Superb sound from this little Teac set-up and just as good, if not better than my Cyrus separates that reside in my lounge! Yes, l realise that this is a big claim, but after listening to both systems side by side (my Cyrus equipment was manufactured around the same era, by the way), this is my honest opinion.

Only weakness l can find is the fact that the supplied remote control to the Teac is very directional, so unless you point it directly to the Teac amp, it doesn’t respond.

Looks, sound, system intergration, displays, size, build quality, timer functions

remote control, lots of wires for a small system, no auto play, not bi-wireable

I searched long and hard for a mini system to replace my big ugly seperates. I always had the Reference 300 in mind but continued to look at other products. After a few months looking I finally decided to opt for the Teac. I only wanted the CD, Amp, Tuner and managed to find a great price. The system looks stunning, it looks like it costs more than twice what I paid. I can''t imagine a system looking better for the price. The build quality is top notch and everything about it says "style". Luckily it sounds killer too. I don''t really listen to the radio but the tuner provides great daily timer functions which means I can go to sleep with the stereo on and have it wake me up too at the time I set. The units themselves link up and intergrate well making it really feel like a "system". It''s not perfect, there are some little things I''d like to have changed. Firstly the remote control isn''t very ergonomic, it''s very flat with small buttons. You also have to be standing virtually in front of the amp sensor to have the remote work. It''s a bit cramped round the back too and there''s alot of wires hanging around for a small system. It would have been nice if you didn''t need a plug for each unit. Despite the little niggles it''s still one hell of a system and I''m pretty sure I couldn''t have picked anything better for anywhere near the money.

Clarity. soundstage.

Could be a little harsh with some stations.

I just bought the Tuner T-H300 from Teac. I could say that only the size of this tuner and the price is small on this unit.
The sensitivity is very good with the Terk`s antenna (Am-Fm+)
Out of the box, the sound is more open that an old Fm 3 from Quad or the new Cambridge Audio, but less detailed that a Parasound. It takes the goods of both world. For the price, I think you won`t find better. I don`t know for the durability... (warranty = 3 years)

With more money ($1000 Cnd.), the Magnum Dynalab will solve your problem...

Similar Products Used:

Tuners from Parasound, Cambridge Audio T-500Se, Quad Fm 3,Magnum Dynalab, etc.

I bought the tuner, CD player, and amplifier in order to put together a small system for my office. I play the system through a pair of Paradigm Mini-Monitors. Overall, I am happy with the system but I do have a few nits to pick.
The amplifier performs well and 30 Watts is plenty for an office environment. The volume and input selector knobs are both made of attractive gold anodized aluminum that matches the amplifier's faceplate. However, the balance and tone control knobs are made of cheap plastic that does not quite match the faceplate or other knobs. One very minor problem with my amp is that at very low volume levels (i.e. the first few degrees of rotation of the volume control)there is an audible channel imbalance wherein the right channel is louder than the left. This imbalance goes away after a few degrees of rotation of the volume knob. It's not a big deal because the imbalance is only present at volume levels much lower than one would ordinarily listen; however, it is a minor imperfection that I would rather not have. In terms of sound quality it seems to be perfectly transparent. (I've participated in enough ABX trials to know that at least I cannot hear differences between properly functioning amplifiers).

The CD player operates flawlessly and loads discs very quickly.

The tuner is perfectly adequate for an office stereo but is probably the weakest link of the system. Although it is far better than any table radio or cheap boom-box radio, it is not as good as my 15 year-old Yamaha tuner (T-1000) currently in my main system. Compared to my Yamaha, I believe I can hear slightly more harmonic distortion in the Teac when listening carefully to strong FM stereo signals and switching back and forth between the tuners. Sensitivity and selectivity are adequate but not great. Noise is fairly low. Frequency response seems to be quite good. The AM tuner performs well. This tuner does NOT have RDS capability, contrary to many spec sheets I saw on the web. When I opened up the tuner and looked inside there was a section of the circuit board marked out for the RDS circuitry but it was not populated with components. I suspect that only European models are getting the actual RDS circuitry.

One last thing. Only the faceplates of these components have the pretty gold anodized finish. The sides are greenish-gray sheetmetal.

Compact Size. Nice styling of front. See below

Ugly/ordinary if seen from the side.

I bought these to use a traditional 2-channel audio system to play a collection of 60's & 70's vinyl. Also to burn the vinyl on to CD-R. They had to fit into a restricted space.

This series in not really a K-Mart mini-system. It is a geuine piece of audiophile equepment designed to meet a particular need namely high quality 2-channel sound in a very compact package. If these were on the market ca. 1980 they would have been cosidered very respectable and definatey not enty level. For those not old enough to remeber, 30 watts/channel was once pretty decent performance. You should couple these to good quality but efficient (4 ohm ?) speakers. If I still had my Smaller Advents, they would have been perfect. In stead I choose a pair of M&K K-series satellites. As long as you don't expect much bass performance, the this receiver is quite adequate.

The FM performance is not from the 70s era. I'm located not far from Sutro Tower in San Francisco. This is one of the worm reception area in the country. Maybe I just got lucky with antenna placement this time, but the reception is as good as any receiver I've used in this area.

There is a remote control but I don't bother with it since there are located where I can reach the front pannel. The controls are very simple and intuitive. The only wierdness involves the companion CD-recorder. The sieries has provision for interconnecting the various components so that selecting one from the reciever allows turns on the selected unit. The manual says that you can't use this feature if you wish to record. If you just have the tape deck or CD player in you system, this should not be a problem.

I can recommend these for anyone who wants just 2-channel sound in a small package and can live with 30 watts. Regard as a real system, not a near boom box or executive toy! I may be adding a power sub in the next 6 months, in which case I expect I'll have a system coparable to a more traditional big-black-box stereo.

PS: I don't understand why most audio equipment is in the standard 17" x 13" x 6" box. In side they are mostly empty space. Yes, there can be a question of heat dissipation, but heat sink fins can take care of that.

The sound, the power, the looks

Low quality finish of some of the buttons

It's great (recever, amp and multi cd) , i've compared it with other systems in the same price range (sony, Jvc, ect...) Nothing can deliver that power and quality, and still look clean, nice and beautifull . I hooked them up some Quadral Argent 21 speakers, love it.

Handsome looks, compact size, stackable & great sound.

No option available to cover plain-jane sides, rats nest of wires hanging out the rear.

I was after the killer "Executive Desktop System". I think I've got it. It looks super expensive (it really wasn't all that cheap, really) and sounds great. I'm using a set of older baby advents (I recently replaced the rotted foam surrounded woofers). These speakers have solid walnut tops and bottoms and look terrific flanking the Teac component tower. My components are the T-H300 tuner, R-H300 cassette, PD-H300 CD changer and the A-H300 integrated amplifier. They all work flawlessly. I use the system in my home "virtual" office. I have other mini-systems, but none have the class look that this system has. The bass response is limited by the Baby Advents but is a good compromise between looks/size and performance. I have a spare Sunfire subwoofer, but just haven't been all that motivated to connect it up.

Similar Products Used:

Sony MHC-C90 mini-system, JVC UX-T1, JVC FS-V30, Harman/Kardon Festival 500.

OK we've had the US version of the review, so I think it's only fair to have a review of the european model (which appears higher specced) Firstly the system i have but together is the complete TEAC 300 (minus the MD deck), QED cabling and Acoustic Energy Aegis ones.

The Amp performs well at the heart of the system, with 35wpc (appears european model only) enough in most enviroments. Although, as mentioned it the other comment, a slight in balance of the sound can be heard at low volumes.

The CD Player has a solid gliding motion, the tray isn't flimsy as with cheap players. The AMP enables you to have a direct CD-to-Speaker, or the version produced by the AMP. And programming it is easy and quick.

The Tuner picks up FM signals about as well as you'd expect for the money, but AM signals are a bit lacking. The Radio Data System (RDS), (again European model only) is what you'd expect, so can't really rate it although ti does support radio text well and, as with the other components, features a dot display. The tuner also features the timing features of the system, with a sleep timer which switches the whole system off and also a daily timer to switch it on and off.

The Cassette deck performs well for the money, the CD Sync feature works well, although recordings do have added bass to the original.

The whole system as an excellent interoperalility (that spelt right?), the internal AI cooperating with the remote well enough for the lazy among us. Pauses the CDP, when you press a button to do with the tuner, etc. and the looks of the system alone make it worth the price. So if you can deal with the few niggles, then you'll be happy with the system on the whole. As with all Hi-Fi, Just shop around before you buy, I saved £150 on the RRP of £600 ($1K)

-Smooth, clean, and elegant design (it in no way looks cheap)
-An almost high-quality construction
-Clean, rich sound output with a good range of volume support

(Main gripes)
-They cheaped out on a couple of places unnecessarily in my humble opinion
-Inadequate equalizer
-Extremely finicky remote (you can't be more than twenty degrees to the side from the remote sensor)

(Minor gripes)
-One or two basic functions (such as CD searching) are remote-only. Nothing critical, just annoying.
-Lacking some fancier features (e.g., surround sound) that other mini-systems in the same price-range offer.
-No real tape-deck support (not a big deal these days)
-Single CD CD player

I needed to find a powerful mini-system that was also compact and under $700, so...after some looking around, it came down to the new Sony MHC-NX3AV and the Teac 300 Reference. Unfortunately, the Sony system, while feature-rich, sounded a tad flat so I settled with the (older) Teac.

Now about my impressions...

The amplifier and packaged speakers do a good job. In an already loud store--most of the TVs and radios were playing---I could crank CD music loud enough to drown out most of the surrounding noise without any noticeable distortion.

The CD player is decent. For normal play, it starts playing quickly enough, but if you want shuffled play, the shuffling takes about three seconds. I guess just about every CD player has this "feature". The tray slides out very smoothly, although the CD tray itself is a tad thin and flimsy.

The radio tuner, as observed before, is just average for the price, so I won't bother with it.

Now the lack of a real equalizer is very annoying. While they do provide a bass/treble knob, it's not enough! My main gripe with this is because of the following: Songs with very LOW bass tunes get an extra kick for some reason, ruining the feel. So to compensate, I have to lower the bass knob a notch, but this eliminates the general richness of a song. *sigh* I can live with it, but I know some audio-philes who couldn't. I almost feel that presets would've been better!

The face-plate and most of the large knobs are the beautiful gold-color metal, but most of the push-buttons, the bass/treble knobs, and the CD-tray face-plate are all plastic. They don't quite match the gold face-plate and I'm concerned (worried) that this might be the type of plastic where the color rubs off. If I could replace these buttons with correctly colored metal-faced equivalents, I would.

The most ANNOYING gripe about this system is the small range of angles in which the remote can be used. If you're more than twenty degrees to the front of the system, the remote sensor will not pick-up the remote signal! I'm not quite sure why this is the case (and I'm not going to open the system to find out), but this is one feature that needs fixing. I mean, considering that I've seen low-end systems handle upwards of 50 degrees, this is simply unacceptable.

In summary and considering the target audience, the Reference 300 system is a mini-system that should've been a 5. It really feels like a 3.8, so the only person I could suggest it to is one that needs an overall high-quality sound from a compact system.

Similar Products Used:

Some kick-butt Sony mini-system from 1992. It was my roommate's, but I could never find it and I have never seen a mini-system like it since.