Anthem getting into two channel with new STR pre-amp-- anyone heard it?

Thanks to @audiotroy for the comments. I'm also interested in the STR Preamplifier. It would be interesting to see in-depth reviews and such, but perhaps I'll just ask the local dealership to bring in a demo -- they've offered. In the meantime, I'm reading the downloaded manual to find out more about the DSP features.
My impression is, the unit has an Ethernet connector for updates and control, but it is not itself a network renderer -- is that right?  For networked audio, one still needs something like a Lumin, Rendu, or Auralic Aries?

Harry, I hope you'll tell us how you like it.

My local dealer doesn't stock the STR Preamp, but when I told him an online merchant offers a 60d trial and 2-day shipping, he agreed to match the terms. On arrival, I fed it burn-in tones for about 150 hrs. I don't believe in that, but to my ears, it made a difference here.

I've played many kinds of music (not metal) and I like the unit very, very much. ARC2 is terrific. The sound is very clean and smooth and very involving. The DAC is excellent. Integration of my two subs is perfect.

I enjoy having tone controls for occasional quick tweaks. They are quite transparent.

In summary, this is a great preamp that I could easily see selling for 50% to 100% more. Even though I don't use the analog inputs or phono, I think it's a bargain and a class "A" component. I'm keeping it.

@kingkcryan - The STR Preamp has some really nice features for vinyl, including both MC and MM inputs, adjustable loading, and adjustable de-emphasis curves for non-RIAA recordings. I’m thinking of borrowing a turntable, just so I can experiment with them. From that, you can infer that I don’t know yet myself how the phono stages sound.

I like ARC a lot, and if you want to use it to smooth out bass bumps or other parts of the frequency range, it is just as applicable to vinyl as to a digital source.

To use ARC and some of the fancy phono features, you have to let the preamp convert any analog signal to the digital domain (which it does at 192kHz, I believe) and back again. Only *your* ears can determine whether that will affect the sound enough to bother you. For my part, I consider the STR to have the most transparent DSP of any analog or digital product I’ve used. (Those include the $9k Weiss mastering EQ and $8500 decades-ago Cello Palette Preamp, among others. Not to brag, just to give my experience base.)

If you are interested in the STR Preamp, my suggestion would be, get one on trial and see what you think yourself. It is excellent for digital, and I don’t see any reason to rule it out for vinyl. You probably have seen the reviews, such as this one.

I hope that helps.

Mike