Sony STRDH590 5.2 Channel Surround Sound Home Theater Receiver: 4K HDR AV Receiver with Bluetooth,Black

UPDATE: I love this thing. Upgrade from four to five stars!Once you get used to the features, the remote is simplex - a definite improvement over the ancient device and remote it replaced.Updated review comments:- Basic remote use is a one-button press ON for FM, TV, or Bluetooth (which pairs easily).- Angle and range of the remote are awesome (for me at least).- Front panel display is very readable, and the light level is adjustable to several presets to OFF.- The manual onboard volume control is micro-adjustable; no "move it a tiny bit and too loud."- Easy access to digital process presets (Stadium, Concert, Jazz, etc.), and they are "just enough."- Sound quality is exactly what I hoped for. It perfectly drives my two (really old) KEF Carina 2 speakers and two (really old) satellite Radio Shack Optimus Pro X44AV.- A simple, old-school Pyle speaker selector switch (purchased via Amazon) easily accommodates front/satellite speaker switching/combining (as there is no second set of speaker OUTs on the Sony). Nonetheless, the Sony receiver drives them both pairs of speakers as hoped -- no worries.- I can accept that there is no AM on this thing. Truth be known, about the only time I've ever used AM has been in weather emergency situations, looking for someplace - any place - to get info. However, I now have a spiffy Midland battery/solar/hand-cranked AM/FM/NOAA Weather radio (via Amazon) for that. So, no AM on the Sony is not a deal breaker.INITIAL REVIEW:My 26-year-old Sony AV Receiver was intermittently shutting down and displaying "PROTECTION." I opened it up, blew out a ton of dust, examined and found no bulging capacitors, re-assembled - and it worked flawlessly - for about 6 months.Bought this low/mid-range one to replace the old one. It works, however there are things I like and dislike:PRO:• Despite the complex possibilities of set-up and calibration with the included microphone, it was truly just plug-and-play.• The Display is clear, sufficiently bright, and easily customizable.• The remote is much smaller, more intuitive, and less complex than the old one.• Printed user manual - cool.CON:• Sony's approach (still) is to handle a lot of (almost all?) the adjustments for you. For example, no simple tone controls. "Just leave the sausage making up to us, and we'll provide the only pre-sets you'll really need."• If you were to brave following all the set-up directions in the user manual, you should first get a degree in signal path, gain structure, and network configuration.• There is no AM tuner - just FM. I get it. Fancy-ish home AV systems rarely, or never dial-up AM stations.• No B channel speaker outputs! My old receiver accommodated two main sets of speakers: "A" speakers were 5.1 plus sub for the big room, and "B" speakers were a simple L/R for another set of speakers (ours are wired, in the kitchen). To solve this missing feature, I've ordered a simple manual Pyle A/B switch (actually A/B/C/D) to take the output of the receiver and have the option of playing just A, B, or both A and B (like the old unit had built-in).About that A, no B thing: None of the Sony AV Receivers I researched from base model to those costing thousands, have outputs for a B set of speakers. None. If I missed one, would love to know about it.Also, all my speakers are 8 Ω, so if this doubling-up on load via the Pyle switch yields impedance woes, I'll update this review.

I took a half star off because of the dumb fm antenna wire on this. I did not pay attention to the fm antenna connection when I purchased this. I listen to the radio early in the morning and I should not have to grab my phone to bluetooth a radio station even though it works extremely well. Even the higher end Sony models have this type of antenna. Luckily it sits close enough to a window that I laid the wire flat on the windowsill.Picks up the station I usually listen to ok...45 miles away. This not a entry level receiver..it is a budget entry level receiver. Randy the cheapaudioman on youtube gave this a do not buy recommendation.I recommend that you get this at or slightly above the black friday price. Well I am new to a/v receivers so it was quite the learning curve. I just about took this thing out to the garage and took a sledgehammer to it.But I finally got it to work right for me. Took a while.I plugged my roku ultra 4800x into this and did the setup which was easy. Read the instruction manual. And I think you should learn the amp menu also. There are setting in there that are NOT on the on screen settings. This receiver plays good stereo content from my turntable,radio and dvd player. I stream content to my tv and I could not get all 5 speakers to work with 2.0 content from the streaming services I use. 5.1 worked.I paid good money for my speakers and not being able to use all of them for 2.0 content was a dealbreaker for me. I have Polk elite signature 20s for the mains..polk xt35 for the center and polk xt15s for the surrounds. I finally figured it out. You have to enable audio passthrough on the roku to get all five speakers to play for 2.0 content. On top of that every time I pressed the roku power button everything comes on like it should. Except the roku wanted to change the setting to auto hdr on every power up.My tv is not capable of doing GOOD hdr so I do not use it. The fix is to go into the roku HDMI SECRET MENU and enable/disable automatic recovery at the bottom right of screen. I hope this helps somebody. My apple tv 4k did not do this but I put it on a different tv because apple does not have the weather channel streaming app nor does it have passthough audio. I call it APPLE SOUND. This receiver does not have any clear voice or clear dialogue tech in it. So I have to turn up the center for some content and turn it back down for music. Also I am not a fan of the loud sound effects in some 5.1 content.Night mode works,but what I use is the dynamic compression setting....only selectable through the amp menu....off...auto...on. Its under hdmi in the amp menu. It only comes on for 5.1 content...there is a indicator light. There is no instructions on how to do this in the manual! For me to get acceptable 5.1 sound from this I enabled dynamic compression...bumped rear speaker up a little..lowered my mains a little and raised the center a little for dialogue. What a hassle and learning curve this was. For what I paid....black friday price it was worth it. That is why I gave it 5 stars. Will be looking a DENON S660H receiver next black friday..lol.That is a entry level receiver.You also will need a subwoofer for this. I actually finally got this to sound both pretty good for both tv and music. Also 2 channel surround sound mode is nice...good job SONY.Other brands of receivers have clear voice settings....dynamic compression and other settings all available in the on screen menu. But I got this thing figured out finally..most people do not have the time to horse around with something like this. I hope this helps somebody out. I just got an A in home theater school..lol.Have a good day!

One day I walked into the living room, grabbed the receiver's remote and turned it on. It went off almost immediately. I tried turning it on again and I heard a very quiet pop and smelled a whiff of burnt wiring (I think it was probably a circuit board, but what do I know?). So...not having any familiarity with testing and replacing circuit boards, I pronounced it dead and started looking for a replacement. Now, so far I have not mentioned the brand of the dead receiver, but I can say, at the time I purchased it, it was around $500 so not a cheap, off brand and it worked flawlessly...until it didn't. I did want something similar, but did not have exactly the same amount of money to spend this time around so...I did some research on a few different receivers and chose this Sony. I have a full set of Klipsch surround sound speakers - a dual subwoofer set - so I wanted a 5.2 receiver to be able to attach both my subwoofers. The receiver works perfectly well with the speakers and the dongles I use most often to Chromecast movies from my laptop to the TV or the Roku dongle to watch shows on the channels I have through Roku. This is a fine receiver that is working well with my TV and speaker system.

Works well. Menu and controls suck, buy that's just Sony. Good quality. Integrates well with HDMI controls.