I’d installed home theatre amps for decades and found the Anthem added (for no reasons other than ‘marketing’ and having ‘end user data’ (to sell?) pointless difficulties in their networking software.
Having never needed to read a manual (although some esoteric kit benefited from a cursory read for ‘added functionality’); the Anthem setup, for such a simple ‘no frills’ processor/‘headunit’ was a huge pain.
Even going to length to cat5 direct to laptop and open ports; Anthem hardwares’ need to phone home, whilst being totally undocumented, was a right pain.
All became easy if I wavered any sense of consumer wariness and just gave them permission to use my network data gowever they saw fit.
sadly is only AVR I have ever owned that loses all sorts of HDMI handshaking facilities (like ‘TV on’) if it loses ‘phone home to Canada over my network’ rights.
Anthem would have a mich more consumer friendly product if they dropped their need to gather marketing info on ‘how we use their products’.
As mentioned, all difficulties (and impoasibilities) went away when I opened up my security to let them do whatever they wanted.
given none of their phone home nonesense is documented, it all seems a little covert and underhanded.
I sent feedback to their company and they chose that as invite to enquire around the dealer network to find out ‘who I was’; clearly I was deemed ‘not a problem’, and the company chise silence as the best path forward …
whilst I love Anthem Room Correction, something the Canadian government gave the funding to make a reality, and is the crown jewel rrason to choose their products; the much around setting them up (not even the most advanced setups) can prove hasslesome depending on how a households InfoTech is set up.
I value security and privacy, qnd own an Anthem processor that won’t even allow my TV to turn on using standard HDMI CEC flags… (unless I let my AVR permanently on the internet, “no thanks”).
Anthem Room Correction is great.
Company decisions that disadvantage their actual customer base on some basis of ‘improving future products’ isn’t a consumer win.
I’d agree that fighting archaic software decisions for nil reason can make setup a pain in the ass.
(easily remedied by bending over and receiving the vasolene treatment)