Price

No bass, false power rating

I wanted something for a second system to play in the background mostly.
Unfortunately, as soon as I turned on this unit, I could hear how thin its sound was. In short, the 100 Watts per channel must be a misleading spec. It probably only pushes out 100 Watts at one frequency, perhaps 1KHz.
I ran it though a pair of old Bose 901's (yeah, yeah, I've heard all the rabid arguments, thanks), which require lots of power to drive them. The 304 just could make them do anything.
If you're absolutely stuck for money, the unit might suffice in some situations. But don't expect to blast the walls down, or get any bass out of this thing.
I would recommend looking for something that's spec'd at 50 Watts per channel honestly, rather than these "100 Watts".
I didn't open the thing up, but I suspect that the output stage is spec'd for 100 Watts, but the power supply isn't. But that's irrelevant.
In this case, you get you pay for.

well performing stereo only receiver

microprocessor based controls take a little getting used to.

This appears to be a good, no nonsense, basic stereo receiver for those wanting clean reproduction of music and are not too interested in searching for holy grails of audio equipment.

The rotary source dial is something of a throwback to yesteryear, except that it is entirely electronic. The multi control takes a little getting used to because it requires preselection of what you wish to adjust; eg you have to push the balance button and then use the multi control to actually adjust L and R channels via an illuminated schematic which appears on the display. The volume control too appears to be microprocessor controlled - it's a bit disconcerting at first to have no mechanical stops for zero and maximum volume. The controls are duplicated on a remote unit which is rather cluttered because it can be used with a multitude of other Kenwood units. This receiver takes a little time to learn unlike prior models.

Otherwise, it appears to work well. I should add that I have had it less than a fortnight so I can say nothing about the reliability of the unit.

Similar Products Used:

Kenwood KRA something-or-other