Anthem's sound is not a step above, certainly not with their chipsets, those are hearsay!! People paid more for them, and reviewers knew that were sold for more money, so they had to say they convinced themselves....
I have read reviews that talked about their chipsets, and schematics of some Yamaha, D&M's, that's what my comments are based on. Actually, Anthem even tell you which DAC chip they used, and for their current models, including the 1120, are the same as D&M's, but are one step below the Denon flagship's X8500H. That is a fact.