good highs and mids,price

no bass,heats up at high volumes

When I first bought this reciever I really liked it, but i've had it for about 3 weeks and while it does produce good high and mid-range sound the bass leaves much to be desired. The bass boost provides almost no bass. But a good feature is that you can simultaneously play two pairs of speakers. I have a pair of nice big KLH speakers with 12inch subs in each speaker and there is still no bass. These speakers were running through a Marantz receiever with a Realistic equalizer. This setup provided much better bass but couldn't play loud enough to satisfy me without distortion. My other receievers provided the same problem. I also have a pair of small RCA speakers hooked up which provide really nice sounding highs. I'm hoping to solve the problem of lack of bass my hooking up a powered subwoofer to the sub output. After doing this I will post a follow-up review. email me(shutupstupid@email.com) if you have any questions or if you have a powered sub you would consider selling me

Similar Products Used:

marantz,rca,optimus,realistic,sony

low THD, clear sound, clear sound, plenty of inputs, a/b, a&b speaker choices, source direct playback

no bass boost

After having this reciever since christmas, I love it. Hooked up to it are a cd/dvd player, a vcr, and a nintendo 64. The sound is great--movie explosions actually shake the walls of my 15x17 bedroom, and the reciever hasn't been turned up halfway yet.
In these reviews, a lot of people have complained that while the mids and highs are great, the bass is weak. At higher volumes I have no complaints, but when it is not turned up very high, the reciever doesn't seem to bring out the bass in my movies and cd's. this problem is easily solved, though; there is an output for a powered sub. When added, I am sure this will more than satisfy my (and probably anyone else's) bass needs.
I chose this reciever for a few specific reasons. First, it has the subwoofer output. While the AR404 sounds great by itself, a sub will make the sound that much better. This is a feature that I could not find on any other stereo reciever (except the Aiwa S17). Second, it has the a/b, a&b speaker outputs. By hooking up speakers in both sets of outputs, you can set up another pair of speakers in another room, or you can listen to both sets at once for a surround effect. This too was a feature that I didn't find on many other recievers. Finally, the AR404 has the Source Direct feature, which bypasses the reciever's own bass and treble controlls and plays the sound directly from the source (dvd, cd, vcr, etc.). This way you can hear the sound as it was meant to be heard.
The more I use this reciever, the more I like it. I would recommend the Kenwood AR404 to anyone looking for a stereo reciever.

Similar Products Used:

a very old (1970's) kenwood reciever

price, source direct toggle, discrete power outputs, cast heat sink.

weak power, spring clips, power isn't full bandwidth {40-20k}, tone controls create lots of hiss, bass boost is a joke.

First of all, this isn't that bad of a reciever if you dont push the limits of the reviever. This is a starting point in audio, mainly if your on a tight budget. Its $130, and by far out performs the technics reciever. If your looking at this review you probably fit into this category perfectly. If you need anything on the reciever, its discrete power outputs. Look into the airvents on the top, and look on the flat side of the heat sink, if there is a flat black box on the side of it, your power source shouldn't power anything other than a telephone speaker. What you need is a couple {this reciever has four} of brass screws with independent smaller flat black boxes between the screws and the heat sink. If you have those, it will really help with the overall sound quality. Also look for cast heat sinks, they disapate heat really well.

The source direct on this reciever is a real plus, it bypasses all of the tone-altering electronics in the unit. And this is good, because you hear what the cd wants you to hear, and not any of the hissing and crackling that comes from the cheap circuitry and electronics that kenwood used in this reciever. Oh, and the bass boost, it just maxes out the bass control, not providing any real boost in bass.
The power coming from this reciever is rated at 100 watts, but its only rated from 40 htz so any low end of your music will suffer. But this is only apparent with bass filled music, if you listen to light rock, contemporary, or anything like that, the amp will start clipping in the midrange {producing distortion} before you notice the small bandwidth. I listen to things like tool, outkast, metallica, icp, and rahzel. All pretty demanding on a stereo system, so I notice the power problem. However, with source direct on, the music sounds cleaner, and goes a lot louder.

Bottom line, if you listen to soft music, and you dont want the people across the road hearing your music, pay $130, turn on the source direct and you've spent your money well and you will enjoy this reciever thouroughly. However, if you are like me, and enjoy listening to highly demanding loud accurate music, then save your money and buy something thats at least $300, cause anything less will skimp on your power supply, and thats what creates music.

Also, spend money to buy extremely nice interconnects and speaker wire. I would recomend an interconnect that costs over $80 for a half meter, it will make the biggest difference on your stereo system. And Kimber Kable makes great speaker wire {4PR}that is damn cheap {$1.60/ft} and performs like it should be 10 times as much. This will clean up your sound dramatically. And dont plug your reciever into a power strip, only into a dedicated outlet {or at least plug}. With only 110 volts running in our houses, you need to maximize the power. Do this and whatever you are running and you will go louder.

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I've heard lots of recievers, all in stereo, ranging from technics to sony to onkyo to denon.

FM tuner, attractive front panel

wimpy bass, non-intuitive remote, no "TV" input

Bought this at CC, along with a pair of Polk R-10 speakers to replace my wife's boombox in exercise room (when I turned boombox volume up high enough to hear over treadmill noise, the distortion was too much to endure--who says "no pain--no gain"). I have it connected to a JVC VCR and non-
descript TV, for now; CD/DVD later. First thing I noticed was that FM stations I never heard before were jumping out at me all over the dial! (receiver is connected to rooftop TV antenna, as are the other 4 receivers in the house, including an expensive Sony). Even though FM sensitivity figures in the manual are modest compared with some of the others, performance is awesome.

Downside is that the sound (w/treadmill turned off) is not beautiful (listening to classical music on FM--writer is a symphony musician). I don't think that the problem is distortion, just seems to lack warmth. Bass boost only exacerbates the problem--adds a juke box thump. If I decide to try some other speakers with this receiver I'll post an update.

Similar Products Used:

Onkyo TX-8211, Sony, JVC

source direct (bypass tone controls), runs cool & quiet, remote

big

I listen only to classical music (CD library > 2,000 discs) on 2 systems: Epos 22's run by Denon separates and Epos 11's (now M12's sold by Creek) run by Denon mini system. The mini is 5 years old and survived many moves but started to skip, and potentiometer on amp acting up. I hardly considered Kenwood (the previous review is not exactly encouraging) but saw Ivor Humphries review of new Kenwood amp-CD player combo in Hi-Fi News and tried to buy it. No luck. Tried AR-404 plus CD-406 at less than $300 shipped. This is less than Denon mini-system cost me. I buy only amps that provide by-pass of tones--this one does. Well, the Kenwood combo is considerably more excitng than the Denon, but still lifelike--and, no, I do not try to disturb my neighbors or shake the walls. I am listening to it as I write, and very nice, engaging sound on Gergiev's new Love for 3 Oranges (live, sound rated very poor by Repertoire), Karajan's Scheherazade knocks me over, Steen-Nokleberg's Grieg on Naxos sounds intimate and very much like a piano, best of all, I could finally play disc no. 6 of Alban Berg Quartett Beethoven cycle on EMI (my Denon would not play it at all) and Razumovsky no. 3 makes some hair stand on end. OK, I have played only a fraction of my stuff, but my suspicions have been confirmed: well-built economy CD players of today out-perform premium players of 5 years ago. Oh, this is supposed to be about the amp, not the player. Well, as opposed to many gentlemen in these columns, I have never HEARD an amp (never bought such a cheap amp that the distortion was audible). And you will not hear the AR-404, either, at least at normal listening levels. If you are worried about the THD <0.5%, don't. Kenwood rates the AR-404 at <0.02% THD at 50W into 8 ohms at 1 khz. That is a nice number.
The remote is nifty, and if you buy a Kenwood player, then both components link together like a mini-system.
The amp is big and heavy. It makes a great paper-weight for the CD-406. They have same dimensions, but the CD-406 is much lighter, of course, and the amp certainly keeps it from shaking.
Both components assembled in China. I was skeptical, but build quality seems very good (obviously I do not know about reliability at this point). Everything worked out of package, and packaged very carefully.
My comments relate to the AR-404/CD-406 combo. I believe in matching components if possible and cannot comment on AR-404 use with other players. (I would write a review for CD-406, but AudioReview has not seen fit to include it amongst the CD players on site).

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onkyo receiver, denon amplifier

Good deal for the money.

Nothing really

For the money the Kenwood is not a bad amp. Out of the other two products I listed above the Kenwood had the cleanest mids and highs. By the way I brought this amp in 2001 the model year on this website only goes up to 2000. I have heard many people complain about how the amp does not go below 40hz. This of course is a lie what they are reading is the FTC specs. The FTC makes all companies rate the products fairly so their are no real cheaters out there. The reason the specs say it can only go to 40hz is so Kenwood can get that magic 100watts a channel and the good THD number. As for the other companies I'am pretty sure Technics rates their lower end amps at 6ohms and the Aiwa has a THD of 1%, and a THD of 1% is pretty bad and an amp that can only run at 6ohms does not sound that clean either. Now back to the amp itself. I have heard this amp produce bass at 20 hz (all amps do). What happens when the amp goes under 40hz is that the THD number goes up and you lose 5 to 10 watts a channel. Truth is all amps that cost less than 1K are put under stess when they are asked to produce a singal under 40hz. Well when I brought this amp I found a way to solve the problem. I brought a pair of Cerwin Vega E-710 which only go down to 38hz. At first I was going to buy CV E-712's but the only difference was the woofer size, their was not a real difference in the mids and highs. Buying the the CV's that had the 10 inch woofers saved me over a 150 dollars. So I just saved up a little more money and brought a Cerwin Vega LW-15 whinch is a 15inch sub, so as you can guess any of the bass that I lost because of the 10inch woofers was easily replaced by the sub. So all in all this is a good amp for the money, just buy some speakers with some good highs and mids and don't go under 35hz. Then just go buy a sub and set the cross over to 40hz. You will be very happy with the end results. If you have any other questions feel free to email me.

Similar Products Used:

Aiwa and Technics