Sony STR-DH590 Receiver Review

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

280. 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