Yamaha DSP-A590 AV amplifier

Although the Yamaha DSP-A590 is the "youngest" model in the company's AV amplifier family, it has an extremely solid and immediately respectable appearance. Inside this powerful gray box is Yamaha's DSP sound processor, which stands for Digital Soundfield Processing (not Digital Signal Processing, as you might think). What are the differences between the two DSPs? A real DSP performs fully digital soundfield processing when decoding Dolby Pro Logic, while the DSP-processor in the Yamaha DSP-A590 is a hybrid one. It only processes the rear speaker signals digitally, while the processing and decoding of the other channels is done in analog. So that's how peculiar Yamaha is.

Thanks to this DSP-processor, the surround sound options in the DSP-A590 are noticeably wider than in many other models and offer as many as eight Surround sound modes. In addition to the self-evident Dolby Pro Logic mode, there is also Dolby Pro Logic Enhanced mode. In this mode, the sound processor performs additional signal processing during decoding. As a result, the sound of a typical home theater system simulates the sound of a real movie theater. This sound, of course, can cause nostalgic memories of going to the movies in the "past life", but it is possible that many future owners of this amplifier would still prefer a more natural sound of conventional Dolby Pro Logic system, rather than its enhanced Enhanced variant.

The Yamaha sound in Direct mode with the timbres turned off was powerful, with deep bass, but somewhat heavy and colorless. But with timbres on, the DSP-A590 sounded just great: powerful bass with resonant treble and transparent "middle"! At the same time, turning on different Surround modes significantly changed the sound of the amplifier, but the sound itself became somewhat artificial and unnatural. It was especially noticeable in the sound of percussion instruments, particularly cymbals, which sounded as if duplicated and accompanied by a strong digital echo.

A home theater system based on Yamaha DSP-A590 looked and listened very well. The three-dimensional sound picture, created by AV-amplifier in Dolby Pro Logic mode, had an enviable volume and a lot of sound details. Yamaha confidently positioned sound sources both in front and in depth, and the sound images it created were almost palpable. Sound quality, especially in the low frequency range, was excellent. The only complaint about the DSP-A590 was the overly harsh nature of the sound of gunshots and other similar sounds, as well as the slight background noise "smeared" over the entire volume of the room. However, when activating other surround sound modes, the sound character, contrary to the inscription on the front panel Natural Sound, took on a distinctly artificial character and was very far from natural. For example, the interpreter's voice, which in Dolby Pro Logic mode was strictly centered, in Hall mode was "smeared" over two channels of the front speakers at once and was accompanied by a noticeable echo.

In general, talking about Yamaha DSP-A590, let us note that it is a well-made device with good sound, but unnatural sound in some Surround modes. The presence of S-VHS standard video inputs in this amplifier, including S-VHS input on the front panel of the amplifier, speaks eloquently about Yamaha's rather high class AV amplifier! And finally, an extra convenience from the company - two power outlets on the rear wall of the amplifier, which, as you know, are never superfluous.