The best Dolby Digital reciever under $600. The power is a little weak at some points but the decoding is awsome!

I bought the Kenwood VR-209 a couple weeks ago at a good price at a local electronics store. I was not even planning on buying a digital reciever because of my tight budget and i was quite happy with my Denon AVR-900 Dolby Pro-Logic but the price of the VR-209 tempted me. When i got home, i was more than pleased with its performance. Setting it up was a breeze and the design was tasteful. As for the sound of course, its outstanding, specially for its bargain price. My fronts are DCM CX-007's and a DCM CX-Center. My rears are Polk M1's and a matching Cambridge passive sub (good enough). The VR-209 distributed the power evenly and without any effort and the sound was crystal clear. The only thing that would make this receiver the best deal on the planet is if it had DSP modes like Wide,Concert,etc. The remote is a little complicated but you can get used to it quickly. Besides all that, its a great find! A must for budget enthusiasts that want great sound!

I just bought this receiver on the basis of you good folks who just reviewed it! Its a GREAT receiver, but it lacks 'fun' features. What are fun features? Different ambient modes like "Cinema 1", "Cinema 2", "3D Phonic mode(s)" ala JVC -which suck anyways. Aside frm that its quite clean. I also have a quip that the volume control differs fr what yu are using the receiver for. Such as watching on VCR, it's ideal volume is at -30-40 db for me. Watching TV I have t crank it up (but I think I connected it in an unrthadox manner there...so thats why!). DVD is great! Very loud....too loud =p The receiver compliments my JBL HLS 620's and PSB c100i center speaker nicely. I wuld easily recommend this receiver at anyne since it has a great price to boot! Oh! And a 2 year warranty...not that skimpy 1 year crap that 80% of the other toss at you!

tuner has high output. amplifier pre-out

40hz on the low end. (20hz would be nice)

it's a good receiver for home theater. i wasn't planning to get home theater for a while, but i still wanted a receiver i could use for it eventually. well, i set it up with 4 JBL's, using the A and B speaker buttons at the same time for "stereo surround" as i would call it. then i added a 500 watt 12" sub and it's nice. you're not gonna get great bass out of your speakers with 40hz in the low end. the o.7% distortion didn't impress me, but i am satisfied overall.

Pleasing front panel, good price, easy to use, decent surround sound

misguiding power rating, no dts, stereo mode clarity is suspect

I got this over a year ago to replace the old yamaha stereo amp that i blew up, and not knowing anything about recievers, i got this because it sounded like a reasonable price to get it at- around 220 i think. so i plug it in to my dvd player and i'm astounded by the quality of sound i get from it- not knowing what i should compare it to, of course. then i pop in a few cd's and try it out in stereo mode... which is obviously inferior to my old yamaha before it broke down. all the sounds get muddled and no bass is being pushed to the speakers. now i try to only use it for watching movies becuase even with it's exagerrated claims, it does a decent job of what it should do at an affordable price. I've been hit by the upgrade bug, so this one'll be in your local ebay. to say the least, if you're looking for surround on a budget, it's a good reciever, but if you're not, you're reading the wrong review.

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marantz, bose lifestyles, sony, technics, jvc

I bought this receiver in March of this year, and I posted a review shortly after I got it, so now I thought I would give it another rating considering I have had time to use it a lot. I have used this amp to play everything from DVDs, to CDs, to MP3s, and I honestly must say I am just as impressed with it as the first day I started it up. I recently upgraded to a better subwoofer, and that made a big difference in everything, and now I like the sound quality even more. I still have to give this receiver 5 stars considering everything. Also, some of the people who reviewed it actually complained about the remote, but I must say this remote is EXCELLENT. I love it. Short of an LCD display remote, I couldn't ask for a better remote. I beleive someone said that some of the buttons don't work while on certain things, like vcrs, but if you look in the manual it shows what buttons are deactivated during VCR use, etc... Again, thank you Kenwood for a great receiver, truly one of the best in terms of cost/performance.

I purchased a Pioneer DV-414 DVD player prior to Christmas. Putting the sound through my old stereo system seemed like a crime. After saving my nickels over the past few months I bought the Kenwood VR-209 for $550.00 (CAN.) including taxes. I definately was attracted by the good price (remember this is Canadian $$$$!)and the 100 watts/channel. Check out the competition and there are at least a couple of hundred dollars being saved here!
I am extremly pleased with the unit, and although I don't have a subwoofer I enjoy great bass and LFE throught the existing 5 speakers. My living room is so small I don't think that I need to purchase a subwoofer after all (more nickels to save for a new wide screen TV/monitor)!). It was a nice surprise that the VR-209 could re-direct the LFE signal to the rest of the system. Sound in Digital Dolby is amazing, and I still can't believe that the optical connection from the DVD player can produce all of this sound from a fiber-optic cable the thickness of a spaghetti strand. It's magic as far as I'm concerned!

Set up was straight forward, and connections were well marked on the back of the 209, but the remote took a bit of time to get used to. It does allow me to replace the remotes for the TV, CD player, VCR quite easily. BUT it seems to be lacking all of the needed functions for the DVD player and I can't navigate the menu system with it. Oh well at least I'm down to just two remotes now.

No DTS de-coding.....but who cares! Pro-logic decoding seems a bit weak and flat but that may just be that the source is poor (VCR and TV tuner). Overall a great bargain in my opinion!

Its strengths are the increadible treble and mid-range frequency's

Its weaknesses are its bass,and the suuround feature is crap.

My friend Frank bought this reciever soon after I bought the VR-205 model.I found that on both models the surround speakers were especially weak.You have to turn the center down to -3Db and the front left and right down to -5Db. I'm using Radio Shack Optimus 3 1/2" cone speakers as my suurounds,and Electrovoice 12" cone with horn tweeters and mid's as my left and right's.I'm also using a brand new Cerwin Vega large center speaker.The only way to give this system bass is to hook up a subwoofer.I give it 2 out of 5 stars.

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5.1 Decoder doesn't work, lousy remote.

I bought this receiver based off of reviews here on this board as a second receiver for my basement. What I noticed is that when hooked to a DVD player using the optical out, the receiver does not decode true 5.1 sound even though it indicates Dolby Digital input. If you use the Video Essentials testing CD, during the "audio walkabout" a Left Surround and Low Frequency (subwoofer) signal is not sent to the speakers. In stereo mode, the sound is acceptable when hooked up to a sub but it is a far cry from my high current Yamaha receiver...

The Price I got it at was $175 off of Ebay. The Kenwood has a good universal remote which was easy to program, but it didn't except my Toshiba VHS.

Not enough power nor bass. I just purchased a Denon AVR-2500 and the difference is amazing. The Kenwood is rated at 100Wx5, but I swear it pushes 50Wx5. It's very weak with very few surround sound modes to choose from.

Overall I was very disapointed with the receiver. I had a small AIWA surround sound system, and it was louder than this Kenwood. There is no clarity in the processor, and as for aesthetics, it does not look very good when put against other components.

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