What should I upgrade next in my system?

Room Treatment (treat your room)

@rickguild No, your Anthem prepro is the heart of your multichannel system and shouldn’t be going anywhere.

These are 2 channel guys on this forum, who are probably quite confused about your rig.

A higher quality streamer transport into your Anthem prepro could possibly improve the sound quality. But, no, you wouldn’t need a 10000 dollar streamer for that??!! Try maybe a 300 dollar Wiim Ultra streamer as the transport into your prepro, with lots of other user friendly features. I know your Anthem prepro won’t let you do any manual PEQ, etc.

A power conditioner such as the Audioquest Niagara or PowerQuest 707 will improve the sound.

The most important thing on multichannel rigs is room treatment, but, if you are set up in a living room and wife won’t let you, well.... there’s your bottle neck.

On a different note, your Anthem Prepro is now almost 10 years since release. A sonic upgrade for it might be the newer Marantz AV10 prepro. But, you need to know how to set up a prepro, read the manual from cover to cover, run a calibration correctly, do finer tweaks from there, etc, ask questions on avsforum maybe. The Marantz AV10 already came with all kinds of streaming feaures and a great DAC where you didn’t need any other dacs or streamers...no Grimm...no Brimm for 10k needed..

I appreciate the DAC and Streamer recommendations, but my budget is probably not 30K (even though it was on my speakers) until I am convinced that spending 10K on a previously-owned DAC and Streamer does not get me 90% of the 30K performance. Am I wrong in thinking that?

Would the new DAC and Streamer eliminate my Anthem AVM 60 Preamplifier and Processor from my system? If so, how do I use my Oppo 203, Cox Cable and Apple TV through them?

How bad is the 4K Apple TV streamer and Anthem processor I am currently using for Tidal, Qobuz, and YouTube Music? I assume pretty bad...

I do love how easy the 4K Apple TV is to use.

Apple has the largest catalog of atmos and spatial mixes. None of it will be getting to you through a hifirose.

You are trying to mix stereo equipment with multichannel equipment...it doesn’t quite work that way. Choice of gear for moving up the ladder for each type of application is different. So, decide on what you want. There are some gear lists on my profile for stereo and multichannel in a couple of different rooms (that might serve as a data point).

Here are a couple of vids on how to set things up with apple tv.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0i52I79NaU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMKyqwULAMQ&t=208s

For moving up the multichannel domain, there’s other types of equipment, Storm Audio, Trinnov, etc. depending on how deep your pockets are.

Here are the Apple TV specs I use for Qobuz, Tidal and YouTube music videos. What improvements should I expect with a 5K streamer and DAC like the HiFi Rose RS151?

HE-AAC (V1), AAC (up to 320 Kbps), protected AAC (from iTunes Store), MP3 (up to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Apple Lossless, FLAC, AIFF, and WAV; AC-3 (Dolby Digital 5.1), E-AC-3 (Dolby Digital Plus 7.1 surround sound), and Dolby Atmos.

Here are the Apple TV video specs. Should I expect any improvements with the HiFi Rose RS151?

https://www.audioadvice.com/products/hifi-rose-rs151-high-performance-network-streamer-gen-2#overview

SDR video with AVC/HEVC (Main/Main 10 profile) up to 2160p, 60 fps

Dolby Vision (Profile 5) up to 2160p, 60 fps

HDR10+/HDR10/HLG with HEVC (Main 10 Profile) up to 2160p, 60 fps

H.264 Baseline Profile level 3.0 or lower with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats

MPEG-4 video up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 fps, Simple profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats

HDMI Quick Media Switching (QMS) for seamless format transitions

Support for 21:9 and other cinematic aspect ratios when playing movies and shows on compatible projectors and displays