Sherwood RVD-6090R Bargain Blowout Surround-Sound Receiver
Written: Mar 30 '01 (Updated Mar 30 '01)
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Pros: Low Price, Dolby Digital
Cons: No DTS
The Bottom Line: Ample power for most speakers. Great features for this price. Perfect cornerstone for a low-budget home-theater.
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| radioguy's Full Review: Sherwood RVD-6090R 5.1 Channels Receiver |
If you're on a very tight budget, yet you'd like to put together a home-theater system, with a TV, a DVD player (which will, of course, also give you audio CD playback), a surround-sound receiver, and a set of surround-sound speakers, the Sherwood RVD-6090R receiver would serve as the perfect heart of your system. In fact, with its street price of $170 (from 800.com), the 6090R could easily fit into a complete, sub-$1,000 home-theater.
Meet the RVD-6090R
The 6090R is a fine receiver for a micro-budget home-theater. Besides regular old stereo output, the 6090R can handle the older, analog, Dolby Pro Logic surround-sound mode plus the newer, Dolby Digital (DD) surround-sound mode. In either stereo or surround-sound modes (five channels), the 6090R pumps out 60 watts per channel. It's rated by Sherwood as running from 40 hZ to 20 kHz with 0.08 Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) in the stereo mode. No performance figures are given for the surround-sound modes. Each of the five surround-sound output amplifiers has its own power-amp transistor (the "0.1" channel, i.e. the subwoofer or LFE, is a line-level output which feeds the amplifier inside a separate, self-powered subwoofer).
No DTS
The only major feature missing from the 6090R is the Digital Theater Sound surround-sound format (DTS). You'll get DTS if you move up to the sister model to the 6090R, the 6095R, which has a street price of about $250. While DTS would give you a slight sonic improvement over DD, as it uses an uncompressed format for sending its digital information, DTS software, meaning DVD's with DTS soundtracks, are still fairly rare. Also, DTS doesn't have a giant advantage over DD. Many people have said they can't hear a difference between the two.
Dolby Pro Logic
For your Dolby Pro Logic input, whether from broadcast TV, a laserdisc player, a VHS VCR, or a DVD player, the 6090R has a pair of analog L/R audio RCA input jacks. The Dolby Pro Logic output goes to the receiver's five speaker outputs as four channels, with a full-range signal feeding the front-left, center, and front-right outputs and a single, limited-range (audio frequency) signal being split among the rear-left and rear-right outputs.
Dolby Digital
For DD input from your DVD player, whether your DVD player sends this out with a coaxial jack (same as an RCA jack) or an optical jack (small jack to take the plug from a thin fiber-optic cable), the 6090R has two coaxial digital-audio input jacks and two optical digital-audio input jacks. The 6090R has in integral DD decoder, so all you need to do is feed the digital surround-sound datastream from your DVD player, via either a coaxial or an optical connection, and the receiver will decode the signal, convert it to analog form, and break it down into the six channels which make up the analog signal needed for DD surround sound (front-right, center, front-left, rear-right, rear-left, and the subwoofer or low-frequency effects, a.k.a. LFE, channel).
Six-Channel Analog Input
However, if you have a DVD player with its own integral decoder, you can use the six analog RCA-jack outputs of the DVD player and run six cables to connect to the six analog RCA-jack surround-sound inputs on the rear panel of 6090R. For DD, you're better off to run the surround-sound signal on a single cable and let the decoder in the 6090R handle the decoding chores.
However, if your DVD player has an integral DTS decoder (this is generally found on models selling for over $250), then you could connect via the 6090R's six analog surround-sound jacks and have DTS sound with the 6090R. If you don't currently have a DVD player with an integral DTS decoder, its nice to know that the 6090R's six-channel analog inputs give you the option of upgrading to DTS any time you move up to a DVD player with the integral DTS decoder.
Another advantage of the six analog surround-sound input jacks on the 6090R is that they keep you ready for any innovation in digital audio, providing a form of insurance against obsolescence. For example, if some kind of new digital audio disc player with six-channel analog output is brought to the market, you'll be ready to use it with the 6090R. As a matter of fact, the new DVD-Audio disc format puts out its audio via the six analog surround-sound outputs of a DVD-Audio-capable DVD player (please note that DVD-Audio is a high-end feature not included on all DVD players). The other new high-end DVD-based audio format, SACD, on the other hand, is output via the L/R analog audio outputs of a SACD-capable DVD player. The reason neither of the two new high-end DVD audio formats, DVD-Audio and SACD, are output via the player's digital connections (either the coaxial or the optical digital surround-sound jack) is because the record companies do not want you to be able to make high-quality digital copies of the software you purchase in the DVD-Audio or SACD format. You are limited, with these formats, to making copies based on their output, which is analog only.
Six-Channel Preamp Outputs
The 6090R has a set of surround-sound preamp outputs (front-right, center, front-left, rear-right, rear-left, subwoofer). The preamp outputs, as the name implies, take the analog surround-sound audio signals, before the final power amplifier stages of the receiver, and allow you to feed the output to an external device, such as an a graphic equalizer or an amplifier. Preamp outs are a nice touch, and a feature usually found only on receivers selling for four times as much as this one. They're actually a bit odd to find on a receiver like this, because you'd figure that few people on a budget so restricted that they're buying an under-$200 receiver would be likely to purchase a separate external power amp(s).
Digital Signal Processing Effects
The 6090R features Digital Signal Processing (DSP), meaning that, when you play music over its amplifier outputs, the receiver can modify the timing of the various signals, creating effects which are known as "Theater," "Hall 1," and "Hall 2." To increase the sense of spaciousness, there is also a center/rear digital delay effect.
A "Cinema EQ" feature helps to tailor soundtrack audio for home listening, reducing the harshness this type of audio tends to have, especially over the center-channel speaker. To tailor the sound to your speakers, there are bass and treble knobs on the front panel of the receiver. A pink-noise generator sends a tone, in turn, to each of the unit's speakers, allowing you to properly set the volume for each speaker. Speakers are connected with five-way binding posts. On such an economically-priced receiver you'd expect to find spring-clip connectors, so the five-way posts are another nice touch.
Inputs/Outputs
The front panel of the receiver has a composite-video input jack and a L/R analog audio input jacks, allowing you to quickly connect a camcorder or a video game. On the rear panel, there are four sets of L/R analog audio inputs for connecting CD players, tape decks, and the like. The rear panel also has four composite-video/analog L/R audio input sets, plus two composite-video/analog L/R audio output sets, allowing you to use the 6090R as the switching center for your home theater gear and/or a tape deck or MiniDisc recorder.
However, any video gear you have which uses S-Video or component connections (the higher-quality types of video connections) will have to be connected through some other means. This isn't a big drawback, as you don't expect to find S-Video or component connections and switching on a receiver at this price. Plus, you usual get better connections by connecting pieces of video gear directly, rather than through the switching circuitry of an A/V receiver, so, even if the receiver had S-Video and component capabilities, you might not even want to use them. Rounding out the set of connections, there's a headphone jack on the front panel.
AM/FM Digital Tuner
The 6090R's digital AM/FM tuner features 30 station presets. According to Sherwood, FM tuner sensitivity is 12.8 dBf and AM sensitivity is 12.5 uV.
The receiver comes with a full-function remote control. There's also a sleep timer. The receiver tips the scales at 25 pounds.
Conclusion
The Sherwood 6090R fits in well with Radioguy's Home Theater Bang-for-the-Buck Maximum Maxim, which states: great speakers will sound pretty good even with an inexpensive receiver, but cheesy speakers will sound cheesy no matter how good a receiver you use with them. The Maximum Maxim, therefore, dictates that, if you are on a very tight home-theater budget, you should strongly consider a receiver like the Sherwood 6090R (or the aforementioned, but not listed on Epinions, Kenwood VR505), saving your money for the purchase of a good-quality set of surround speakers.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 169.99
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radioguy
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Member: R.U. Experienced
Location: New York, NY
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