RMS, 20 Hz - 20 kHz, <1.0% THD, AC Line Voltage Held Constant at Full Load
Bandwidth: 10 Hz - 80 kHz (125 W @ 8 Ohms)
THD+N:  <0.002% @ 1 kHz; <0.03% @ 20 kHz (125 W into 8 Ohms)
Damping Factor:  200 @ 1 kHz (ref. 8 Ohms)
Weight:  47.5 lbs
MSRP:  $1,499

Before pragmatic design, before performance testing and long before production comes passion! A passion to produce something exceptional. Anthem products are extraordinary, meeting and exceeding the needs and expectations of audiophiles everywhere. Whether for personal or professional use, Anthem products are worldclass leaders in high-end performance and value.

Expert Craftsmanship. Superior Quality Control 
Our products are award-winning and internationally recognized not only for their exceptional sonic performance, but also for their superb craftsmanship and reliability. Every product must meet our rigorous standards of performance before it is released to market. The result is a truly superb selection of products that are guaranteed to provide their owners with complete and lasting satisfaction. It?s not surprising that Anthem products are highly sought after around the world!

122 dB Signal-to-Noise Ratio 
An incredible S/N ratio of 122 dB. Good grief! "That's as good as no noise at all," said Brian Florian, Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity, commenting on the PVA 7. Whether it?s the subtle (or not-so-subtle) special effects in a movie, or the tonal subtleties produced by the strings of a single violin, PVA amplifiers capture it all! Ultra-low distortion and a truly incredible signal-to-noise ratio place these amplifiers among the cleanest and quietest on the market. From a silent black background, sound appears in its purest form to envelop you in powerful emotion.

Superior Component Parts and Materials
Superior performance demands superior components and materials. PVA amps are designed and built in North America using the finest quality parts and materials. From military-spec (FR-4-rated) epoxy circuit boards to multiple high-current bipolar-output transistors; from oversized, computerdesigned heatsinks to our own custom-designed robust binding posts, the build quality of these amps ranks among the finest in the world!

Exemplary Circuit Design
The sonic purity of the PVA amplifier design is the result of our intensive research and development in high-end design. Superior high-end sound begins with a superior power supply. These amplifiers use custom-built, low-noise, high-power toroidal transformers and advanced power supply regulators with high-quality, low-ESL/low-ESR filter capacitors and huge storage capacity.

Our proprietary and patented circuit designs follow Anthem?s ?Keep-It- Simple? principle, using the fewest number of parts in the signal path to maintain the integrity of sound. These amplifiers provide the finesse and instantaneous output power to effortlessly reproduce the challenging variety of special effects in movies and demanding musical passages. They are stable as a rock, even into difficult loads.

PVA amplifiers can be powered On/Off three ways: manually, with the On/Off switch on the front panel; remotely, via the 12-volt trigger input; or automatically, with our patented Auto-On/Off circuit?an incoming audio signal immediately switches it on, and approximately 20 minutes after the audio signal ends, it simply switches off.

Product Features:

    • 7 channels
    • RCA inputs
    • 125 continuous watts per channel into 8 ohms
    • 4-ohm capability
    • Headroom: 1.25 db (8 O); 2.13 db (4 O)
    • Power Bandwidth: 10 Hz - 80 kHz (125 W @ 8 O)
    • Frequency Response: 20 Hz - 20 kHz (-0.20 db); 5 Hz - 100 kHz (-2.5 db)
    • THD + N <0.002% @ 1 kHz; <0.03% @ 20 kHz (100 W into 8 O)
    • Input Sensitivity: 1.12 VRMS for 125 W into 8 O
    • Input Impedance: 10 kO
    • Damping Factor: 200 @ 1 kHz (ref. 8 O)
    • S/N ratio: 122 db, A-weighted (ref. 125 W)
    • Channel Seperation >65 db (100 Hz - 10 kHz)
    • Voltage Gain: 29 db
    • Slew Rate: 28 v/?s
    • Power Requirements: 1500 W @ maximum power output (8 O load)
    • Dimensions: (H x W x D; heights include feet) 5-7/8" (14.9 cm) High x 17-1/4" (43.8 cm) Wide x 16-3/8" (42 cm) Deep
    • Weight: (Unpacked) 47.3 lb (21.5 kg)
    • Inputs:
        • 7-Single-Ended
        • 1 Relay Trigger (3.5-mm Mono Jack)
    • Outputs:
        • 7 Pairs Speaker Binding Posts
        • 1 Relay Trigger(3.5-mm Mono Jack)
    • Switches:
        • Front Panel: Power (On/Off)
        • Rear Panel: 3 On/Off Modes (Trigger, Manual, Auto)

It could only come as a logical follow-through on the AVM-20 that Sonic Frontiers create the Anthem PVA-7 multi-channel power amplifier.  With seven channels of amplification, the PVA-7 can single handedly deliver the full Surround-EX output of the AVM-20 (LFE channel going direct to powered subwoofer).

From MCA to PVA

John Johnson, our Editor-in-Chief, reviewed Anthem's MCA-5 a couple years ago.   "JJ" (as he is called in the popular vernacular) values the plain and simple talk, never to my recollection exhibiting jubilation, excitation, or other such hyperbole in his reviews.  (Editor's Note: That is because I am a scientist, and medical journals don't use words like "throbbing".) Knowing this, one has to realize that the value of the MCA-5 may have been understated.  $1,400 for five 170 watt channels of good clean power is a steal, no matter how you phrase it. The astute among us will note that the new five-channel model is but a scant $100 more than its cousin, but at the same time the power per channel comes down a notch.

Lets look at some particulars. The design starts with an 850VA transformer backed by 10 low ESL/ESR capacitors totaling 100,000 µF of reserve.   Each channel is driven by four Toshiba bipolar devices . . . the same devices as used by Proceed, Levinson, and other top tier two-channel solid-state firms.  Each set of four is matched for gain so that no one is working harder than the others. Twenty eight output devices are going to generate their share of heat, so four generous heat sinks are completely open to air on both the bottom and the top.  The chassis is fundamentally attached to these thermal transducers and ends up being not only heavy (as we expect a good amplifier to be) but, like the AVM-20, the build is rigid, secure, and craft-like.  The screws fit without having to twist the case this way or that.  As with the AVM-20, the front aluminum face is available in the requisite black or the elegant silver of our review sample.

It's Not So Much About How Loud it is . . .

To put it into perspective, we need to realize for a moment that in reality you'll probably be driving speakers which are nominally 6 or 8 Ohms, dipping perhaps to 3 or 4, in a room which would be hard pressed to accommodate a regulation snooker game.  We're talking home theater and multi-channel music, so its' a safe bet there is a subwoofer in the room which will be responsible for its own juice.  Now, with that in mind, we can talk about the fact that the PVA-7 (and the MCA-5 for that matter) boasts an incredible S/N ratio of -122 dB.  Good grief!  That's as good as no noise at all man.  This industry-leading electrical silence was a primary design goal of the amplifier series, and part of attaining it called for going without chassis ground which requires double insulation AC techniques to maintain safety certifications.  Another part of attaining such a low noise floor is the 10 kOhm input impedance.  It's not all that uncommon, but I know there are some out their who perish the thought.  There was an unofficial rule of thumb which came about when everyone was dealing with weak sources like phono cartridges and microphones.  The vernacular goes that the input impedance of the driven device should be at least 10 times higher than the output impedance of the source to get decent voltage transfer and to keep frequency response constant.  There are some tube preamps I can think of who would have a hard time with a 10 kOhm load, but a surround sound preamp which would be adversely affected by such a load would quite frankly be a wimp!  The AVM-20 ain't no phono cartridge and was designed to work well with the PVA-7 even though its 300 Ohm output impedance is not the lowest going (yet it is much lower than most mass market receivers' line outs).

In addition to the traditional S/N measurement, Sonic likes to quote the noise in terms of absolute rather than referencing it to how many dB down it is from maximum power output. In simpler terms, this is the amount of noise you're going to hear when nothing is playing, because the absolute noise measurement doesn't care what the max output of the amp is.  In other words, noise is noise and hiss is hiss, irrespective of how loud an amp will go.  For the MCA and PVA amplifiers, it's 34 microvolts unweighted 20 Hz -20 kHz according to their Audio Precision, or in other words, pretty much silent.

Why all this emphasis on quietness?  Although esoteric-minded souls like to talk about how "veils of detail" are lifted as the noise floor gets lowered, and to a certain extent I appreciate that sentiment, the fact is when I have Dire Straits going full tilt, noise has long been left in the dust.  Movies on the other hand, though containing music much of the time, are notorious for strategically placed silences.  I will freak if my wife so much as rustles the nearly empty popcorn bowl when an emotional silence or a key whisper is playing out in my evening film.  (Editor's Note: Wait until he hears me crunching the ice in my cold drink.) Add this to the fact that in most home theaters the surrounds are closer to the audience than speakers probably should be, and the pursuit of eliminating idle hiss from the audio chain becomes truly a noble one.  Dare I say, it improves your involvement in the picture.

Amplifier Ergonomics?

When one thinks of an amplifier, the thought of "usability" hardly comes to mind, but it was not overlooked by Sonic.  I long ago gave up the notion of turning on a system with a remote because amplifiers usually have a hard switch . . . end of story.  True, you can elect to turn the PVA-7 on and off with the discrete switch on the front, but coupled with a piece like the AVM-20, you can use the 12 Volt trigger I/O on the back.  But, not everyone who buys a PVA-7 will have an AVM-20 (though perhaps they should), so a third option is provided:  Auto On/Off.  Just like 99% of the powered subwoofers out there, the PVA-7 can turn on when it senses a total signal of 1V across the sum of the seven channels and will turn off about 10 or 15 minutes after the absence of signal.

About the only thing on the PVA-7 that didn't sit quite right with me was the rear panel.  Sure, the binding post are solid, robust five- way jobs, and the inputs are gold plated.  It's just that they are sort of haphazardly laid out, and it's not immediately intuitive as to what input goes with what output, especially if you are making the connections hunched over into a rack, barely able to see the labels (as I frequently am).  How many times do you have to hook up an amp though?  Far fewer than we reviewers I hope for the sake of your backs, so I'll just suck it up and deal. Most of you would be connecting it just once, so don't worry about it.

Just Listening

The PVA-7 has a lovely, natural, and neutral sound.  It's not as edgy as some other amplifiers in this price range and is as good as others costing more.

So how much power is there really?  Enough.  Not an obscene amount, but enough.  The fact of the matter is, with a single power supply topology, as channels go unused or a least untaxed, the others gain some of their juice.  Rare indeed is the 5.1 soundtrack which will peg all channels simultaneously, and it is impossible for a Surround EX track to ask for full throttle from all of its 7 since the steering matrix used at the back can't do it. If it sounds like I am making excuses, I am not. I just want you to understand this product is designed for quality medium-loud movie/music listening, not playing a radio so that you can hear it while you use a jack-hammer.

I had the PVA-7 driving my complement of Paradigm and Paradigm Reference speakers which I feel represent a typical load while being very revealing of the equipment which comes before them.  Even when experimenting with a low crossover of 60 Hz, the PVA-7 did not run out of stream when faced with the likes of The Pod Race scene in the recent "Star Wars Episode I" or The Fifth Element's Lucia di Lammermoor at full volume.

Switching to two-channel music and giving the PVA the full signal, I was elated with the control of the low end.  Double bass, electric bass, and the drums of Peter Gabriel voiced with palpable rigor.  I was hard pressed to find the point of clipping.

And quiet?  You bet.  About the musical score for the film "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon", someone in an interview noted ". . . it helps when you've got Yo Yo Ma sawing away on a $3,000,000 Cello."  Doesn't hurt either for that cello to crescendo out of, decay into, and rest against a background of delicious, sonically black silence.

Our shop is in South San Francisco - stop by and put your eyes and ears to work!

CA residents must pay 9.00% sales tax. 

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