Part of the process

In earlier days, you might select an AV receiver based primarily on the channel count of your home cinema design, and the best power rating you could afford. With today’s smart receivers there’s a whole lot more to consider, but power and channel count have remained the bottom-line specifications. Or they did — until the latest sound formats declared themselves channel-agnostic; they’ll map the sound to anything. Focal’s Astral 16 has, as its name suggests, 16 available channels, 12 of them including amplification. But it’s what it does with them that counts...

Equipment

Now, we tend to think of home theatre as being defined by, say, 7.1.4 channels. That’s what’s on offer from the premium AV receivers from some of our favourite brands. But remember, Dolby Atmos and DTS:X aren’t directly channel-based, they will process the incoming audio signal and send appropriate output to whatever you have — up to 32 channels, if the processor permits it. The Focal Astral 16 opens up far more of those capabilities, and in doing so