Price

Terminals for Surround Speakers bad. Wires provided a joke. Manual is horrible. Remote is bad/not backlit.

The VR507 is a budget receiver. Therefore, you will not see the best of the best in anything. Very little configs relatively speaking. Terminals for rear speakers are a joke. Average build. Wires are HORRIBLE. Replace them quickly. Remote is stupid...no backlit. When will these companies understand that we don't watch movies with all the lights on. Simple set up....too simplistic in my opinion. No component video in or out.

great sounding, price, lotsa stuff in back

scrolling thru the listening modes is kinda lame!

This is a kick-ass receiver. Despite what others may have said this unit does it all. I have this thing hooked up to:

Samsung 52" Big Screen
Toshiba DVD/CD player
JVC CD player
Kenwood 8" 100w SubWoofer
NewMark EQ
Yamaha front and rear speakers (for video)
Pioneer HPM 100 speakers (audio)
Terk antenna
Toshiba VHS deck
Direct TV satellite

My life is complete, I never have to leave the house (or my sofa!) again!!


With 600 watts of total power you can turn up the volume till your ears bleed. and no amp noise to speak of.
DTS & Dolby Digital are out of this world!
.....thanx & later

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what, my 9-volt transistor?

Price Point, Sound Quality, Many Plugs on Back, Speakers (purchased with Home Theatre Package)

Provided Speaker Wire, Display a little weak

CHANGE THE SPEAKER WIRE...the first thing I did was get 12 gauge and 16 gauge speaker wire for the surround sound...what a difference in sound.

The set up is a little confusing, even for a computer junkie. Flipping between theatre/speaker modes is too long, scrolling doesn't suit me well.

Reading the manual and plugging wires into the back based on the manual was a fun task...not the easiest to understand. Better off doing it on your own.

Sound quality is great, speakers provded were good...not those little cubes, but rather heavy ones with great sound and a loud Sub Woofer.

Once you find a sound setting it sounds great...stadium even has an echo for those hockey games where you want to really be there.

All in all, very good purchase for the money ($749 CAN). If you are looking for a 500 dollar receiver and top of the line speakers, do not buy this as I feel this only suits a startup Audio System (The DV-509 or higher would suit as they have a few more features and a much better remote). If you are on a budget but want something that provides great sound and can handle all of your audio components, Satelite, CD, etc then this is the one you want.

My only other comparison is an old Analog Receiver that had many ports, buttons for each theatre mode, but no digital inputs and a bad remote (the remote on this one is ok, but not fantastic...no backlit).

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Old receiver (can't even remember model)

Sound Quality; Surround Decoding; Price

Remote not backlit; No on screen display

This unit sounds excellent in all modes. Plenty of clear power and a lot more bass from the sub out jack than my prior Yamaha receiver.

The receiver is fairly easy to set up. The manual could be better, but it gets the job done. Once you set up the various inputs the receiver remembers what setting you used last with that input for next time. I don't change modes much, so this is perfect for me. I use the Auto setting for DD/DTS, PLII for cable, PLII - music for the tuner; and Circle Surround for CD.

I have the receiver connected to a Toshiba DVD player via optical cable. In auto mode, it has decoded DD and DTS perfectly on everything I've tried. The blue light display on the Kenwood matches the Toshiba's display perfectly.

For the price, this receiver is hard to beat. No amp noise at any volume I've listened to so far. A two year warranty to boot. With formats changing so frequently, I just don't see the value in paying big bucks for a receiver today that will be outdated before the warranty expires. At the price of the Kenwood, I'll just pick up another receiver when something "new" hits the market that I just have to hear.

I waited to buy a new receiver until I could get PLII. Most of my viewing is still on cable, and this sound mode does add a significant improvement over Pro Logic.

Highly recommend for movies and non critical listening.

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Yamaha Pro Logic Receiver

Inexpensive. Lots of A/V connections and monitor audio jacks for my EQ. Digital Theater performance is quite good.

A bit of a clipping problem when listening to CD's and FM radio. No separate CD and DVD inputs?

I am on a budget and I wanted to upgrade to a digital format (replace my pro logic receiver). I had also heard great things about Kenwood and Pro logic II. Overall, I am very happy with this unit. The DD/DTS performance is stunning! PL II is also a huge leap over PL when watching old VHS movies. I am thrilled with this inexpensive unit's performance in this area.

I have only 2 pet peeves, though. Perhaps it is just user error, though. So any emails would be appreciated! First off, I am having a bit of trouble with clipping when listening to CD's and FM radio while in "monitor" mode (through my EQ). Certainly this has to do with the distortion level settings that I prefer with the EQ. I might note that these EQ settings had no ill affects with my old receiver. Anyway, I checked the manual and found that I needed to adjust the "input level" for the analog inputs that were clipping. I did this and it certainly diminished the problem (not entirely fixed). But even though the manual says that a different input level can be chosen for separate analog input devices (Cd/radio/etc.), I have found that changing the input for one also changes the input for the other. Anyone have any advice on this?

The other problem I'm having is that I have hooked this unit to my DVD player using an optical cable. I hooked it to the digital optical "CD/DVD" input on the receiver (the other choice was "Video3"). So now when I watch a DVD, I set the input device as CD/DVD. Yet when I attempted to plug my CD unit into the Analog CD/DVD jacks, it wouldn't work. I assumed it was because I couldn't use the optical CD/DVD and analog CD/DVD jacks at the same time. Therefore, I had to hook my CD player to the "Video3" analog input jacks. This works fine, but it isn't very intuitive to set the receiver on "Video3" to listen to a CD. Do I have any other options here?

In conclusion, for the money, I am VERY impressed with this unit's digital theater performance. Star Wars Episode I sounds incredible! I would rate the music output as average. I've had to sort of dance around a few issues (clipping and CD/DVD input), but I'd consider the result to be quite satisfactory.

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My first DD/DTS receiver