Price Paid:  $360.00 from 2001 Audio

Summary:
Great produce, crystal clear, the only problen I have with this unit s the lack of bass. Must be used with powered sub.

Strengths:
Remote, Remote, Remote, Sound Clarity, Features of the price

Weaknesses:
Bass output, don''t drop the remote...Kenwood says it cost 200CND

Similar Products Used:
VR 405, VR 406

Price Paid:  $549.00 from FUTURE SHOP

Summary:
I SHOPPED FOR MY RECEIVER WHEN I THOUGHT IT WAS TIME TO UPGRADE FROM PRO LOGIC TO DIGITAL. I STARTED MY SHOPPING AT FUTURE SHOP AND LOOKED AT THE VR-410 THEN AFTER MANY DIFFRENT STORES AND RECEIVERS, I CAME BACK TO FUTURE SHOP AND BOUGHT THE KENWOOD. I LOVE THE REMOTE CONTROL, ALTHOUGH IT''S A LITTLE HARD ON BATTERIES. SOUND OUT PREFORMS MY JVC RX-717 (GARBAGE). BASS IS GREAT DUE TO MY VELODYNE SUB (C-10) GOOD ALL IN ALL FOR THE BUCK BUT I WOULD HAVE PREFERED A HARMON KARDON BUT IT WAS NOT IN THE BUDGET. ALL THE PLUGS IN THE BACK YOU COULD WANT, ONCE YOU BALANCE CHANNELS TO YOUR OWN TASTE THEN IT SOUNDS GREAT. MY ONLY PROBLEM IS MY SPEAKERS ARE NOT WELL BALANCED FOR SURROUND SOUND, BUT STILL NO COMPLAINTS COMPARED TO THE JVC (GARBAGE)

Strengths:
IT''S NOT A JVC, REMOTE IS PERFECT, GOOD OVER ALL SOUND, PLENTY OF PLACES TO PLUG ALL MY AUDIO & VIDEO COMPONENTS AND MORE

Weaknesses:
IT''S NOT A HARMON KARDON

Similar Products Used:
JVC RX-717

Price Paid:  $250.00 from Centre Hi-Fi

Summary:
This thing is great for the price, I don''t know what people are doing to get low bass, but bass on mine is perfect right out of the box. I plugged a DVD player to it to play a CD and the sound was great (Stereo mode). It took a little bit of playing around to get the feel for the remote, which is in itself worth all the money I paid for the system. The dinky FM antenna that comes with it is a problem just waiting to happen, some will definitely get it wrong. Use coax if you can. The RF remote antenna (Which I didn''t get) is simple to make really, a mono mini phone plug and a few feet of wire off each side is all you need.

Strengths:
Lots of connections on the back, more than most will ever need.

Weaknesses:
Manuals, I own lots of Kenwood equipments, these are the worst manuals from them I''ve seen to date. If you can figure out the functionality on your own, you''re not gonna miss them. If on the other hand this is your first foray into home theatre and you''re not comfortable with the interconnects needed, get help.

Similar Products Used:
Technics recvr in the same price range.

Summary:
I have just purchased this unit. I need help. I can't figure out how to get the Circle Surround to work, when listening in digital, which I read here is quite impressive. I haven't yet bought a DVD player, so rigt now I get very feeble sound from my speakers when I play vidoe and the cable tv. Is this ok? Have rechecked my settings and seems ok. And besides button 1 and 2 on the remote no other functionality seem to work?

I would appreciate help if someone would be so kind to email me. thanking you in earnest.

Price Paid:  $300.00 from Wacky Wheatleys

Summary:
After looking around for a receiver that had the options and inputs that I wanted I decided on the 410. It was straight forward to set up although the manual was very poorly written, severely lacking in any explainations of functions or capabilities.

The first thing I noticed upon playing a CD was a noticable lack of bass. I was able to get an output to the sub eventually by selecting "normal" for main speakers. This helped a bit but the sound still sounded weak. The circle surround feature is nice and gives music a realistic depth. I also like the "monitor" function which allows you to send an analog source to a graphic equalizer if desired.

Movies did not sound too bad, but then this was my first surround receiver and did not have much to compare it to. Control of individual channel sound levels was easy to do. Changing decoding modes required stepping through all of the modes to get to the one you wanted (including DSP modes).

Now the remote. This is a work of art. The backlite LCD display made programming a snap. And if some of your favorite functions were not included in the program, then the remote learned them easily. The remote had a fairly intuitive functionality which made it easy to select a music or video source on the receiver while at the same time changing the functionality of the remote to control the associated device. I loved it!

After giving the 410 a good trial for a couple of weeks I decided that I couldn't live with the sound quality and decided to return it. As soon as I hooked my old HK PM645 back up and put in a CD it was night and day. It is true when they say that you get what you pay for and the 410 with its integrated amps is typical of average receivers in that price range. Although Kenwood packs a lot of functionality into this unit the quality of the amp really detracts from the overall experience with it. I am now considering Onkyo, Denon and NAD - strictly discrete amps.

Overall I would say that for general movie or television watching this is a pretty good receiver that will give you a fair amount of flexibility and functionality for your money. But if you are looking for fidelity in your music and good power handling for DTS soundtracks, then you may want to consider a higher end receiver. I had a really hard time returning the remote however (did I mention that I loved the remote:)).

Strengths:
Remote, ease of use/set-up, number of inputs

Weaknesses:
music sound quality, bass control flexibility, no PL II

Similar Products Used:
First A/V receiver