Marantz vs. Arcam

I got to compare their top AVRs about five years ago with B&W 805D3s with my reference recordings, and the Marantz was warmer and fuller sounding but with less treble detail and air while the Arcam was overall more clear and neutral so they were quite different sounding. My favorite by a good margin, and much to my surprise, was the Yamaha Aventage that had the neutrality of the Arcam but was even more transparent and produced a much clearer and more dimensional 3D soundstage with more distinct imaging — like the proverbial veil was lifted, and in that way it reminded me much more of my significantly pricier separates at home. The additional benefit of Yamaha is they have a better reliability track record than the others as well. Anyway, that’s what I heard five years ago FWIW.

Thanks, @soix - As you may have read, I’m trying to avoid the really big mistakes I made before with Onkyo and Emotiva.  Also, the latest offerings from Arcam seem pretty good expecially since I plan to use external amps or powered speakers.  A $2k all in one may very well be my next purchase.

I agree with your marantz & arcam comparison. The Yamaha is great too with very good eq possibilities. Also the Yamaha i'm told has better reliability as told by my installer. 
 I'm an Arcam user & but recently i heard the anthem receiver. It sounds much better  to me , better resolution , bass & coherence ,
Should be certainly considered .

All the best 

@neoshah Thanks. I have a modern Anthem and the EQ limitations is making me look elsewhere. In particular, I want to hand craft what the EQ does, and the Anthem has no such feature.  The more advanced Marantz units and DirecLive should give me full manual parametric EQ capabilities.

@erik_squires Hey! Anthem does have a room correction software. Although not sure how it compares to Dirac in the Arcam.

Guess best to stick with what ones comfortable with. 

Cheers