No single best amplifier here. What decides it is what you have to drive, what you need to plug in, and how much of the system you want in one box.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | B | Sony STR-DH190 has more power - 90W against 50W into 8 ohms. That is about 2.6dB, so it plays usefully louder before it runs out and has more in hand on peaks. |
| Built-in DAC | A | Audioengine N22 G2 has a DAC on board; the other needs an external one, which is another box, another power lead and another purchase. |
| Phono stage | depends | Sony STR-DH190 has a built-in phono stage and Audioengine N22 G2 does not. Decisive if you own a turntable, completely irrelevant if you do not - and an outboard phono stage is easy to add later either way. |
| Room to grow | A | Only Audioengine N22 G2 offers preamp outputs - which decides whether you can add a subwoofer or a power amplifier later without replacing the box. |
| Shelf space | depends | Audioengine N22 G2 takes up about 83% less shelf area (218cm² against 1299cm²), and it is 92mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | B | Sony STR-DH190 costs less - $248 against $269 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | B | Sony STR-DH190 is the cheaper watt - about $3 per watt against $5. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A Audioengine N22 G2 B Sony STR-DH190
depends neither is better in the abstract - it turns on your room, your system or how you will use them. Only specs published for both amplifiers are judged; anything missing on either side is left out rather than guessed.
Which should you choose?
Neither runs away with it - they trade advantages. Let the "depends" rows and the speakers you already own settle it. Start with the room. In a large or open-plan room, or with speakers that are hard to drive - low sensitivity, or an impedance that dips - Sony STR-DH190 has the headroom, and headroom is what stops an amplifier hardening up on peaks. At desk distance or in a small room, 50 watts is already more than most people ever use, and the extra 40 watts would be headroom you pay for and never hear. If you play records, Sony STR-DH190 saves you buying a phono stage; if you do not, ignore that row entirely.
What a spec sheet cannot show: how either sounds with your speakers, how the controls feel day to day, and what the app is like to live with - which is where most all-in-one amplifiers are actually won or lost. Power figures are the manufacturers' own and are not measured to a common standard, so treat small differences as noise. If you can hear both, that will tell you more than any row above.