I feel that the Cinema 60, is just cheap components in a nice dress. Also feel like I'll be disappointed in the sound quality of anything below the Anthem. I might need a therapist....
Haha I think you do, and we probably all need therapist sometime.
Clearly, Anthem themselves told you they didn't have a "sound quality signature, or sort of.."., and most likely others such as Yamaha, will tell you the same, yet you, and you are not alone for sure, still seem to believe you have had heard different sound quality of different
comparable AVR, even separates. Denon and Marantz will tell you the untrue, but that's because they are both own by the same, and the untrue part is mostly Marantz's (very obvious...). Anthem has no need to go beyond marketing style exaggeration because the owners just want to sell the Anthem brand, unlike Masimo, formerly Sound United.
There are just no logical, or technical reasons, it is illogical for designers/engineers to design for a certain sound quality, other than Anthem's correct approach, that is do the best to ensure what comes out will be as close to what goes in. That's for unprocessed sound, if processed, such as via DSPs then there will likely be differences between different avrs/avps, but to find out which one is "better" to you will be very difficult as you can imagine. Some people would order a few different models and compared them at home for hours and days, before deciding which one to keep, that, to me is just being silly unless there have the convenience to compare the different units under strictly controlled blind listening tests (as pointed out by various experts such as Harman's Dr. Olive, Toole (for them, they never seemed bother with electronics, but speakers, for the obvious reasons), among others.
Personally, I don't have any issues whatsoever switching between Denon, Marantz and Anthem's. They are all good so for my money, my criteria is not "sound quality" at all. I put things in quotes when I don't really know what exactly they mean.
