Anthem Integrated 225 -opinions

this thread is ancient but i'll respond. A local hiifi shop that sells Klipsh, paragigm, and revel loudspeakers uses the anthem 225 in their hi end room swearing that it drives their most difficult speakers (revel) with ease. I auditioned the F 208 and F32 at the store, I was able to enjoy the music and asked to take the anthem demo home to see how it likes my system. I bought a new unit after the home demo It replaced my Krell kav300il that couldn't stay out of the shop. You can biamp the anthem and they say in the brief you can even use y splitters on the pre outs, The unit doesn't have a tape loop though so an active crossover is going to relegate the I225 to pre only and there are probably better pre only for the same money. I prefered the sound of the krells mid and treble smoothness, the Anthem can be harsh, but, it is getting better as it breaks in. My kef 105/3 sounded stunning, my 107/2 a little shrill and usually the 107 is the more forgiving speaker. Anthem makes an A2 seperate amp that should mate perfectly if you go this way.

been living with the Anthem 225 for nearly 2 years now and am actively looking for comparisons to the parasound halo int, I have a pair of revel f52 in my listening room for nearly as long and the anthem has plenty of clean power but is dry paired with the revels and I know from experience system matching matters, my kav 300 il made hard sounding speakers musical and I would love a modern/new version of that integrated. I think the 225I is smart money and better sounding than much of the stuff out there powerful enough to drive anything but definitely solid state.