- Cinematic Sound at Home: Enjoy your favorite movies, TV shows and more with theater like sound in the comfort of your home
- Virtual Front Surround: S Force PRO delivers virtual surround sound with only a 2 speaker setup
- Virtual Front Surround: S Force PRO delivers virtual surround sound with only a 2 speaker setup
- SMART CONNECTIVITY: Stream music and use Bluetooth Standby turn on the receiver from your phone
- Multi Function System: Enjoy a Multi Channel Stereo Setup, Fm Radio Tuner and 1/4 Inches Headphone Jack
- Dynamic Setup: 4 Stereo Rca Audio Inputs and 2 Digital Audio Outputs (1 Optical and 1 Coaxial)
- SPECS: 5.2 ch, 725W, 6 ohm, 1K Hz, THD 0.9 percent AV receiver with 4 in/1 out HDMI and Audio Return Channel
Sony STR-DH590 Receiver Demo
hey i’m randy and i’m the cheap audio
man
here at the cheap audio man we don’t
feel like
audio equipment should cost more than 10
55 gallon drums of salsa
that you like maybe medium spice
so grab a cup of coffee or giant mug
with your best friend’s face on it sit
down and let’s talk about the sony
str 590 5 channel
receiver
okay so the intro
the you know the bit about the uh
55-gallon drum
barrels of salsa it ties directly into
our sponsor
today our sponsor is
over here andrew jones
salsa
because nobody knows how to make salsa
like a
british speaker designer it’s available
in
mild medium and british
interestingly enough i think they sent
me a prototype
because i feel like maybe they need to i
don’t know
take a look at that logo but it comes in
uh 64 ounce bottles
and then 55 gallon drums odd sizes i
know
okay uh sony five-channel
str590 it’s a five-channel receiver it
looks identical
to the two-channel the str190
receiver same knobs same knob placement
same chassis okay so what is it and why
are we talking about it it’s a five
channel receiver
home theater does uh the dolby vision
and all that good stuff
does not do dolby atmos all the
hdmi switching and all that good stuff
so i will
talk about some specs but when you
when one starts to talk about
receiver specifications specifically
around
power you might want to take it with a
grain of salt
because they put all sorts of numbers on
there
uh so what is this rated at
rms because on the box it says 145 watts
per channel
okay
again it’s shifted to the right side and
although it does
weigh a little bit usually 145 watts
weighs a little bit more
there’s actually kind of a correlation
all right
uh rms power i’m getting this off a
crutchfield
okay crutchfield’s a good outfit they do
a good job of putting specs
90 watts rms uh .09
thd total harmonic distortion okay
so i wouldn’t particularly put any stock
into that 145 watts
i wouldn’t put a whole lot of stock into
the 90 watts
rms however the good news is you don’t
need even
probably half of that even if you have
like
40 clean watts you’re probably going to
be good
even with home theater with dynamic
sounds coming in six ohms so
uh you can play six ohm speakers now i
did put
a pair of the elac unifi ub5s on the two
channel version of this
and contrary to popular belief it did
not burst into flames
um didn’t drive them great distorted a
bit but it still um
made music go through it so it’s fine
all right comes with a remote we’re
going to talk about that later
today’s review is going to be a little
bit different okay so we’re going to
talk about the receiver talk about all
the inputs and stuff like that talk
about how it sounds
and then i’m actually going to film a
screen
to go through some of the menus okay
i’m sure there’s a better way to do it
that looks a lot better but i don’t know
how to do that
okay so let’s turn this thing around
all right so on here let’s go through
the two digital inputs we have a digital
coax
okay so think about maybe a cd player
dvd player or something like that
has a digital out uh even some tvs have
a digital coax out
run that right into into here okay it
has a
optical input for digital and that’s how
i tested it
um yeah i tested that and then it’s just
another dac to see how the dac sound
anyway
i opticaled right out of my computer
into here it doesn’t show up as any like
sony or anything like that you just have
to literally select your sound card
and then uh it’ll run it through here
dac uh sounds pretty good it you know
it’s not
not horrible at all uh sounded fine to
me
um didn’t sound as good as like the
topping d50s or the ssmsl
m300 but it sounded fine
okay then uh we have
it says sacd or slash cd in
uh and these are all rca inputs uh
blu-ray
tv another tv two sub-outs
okay two sub outs
all right the main channels uh
right and left are can take like banana
clips
the other ones are clippy clips which is
fine it’s fine
this is 200 receiver actually right now
it’s not on sale though so it’s
- um
i will talk about that later i guess but
uh that’s what it is so you got the
banana clips
right here going in okay
it’s nice it’s it’s better than the clip
eclipse
okay so how does it sound
well
it sounds different than the 190. i was
i was kind of surprised how different it
sounds the 190 sounds
um pretty full
and uh i don’t know thick on the low end
warm mesh on the low end but still has
you know decent
detail on the top this one sounds a lot
kind of almost the opposite uh so a
little bit leaner
on the bottom end and um
just not as full but the good news is
you have tone controls
so you can bump up that bass if you’d
like to the bad news is
tone controls aren’t nearly as easy to
get to as on the str
i think i’m saying that right str yeah
str
d8 forgot the dh scr dh190 this is the
d h 590. okay
a little thin for me
but that’s good for movies for dialogue
and stuff like that doesn’t matter
doesn’t mean it’s going to sound bad
for music if you have a warm speaker you
slap it on here it’s probably gonna
sound great
okay warm speaker being like the i don’t
know wharfdale
diamond 11.2s the uh first gen
andrew jones you know it’s cool that
he’s diversifying out of just like audio
equipment
into you know food that’s pretty cool
uh smart business man so the
first gen pioneer 22-lr
the first-gen elac debut ref or elac
debut
b uh six or b5
be good pairing with this and that’s
just flat all right so that’s not
messing with it with the
tone controls at all all right this also
has a pure direct mode
right somewhere i think right there
pure direct mode so what that does is it
takes all of the
processing digital processing out of the
picture and you just run
straight to channel audio there is a way
to get the subwoofer to work with it
it’s not
an easy way but there is a way to get
your sub to work with it so you’ll have
pure direct
2.1 mode okay
uh let’s get this out of the way the
build quality is not great
um the the chassis is fine
um the face plate
feels pretty cheap and again
i wish this thing would just stay at
like 199
because at that point i’d be like it’s
fine this is what you’re gonna get
at 280 though
i i just don’t feel like it’s built very
well all right
same knobs as on the uh str dh190
uh plastic obviously and okay
so we need to have reasonable
expectations here
you’re not going to get something like
the emotiva ta-100
or the anthem integrated 225 all right
we need to keep reasonable expectations
all right
the build quality is about what you
would think it is uh for something of
this price range and that’s at 199
dollars so it’s about what you would
expect but a little bit worse
okay sound is okay
the one one of the reasons why i’m super
excited about this is because when you
get a receiver you have the opportunity
and the power to put a high pass filter
on your front channels high pass filter
basically just is not going to send the
lower frequencies
to your front channels any of the home
theater folks out there are already
going to know this
probably already doing it put the high
pass around 80 you can tweak it
give or take but then you just have
you don’t have those huge base hits
trying to go into your front channels
the thing that’s good about that is you
can make your smaller
bookshelf speakers sound much larger
if you have your subwoofer dialed in
correctly
okay that’s why i was really excited
because i’m a big believer in high-pass
filters for bookshelves
because you can make them sound really
big
by not trying to pump a bunch of bass
through them at high volumes okay
so remote control a pretty standard
fare the one thing i don’t like about
this remote compared to the 190
is the there’s no tone controls on here
the 190 had bass and treble tone
controls right at your fingertips
you’re good to go bluetooth on here is
pretty good
sounds fine and it also has the aac
codec which is the apple codec
so iphones ipads anything like that
if you’re bluetoothing into this device
with an
apple device you’re going to get a
better codec
bluetooth codec is simply how that data
is packaged
and how it’s received by the receiver
aac codec packages more data
more data usually equates to
better music it doesn’t always equate to
better it just means there’s more
information there a lot of times more
information
equals better music okay
so before we get into the
menus um i’ll just we’ll talk about
recommendations whether or not i’d
recommend this
i think if you want a
new receiver that has all the latest
hdmi
switching capabilities then i think this
would be something
good to look at okay
if you’re looking at a receiver that’s
going to
sound really good for music um
you might just consider looking for
something on the used market that’s a
few years old
and then instead of doing the hdmi
switching
through the receiver you can do it
optical
out of your tv so you can do all the
hdmi switching
in the tv and if you do it that way if
your tv
is already dolby vision or hdr 10 or
whatever it is 10 plus
all that high dynamic range stuff
it’s already done you don’t have to
worry about pushing it through the
receiver this receiver will do it
it’ll do dolby vision and hdr10 won’t do
10 plus
it’ll still do it okay
200 though i mean you can get
probably a very good used avr receiver
maybe a seven channel um a marantz
or maybe a higher end denon that’s you
know five six years old
and it’s gonna sound better okay this
sounds okay
and i feel like it sounds pretty thin um
and you can put all those filters on
your front channels
just by doing the same thing you know
i don’t know i just it feels a little
bit cheap to me the 99 dollar two
channel
i think the value props there this does
have a dac
it’s okay the two channel has a phono
input
it sounds better than this in my opinion
so
i i don’t think i could really recommend
this i definitely can’t
recommend it at 280 at 200
maybe maybe
i just think there’s better value out
there by uh getting it used
uh yeah
yeah and if you’re looking for used just
go on the pictures and look at the back
and if it has
all banana clips then it’s
a better receiver because they spent
more money on the receiver
if it’s all clippy clips on there keep
going
look for one that has all the uh
all the banana clips so if you have
seven channels seven sets of banana
clips
probably two more for a b zone okay
so if you’re really interested we’re
gonna we’re gonna go to
uh look at some of the menu
functionality
of this and i can show you uh how to do
a few more things and some of the
options in there so
we’re gonna go to something else now i’m
gonna have to
try to edit that so good good luck randy
all right so we’re gonna go through this
real quick
and uh this is uh what you’re looking as
a monitor and i’m recording it
and i’m sure there’s a much better way
to do it but this is what we’re going to
do
right now so very simple
well kind of simple menu structure
yeah watch you listen easy setup
sound effect speaker setting okay
watch is basically just a way for you to
select the inputs
uh on your screen instead of using the
remote
which has that available with
a single button press
so if for whatever reason
you would like to take two to three
extra steps to select your input source
you have that option okay listen
again it is pretty much selecting your
inputs
on the screen instead of
the one push buttons on top i’m
not super sure why this exists but it is
there
all right easy setup this does come with
a mic
uh you put that mic in your listening
position
uh click on easy setup you click on your
language and then you just
follow the prompts it will send out some
uh what do you call it test tones and
then
through that it’s going to determine how
big your speakers or it’s supposed to
determine
whether or not your speakers are full
range how many speakers you have
and how far they are from the microphone
um very similar to
other you know receiver setups and
things like that
okay so here’s where there is some
options
so sound effect has a few options you
have
sound field which i mean just think of
sound field as
what type of signal processing this
receiver is putting on what you’re
hearing
night mode is just it just dims the
light calibration type
okay we’ll go into that one so
calibration type
after you’ve done the easy setup
you can do front reference which is
basically an
eq they’re going to put on your front
speakers based upon
the results that the microphone received
and what was processed in the receiver
so it’s going to put an eq on your
fronts
engineering is another way of just
saying this is another
dsp that we’re putting on the sound
full flat is they’re taking the
eq that they’re applying and they’re
just putting it flat instead
but there’s still dsp going on okay so
full flat
engineering front reference off um
actually i kind of found that uh
engineering
uh sounded pretty good um but that’s all
gonna depend upon you then you have to
press it again to get out of it
here are your uh tone controls i wish
these were on the remote
i wish these were more easily accessible
than how they are
then you have pure direct mode pure
direct mode if you watched anything
is going to take all the dsp off of it
so if you note
when i click on on
all of the options up here go away
with the exception of calibration type
and if you go back into calibration type
it turns
um pure direct mode off all right
so pure direct mode is going to be what
this receiver’s
what would you call it interpretation of
an integrated amp is
okay so i’m gonna go back over here
we’re gonna turn this off
go back up here get into the sound
fields
okay so
hold on i’m going to take a drink oh my
goodness i’m going to cover up the mic
so you don’t have to hear me swallow
and i’m going to take a drink all right
everyone prepare themselves
a lot of folks out there don’t enjoy
listening to me swallow
i don’t blame them all right so sound
fields you have two channel
multi which is going to basically put
music left and right through every
speaker you have
and i would assume combine that into the
center
speaker so you can read it sound is
produced
exactly as it was recorded encoded
without
any added surround effects it means it’s
taking the dsp off but there’s still
some dsp going on
because they’re pumping it through all
the other speakers all right
then you have movie hd
dcs reproduces the sound characteristics
of a mastering studio enjoy
movies and music the way the audio
engineers
intended i think they’re taking some
liberties in that description
but it exists
next up is movie uh prologic two
uh i think dolby i think the older
stuff that’s in these receivers actually
sounds a lot better than some of the
newer stuff
anyways pro logic too okay
then you have movie front surround you
can enjoy an immersive
virtual surround sound experience with
only front speakers
okay what they’re doing is they’re
messing with the timing they’re doing
timing delays
all right sometimes
it can sound okay all right
i didn’t do here’s the deal i didn’t do
any movie watching on this because i’m
reviewing this strictly from a music
perspective all right
in my experience this hasn’t always been
all that effective what is however
effective is just buying a really
awesome
set of speakers with awesome off-axis
performance like the ebi e-lac debut b6
okay uh then you have audio enhancer
uh it’s this is trying to
uh basically boost up i don’t know mp3
and lower recordings i don’t know it
i i’ve heard mp3s that sound incredible
and they don’t need any
messing around with but it’s there
okay music hall again this is just dsp
if you’re familiar at all with receivers
usually they have
uh a handful half dozen or so different
sound
um modes and those sound modes are
intended to make stuff sound differently
alright these all sound differently all
right
music jazz again it’s just going to
change it how it thinks
concert okay
stadium and then the one that is
absolutely horrid sports
i for the life of me i don’t know what
they’re doing here they basically just
make
everything sound muffled and far away
all right and guess what sports
when they’re doing a sports broadcast
and i do
love sports they mix it
they’re they they have sound engineers
doing that
so whatever i don’t know maybe if
whatever okay prologic 2 music
okay this actually sounds pretty good
all right
and it gets your subwoofer involved as
well
most of the all of these with the
exception of direct get your sub
involved but there’s a way around that
which is kind of strange
all right then you have to change
channel 2 channel 2 channel multi
again that is going to put uh
right and left through all your speakers
but this is not two channel
direct this is two channel multi so your
sub still going to be turned on
uh two channel multi outputs two channel
or monorail still goes from all speakers
what was the first one uh so this is two
chan this is two channel
just two channel okay this is two
channel all speakers
i feel like we’ve been through this
again two channel multi multi-direct
all right yep we’re back through it all
right
so in here is a there’s a strange
phenomenon
okay because i like direct mode on
receivers
and i like direct mode with my subwoofer
working so it’s my two fronts
and a sub okay the only way around that
i’ve found to get that to work
on my marantz receiver is to go
into the subwoofer setting and actually
select
lfe plus main
which means all the info is going to
your front channels and your subs
working
so you no longer have a high pass filter
on your front
channels okay and i know that’s kind of
walking back what i said before but
that’s what i prefer and i also don’t
push my speakers super hard so
they can still handle that all right
so the strange thing comes on when you
go down here
and you select pure direct
so it turns off all of this stuff right
but the weird thing is when you select
sound field
up here and you go to the pure pure
direct mode it turns your sub
off okay i’m not going to go to it but
anyway it turns your sub off
however when you’re on only
the optical input on your tv
input when you go over to pure direct
mode and you turn it on
the sub still works weird it doesn’t
work on any of the other
inputs because i tried to do that with
the rcas out of another dac
it didn’t work very very strange okay
another strange thing speaker settings
okay so after you do the setup uh you’ll
go in here
and all the speakers that made sound
are going to show up on here so the one
thing that i find strange is
basically there’s no way to manually set
this up
you have got to run the uh room
optimizer whatever they call it
with the mic to get your speakers to
show up
now you can go in here and you can
select small or large
a large front channel is going to mean
that there is no high pass filter
put on it uh and most people would say
people it’s not large as in size it’s
large as in
what type of frequencies can the speaker
produce
all right so almost all of the time
you’re going to select small on your
fronts
and then you will go in here and you’ll
change this crossover dependent on
generally how big the woofer is and how
well that speaker can go down
a six and a half inch woofer 80 hertz is
probably good and you might even be able
to go down to 60 hertz
on a large six and a half inch a well
designed five and a quarter inch you can
probably still go 80 maybe even 70. all
right
and then it’s going to go in here and
this is where you can set your distances
and your different levels
okay same thing with the center same
thing with the right
and you can do this manually now
down here you have the subwoofer levels
and the distance and things
like that so the cool thing is you can
change all this manually
but the strange thing is you on most
receivers
you will be able to select a digital
low-pass filter on this receiver you
cannot
so it’s very important that you get the
correct
low pass filter dialed in on your
subwoofer if you’re going to buy this
again same things levels you want to
mess with levels
if um i don’t know if you just don’t
hear the rears
you can go in here and bump it up a bit
uh same thing with the right and front
left and front right
and the center so you can kind of tailor
it to your taste
it’s just odd that
there’s not a lot of manual setup
options here
like it doesn’t even show up where as in
maybe higher end receivers you can go in
here and just select hey
i have a center hey i want the crossover
to be xyz
and you can’t do this unless you run the
the setup wizard or whatever you want to
call it and
you actually have all those speakers
connected because
what sometimes what i’ll do on a
receiver is if i just want to hear the
front and
and the front right and left i’ll just
go in there and turn the center off or
if i just want to hear the speakers i’ll
turn the subwoofer off
and that doesn’t that’s not an option on
here so it’s kind of the first time i’ve
ever seen that
so in a nutshell this is the that this
receiver
okay again i don’t know if i can
recommend this thing and
i’m i don’t know i’m not gonna recommend
this thing
i think if you are looking to get into
home theater
and you have two hundred dollars to
spend or god forbid 280 dollars
don’t buy this go find something online
uh that is maybe used that
maybe you can test it or hear it playing
in that person’s house
and get something that’s maybe five or
six years old
a marantz uh higher end denon onkyo
uh pioneer i mean there’s a lot of stuff
if you go on the used market that you
can find
that’s gonna probably sound better and
it’s gonna have way more functionality
and it’s just going to be better and not
have
the cheesy build quality so
not a great review and i’m sorry sony uh
the two channel is okay
this five channel out of void um so
with that i am randy and i am the cheap
audio man
Sony STR-DH590 Receiver Specs
Channels | 5.2 |
Power Output per Channel | 1-Channel Driven: 145 W at 6 Ohms / 1 kHz / 0.9% THD |
Speaker Impedance | 6 to 16 Ohms |
DTS Compatibility | DTS 96/24, DTS-HD High Resolution, DTS-HD Master Audio |
Dolby Compatibility | Dolby Digital, Dolby Dual Mono |
Auro 3D Support | No |
HDR Compatibility | HDR10, Dolby Vision, Hybrid Log Gamma |
Pass-Through Support | 4K60p 4:4:4 (3D) |
Rear A/V Inputs | 4 x HDMI 1 x Digital Coaxial 1 x Optical TOSLINK 4 x Stereo RCA |
Rear A/V Outputs | 1 x HDMI 2 x RCA Subwoofer |
Front I/O | 1 x 1/4″ / 6.35 mm Headphone Output 1 x 1/8″ / 3.5 mm Setup Mic Input |
Other Rear I/O | 1 x FM Antenna Terminal Input 1 x USB Type-A (Power) Output |
Speaker Connectors | 2 x Binding Post Pairs 3 x Spring Clip Pairs |
HDCP Support | Version 2.2 |
Audio Return Channel (ARC) | Yes |
HDMI CEC | Yes |
Tuner Type | FM |
Number of Tuner Presets | 30 Stations |
AC Input Power | 120 VAC, 60 Hz |
Dimensions (W x H x D) | 17.0 x 5.2 x 11.8″ / 430.0 x 133.0 x 297.0 mm |
Weight | 15.7 lb / 7.1 kg |
Warranty Length | Limited 2-Year Warranty |
Sony STR-DH590 Receiver Review
The Sony STR-DH590 receiver is a new type of receiver from Sony that uses an analog TV input. This receiver is a perfect choice for those who love their analog TV but don’t want to change over to the more common CRT or LCD monitors. It is small and easy to use. There are no computer connections needed. All connections are made through the TV itself. When it comes to entertainment, this small receiver is one of the best.
The Sony STR-DH590 is a high definition receiver for those who watch high definition television on the television set itself. Most televisions have some kind of built in digital video recorder. This recorder serves as a storage device for all of your favorite shows and movies. While you can buy a separate record player for your TV set, it isn’t very practical if you like watching a lot of programs at once. The good thing about the Sony STR-DH590 receiver is that you can connect it to your computer and watch all of your recorded programs right on your television set.
You can use the Sony STR-DH590 receiver with your current television set, any laptop, and even your portable RCA theater system. There are so many great features this receiver has, it will make your life easier than ever. The Sony STR-DH590 is compatible with any TV that is designed to use an analog signal. There are no digital signals needed for this receiver, making it compatible with any TV.
The Sony STR-DH590 has many features that make it perfect for the person who likes to watch a lot of different channels at the same time. If you have a satellite dish, you can choose to get the satellite service or the cable service to connect to your receiver. These two options allow you to watch whatever channels you would like for any service that you are using. This is a great option because you are able to see all of your favorite channels and programs right on your television screen. The receiver is also compatible with any laptop that is designed to use an analog signal.
One of the best things about this receiver is that it can be expanded using a USB device. When you have more receivers connected to your television, you can expand your viewing area and increase the viewing options. This is very helpful when you are traveling or going out of town on business trips. The only thing you have to do in order to expand the Sony STR-DH590 receiver is to connect the expansion cable to your computer and upload the files that you would like to transfer to your television.
When you want to have something that is durable and flexible, the Sony STP-DH590 is the one for you. It is an application that is compatible with an Apple iPhone and an iPad using the USB connection. It expands the available interface that you have available on your television so that you can watch multiple programs at the same time without having to switch from one to the other. There is no need to buy multiple devices when you can just connect your iPhone and iPad using this application.
Last update on 2021-03-01 / Disclaimer: as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.