Would adding a separate 3 channel help in this situation

Ah, Erik, that's an excellent suggestion.  I forgot about that.  Looking at manual, the Anthem has a "DYN" button on the remote.  Just hit the DYN button twice, then you can choose between 3 dynamic range settings:

NORMAL: No dynamic range modification.

REDUCED: Allows the quieter parts to be heard more easily by raising the level of quieter sounds and/or reducing the level of louder ones according to cues in the soundtrack.

LATE NIGHT: Further reduces the softest-to-loudest difference

I'm sure you can play with these to determine which one is best for you.


Also, asnumcwrt2 suggested, try bumping up the center channel by 1 db.  You would be amazed at the increased vocal clarity when you do a 1 db or 2 db adjustment on the center channel.  NOTE: this may put the center out of calibration based on keeping it exact as the left/right/surround, but I have seen an increase in understanding dialog when I do this - and it really doesn't detract from any sound balance.

@numcwrt2 - Marantz receivers has the dynamic range compression feature as well.  If you go into the setup menu, it is under Settings => Audio => Surround Paramater => Dynamic Compression.

You should play with the Low / Medium / High settings here.

The answer is "It depends".  I don't know that playing at a lower volume will necessarily give you better clarity.  A better amp could possibly give you this, but the Anthem receivers are generally very clean and bright sounding anyways.

It could also be that your family is more sensitive to clipping distortion that happens when you overdrive an amp (or in this case your receiver with an inadequate power supply).  Putting in a beefy high current 3-channel amplifier will definitely help clean up the sound.  With a clean system like this, the listeners will generally not realize how loud it is (because it's so clean and natural sounding).

On an under powered amp (such as a receiver), when those sound effects start going off and things get loud, these low end amps do not have beefy enough power supplies to provide clean power on these higher voltage outputs.  At this point, the clarity in the sound and "separation of instruments" goes to hell. The dialog becomes a mess because the amp cannot keep a clean power supply voltage when the output goes into the "hundreds of watts" area.

The lacking of clarity on the dialog could also be from acoustic reflections in your room.  Getting some acoustic panels (such as GIK Acoustics) and placing them properly could actually increase the level of clarity (and in some cases the perceived loudness) of the dialog.  In a room with lots of reflected sound, the dialog becomes a mess and it's actually very hard to hear and understand the words of the actors.