What would you do if you were, say, the head of the Pet Rock company and people suddenly stopped buying Pet Rocks? Well, if you had any smarts, you’d start building something people actually wanted to buy. That’s the kind of situation a lot of high-end companies must be facing. Now, I’ll readily admit to being a dedicated turntable-loving, tube-amp-owning audiophile, but let’s face it–tweaky audio is not a growth industry. High-end-stereo sales have been sluggish for years, and home theater is the only real bright spot for specialty-audio companies. If a company wants to grow and prosper, it’s really going to be tough unless they dip a toe in the home theater waters.

The most recent example of this has been tube-amp companies introducing solid-state, multi-channel amps, and lately the wave of new introductions has become a flood. Back in our December ’99 issue, I reported on the Golden Theater GTA-1. This month, it’s the Anthem MCA 5, and there are several similar products waiting in the wings. Eagle-eyed readers might have spotted the MCA 5 on the cover of our January 2000 issue, along with a note inside saying that the review was “delayed due to technical reasons.” To explain, we here at HT always want to keep you informed about the latest equipment; so, when Anthem announced some significant changes to this product just prior to publication, we decided it would be best to pull the review until we got our hands on the latest model. Consequently, all of the comments here apply to MCA 5s manufactured after October 1, 1999. Anthem is the more-mainstream and less-tweaky division of Sonic Frontiers, a Canadian company known for their fine-quality, good-value tube amps. Until recently, pretty much every product under the Sonic Frontiers banner had tubes incorporated in its design. Now they’ve made the move to solid-state with their new home theater products. There are currently two-, three-, and five-channel amps in the line; by the time you read this, they will have been joined by the AVM 2 preamp / processor. Sonic Frontiers rates the MCA 5 at 200 watts into 8 ohms with one channel driven, but that’s cut to 170 watts per channel when all channels are driven. In any case, this is an impressive amount of power for $1,399.

This amp is deceptively hefty. When you spot it on a dealer’s shelf, it doesn’t look like a big deal.

When you go to pick it up, though, your back will disagree. While the brushed-aluminum faceplate is the same size as any Anthem product, which gives the amp a sleek, modern, and decidedly untweaky look, the real beef is hidden in this amp’s depth. At 17 inches deep, there are few shelves with enough real estate to handle the MCA 5. Its 56-pound bulk and lack of handles also make solo installation a challenge.

The designers of the MCA 5 incorporated some really clever touches that make perfect sense once you see them. Like many five-channel amps, the MCA 5 has five identical circuit boards, complete with heatsinks stacked side by side like dominoes. Anthem has positioned the front left and right channels at the sides of the chassis so they can get better cooling when the amp is being used for two-channel music. There are two large toroidal transformers–one is used for the front left and right, and the other is for the center and surrounds. In addition to a trigger input that will power up the amp when you turn on your pre/pro, there’s a signal sensing mode similar to those on many subwoofers. However, as opposed to some subwoofers hannel Amplifier that use this fea ture, I never had a problem with the amp shutting itself off during a lengthy quiet scene although the beginning of 2001 might prove to be a problem.

One upscale feature you’d normally find only on pricier amps is balanced inputs, and this amp can determine which input is connected and switch to it automatically. Speaker outputs are the normal five-way binding posts, and the power cable is detachable. After breaking in the amp, I started my evaluation with some two-channel music, and the results were impressive. The MCA 5 is detailed and expressive, with an essentially neutral tonal balance and good control. In no way does this amp sound at all “tubey”-tube-amp

aficionados looking for a tubelike home theater amp should look elsewhere. The MCA 5 sounds like a good solid-state amp, which is basically what it is. The amp was at its best with natural-sounding recordings. P.J. Harvey’s Rid of Me and Ella Fitzgerald’s Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie! sounded particularly lively and involving.



However, the real challenge of a home theater amp is-you guessed it-home theater, and here the MCA 5 sometimes showed the result of the compromises inevitable in a sub-$1,500 amp. On most material, the amp sounded good. There was never a problem on natural soundtracks like Mouse Hunt and Amadems, but we know what kind of people home theater fans really are-when I went to put on my copy of Jurassic Park to impress the neighbors (or try to break my lease), this amp seemed to sound a bit flat at times. On Mars Attacks!, things sounded great until the action got really crazy, with explosions and laser fire going off everywhere. At this point, the sound seemed a bit compressed. My normal Snell speakers are not a particularly tough load, but (just to be fair) I tried a couple of alternatives, including some Andes bookshelf speakers. This was an easier load for the MCA 5, and the sound was more dynamic than with the larger speakers. Ninety percent of the time, the amp sounded great, but occasionally sound effects that should have made me flinch didn’t-although HT senior technical editor Mike Wood and features editor Chfis Lewis found the differences to be more subtle.

The power demands of home theater are often much greater than you’ll encounter with normal stereo music. Sound effects like explosions and (particularly) gunshots demand an amp that can deliver very high power very quickly and then stop delivering that power just as quickly. Music is usually much less
demanding–-power increases tend to be more gradual, and decay times are longer.

The million-dollar question is, should you consider the MCA 5 for use in your home theater? You do get an awful lot of power for your money, and the MCA 5 is a good-sounding choice, especially if you listen to a lot of music. Home Theater readers should definitely deino this ai-np for themselves. The MCA 5 certainly shows that Anthem can produce a fine home theater product for a very reasonable price.