Amplifiers/Processors

Anthem's AVM 90 has been a long time coming, but it heralds the completion of the Canadian manufacturer's upgraded AV lineup. And while first announced in October 2020, the delayed arrival of this top-of-the-range processor hasn't seemed to harm it. Rather, it means Anthem has been able to offer HDMI 2.1 compatibility out of the box, certainly a demanded feature when a product sells for a cool £6,749.

If you enjoy spending as much time fettling and tweaking your home cinema system as you do watching movies, you might want to skip this review. For what we have here is the latest version of Audiolab’s stripped-down AV processor that puts almost its entire R&D spend into audiophile components rather than features. In fact, there isn’t any video processing under that stylish aluminium case at all, so even the term ‘AV processor’ is a bit remiss. What you do get is a tuned and upgraded 8000AP, which we liked a lot, now with v1.4 HDMI pass-through switching.

The brand on the front of this massive pre/power combo may not be the first that springs readily to mind when it comes to high-end home theatre, but Datasat has more rights than most to call dibs on the market. Having played an intrinsic role in the birth of multichannel digital movie sound, this UK-based outfit has credibility in spades.

Steve Withers dabbles in astral sound projection with Focal’s 16-channel home cinema processor and amplifier

Every now and again something comes along that is so focused and so madly different from the mainstream that it stands in a category virtually of its own. While the big Japanese brands cram ever more licensed and bespoke home cinema technology into ever cheaper AV receivers, there are brands that just refuse to choose the same inevitable path – a path that logically can only lead to a reduction in outright performance as R&D cash is poured into features, logos and gadgetry rather than sound quality.