2022 Audioholics Product of the Year Award Winners!

2022 has been a year of returning to "normal" for the most part. We've come a long way on the pandemic and supply chain problems that helped make ‘22 a great year to escape into music and movies in home systems we enjoyed with family and friends. As the industry bounces back from previous year's shortages, we reviewed some new innovations in products that may have otherwise been more evenly distributed over the last three years. Meanwhile in personal audio, headphones have smashed the wireless ceiling and seized a new category of high-end sound quality. Loudspeaker companies continued to push the boundaries of excellent performance per dollar ratio and receiver manufacturers have brought their A-game with innovative room correction systems and the latest in audio and video processing to ensure ALL of your UHD Video and Immersive Audio needs are satisfied.

To say we had a tough time deciding on this year’s Product of the Year Award winners is no exaggeration. We have lengthy Audioholics email threads that were so impassioned they may have set fire to some of our email apps. But we finally have the results, the official winners of Audioholics Products of the Year Awards 2022. The products chosen in this selection are based on long-term testing and/or formal reviews by our editorial staff.

2022 Audioholics POY Award Winners Youtube Discussion

Best AV Receiver

Anthem MRX-1140 | Review | Buy

MSRP: $4,199

The Anthem MRX-1140 is a 11CH AV receiver rated at 140wpc x 5 (Class AB) and 60wpc x 6 (Class D) with up to 15.2 channels of processing. It isn't the most powerful AV receiver you can buy in it's price class but we guarantee it's among the easiest to set up and get great sound out of the box with the least amount of fuss or calibration expertise required. This is largely due to the excellent PC user interface and incredible ARC Genesis Room Correction system that has been refined over the years. The latest version of ARC Genesis does a stellar job at phase aligning your speakers with your subs to get a seamless blend that just works at making your system sound fully integrated with no holes in the bass between your main LCRs and sub(s). ARC Genesis is run remotely from a laptop or PC on the same network freeing you from the tether of a microphone cable attachment to the AVR like most of its competitors. This allows installers to calibrate the AVR even if it's not in the same room as the display device or attached speaker system. The MRX-1140 has a squeaky clean preamp out section making it the ultimate AV processor should you decide to later level up power and repurpose  the internal Class AB amps to power your height channels or another zone of audio. Anthem ARC Genesis may not be as tweakable as DIRAC or Audyssey MultiEQ-X PC but in our experience, it consistently gives the best results with the least fuss. This is perfect for an enthusiast that wants great sound without worrying about doing independent set up analysis using REW measurement software. Because the MRX-1140 uses a mix of Class AB and Class D amps, this unit runs very cool when rack mounted and has performed flawlessly in our testing in the AH SmartHome powering our Klipsch/JL Audio 5.2.2 Master Bedroom System. Gamers rejoice as Anthem has recently upgraded their latest AVR and AV Processor platforms to 8K HDMI support.

AV Separates Recommendation: If you have your own external amplification already to power your system, consider the AVM70 15.2CH 8K AV Processor which shares a similar platform to the MRX1140 AV receiver but with a full compliment of balanced preamp outputs.

Anthem ARC Genesis Youtube Review discussion

Honorable Mention

Yamaha AVENTAGE RX-A6A | Review | Buy Now

MSRP: $2,500

The Yamaha RX-A6A has a face only a mother could love. Despite its ridiculously oversized volume control that screams "look at me" and it's cheap plastic wrap (what were they thinking?); this AVR is a true beast tipping the scale at 41lbs. Its solid frame construction and large power supply makes it one of the most powerful AVR's of 2022 rated at 150wpc x 9 with 11.2CH of processing prowess. The RX-A6A welcomes 4-ohm speakers as our bench testing and 2CH listening tests proved. The RX-A6A sounded more like our 2021 POY Award winning Denon A-110 Integrated amp and less like a typical Atmos AV receiver. We paired the RX-A6A with speakers in the AH SmartHome ranging from the venerable Paradigm Premier 800F to the Revel F-328Be and were delighted at just how meaty and powerful the amp section sounded. YPAO has been improved in the latest AVENTAGE AV line up but it's still no match for Anthem ARC Genesis. However, IF you're a tweaker, you'll appreciate the 7-band PEQ function supported on every channel (including the dual independent subwoofer outputs). Yamaha includes MusicCAST which is a pretty awesome music management solution and we dig the Yamaha proprietary Surround-AI DSP processing for listening to Dolby Atmos movie program material. The RX-A6A also has a pair of balanced XLR analog inputs and 2CH pre outputs (rare for an AV receiver), though we doubt you will need to use the preouts for any but the most power demanding speakers. We challenge you to find a better built, powerhouse AV receiver at this price. Go a