Lots of clean power and Sharc Dolby/DTS/DSP System.

Controller is somewhat complicated. Designed too early to take advantage of new Dolby Pro Logic II.

This model's replacement is the Soverign VR-5080. Brings high end quality to a reasonable price. Power band on new model shows 80 watts/5 20-100,000 hertz. These are bench tested numbers and are not equaled by most other brands. The Sharc surround system is the same you'll see in the $2700 Onkyo's. I like the fact that kenwood is staying with five channels, which is widely adapted in the movie industry. Whether we like it or not, its too expensive to create 6-8 channel movies.

I bought this model, because the quality audio output was more important to me, than a lot unnecessary bells and whistles, and powered channels that aren't needed at this time.

Similar Products Used:

Denon, Yamaha

its awesome sound

remote difficult to learn. tuner pre-sets have no memory. need to move sequentially through all 40 of them!

this sounds awesome!!! i hooked it up to polk rt600i and other polk center+surrounds. also attached a 100W polk sub.
incredibly impressed. would def. recommend it.

the remote has a large learning curve. it is not intuitive.
although it has a lot of features. the good thing is, if u lose it, or just cant be bothered learning how to use it, u have all the functionality on the reciever itself.

Price,excellent receiver for watching DVD movies, easy setup

None so far

I had my Yamaha RXV670 for 7 years and it was time to replace it, so I took a look at the Yamaha RXV1000 and Sony STRV-555es. I really like the Yamaha, but I ran into Ubid.com and saw the VR-4080 for $349.00. I was please how well it performed with the DVD(much better than Sony). It doesn't see as warm as the Yamaha, but at that price it gives you the best bang for your buck. I was also surprize that remote control was able to work with all my audio equipment.

Similar Products Used:

Yamha RXV670,Yamaha RXV1000, Sony STRV-555es

Good looks, powerful amps, clean sound, RF/IR remote, more than enough input/outputs, front panel s-video, Kenwood is getting better

Difficult to get remote to work with text feature of Kenwood CD changers, for the price they could have included the universal video feature that higher Kenwood models have

I initially bought the VR-3080 (see my review of that product) as my receiver upgrade at the beginning of 2000, but it soon devoloped a terminal illness.
Long story short, I was able to get Kenwood to agree to give me a new unit, and since the 3080 was out of production by this time, they sent me a new 4080 as a replacement. Kenwood has GREAT customer service if you talk to the right people.

Right off the bat I was very impressed with this unit. The looks and ease of use were obviously better than the previous few years offerings.
Kenwood finally got rid of the PowerPad remote. Granted, it was a cool remote, but the coolness wore off of it pretty quickly.
The remote with the 4080 is not really pretty, but it's VERY functional. Controlling the receiver itself via Radio Frequency, you can control it anywhere in your house if you have the antennea positioned correctly.
Most all functions of the unit are accessable from the remote. The only thing I've found that can't be done from the remote is system setup. Being able to change the individual speaker levels and setting the delay and using the pink noise generator. This wasn't a problem with the 3080, but it's an acceptable trade-off.

The 4080 is very sylish as well. I think Kenwood kind of struck out with the silver finish on the previous few years. But black is back with the 4080 and 4090.

One thing I was hoping for with this unit was more controls on the front panel. My biggest gripe with the 3080 was that there were only about 5 buttons on the front panel, so if you ever lost your remote, you were basically screwed. Not so with the 4080. There's a swing down door on the front that hides all the other buttons, so you can do most anything from the front panel, and aren't so tied to the remote (if you don't want to be).

As far as the sound.....I love it. I don't have too many other makers to compare to other than HK, so I can't say it blows anybody else out of the water, but it pleases my ears....and that's all that matters to me.
I have a rather large HT room, so the 110 x 5 output was a plus for me, although if you were accurately measure the output with all channels driven, I'm sure it would fall well below 110 watts.
At any rate, it's more than enough for me and my room, so there's no complaint there from me....that's true of all receivers.

DD and DTS sound great. I'm very pleased with the digital end of this unit. It's got 5 digital inputs, so I'm pretty well covered as far as that goes. Thankfully there are more coax inputs than optical, as I'm partial to coax myself.
You also have a digital output to play with as well, if it's needed.

I've just recently started using the video switching on the Kenwood, which is something I normally try to avoid. I feel that the more connections you have in your video signal, the more likely you are to degrade it, but since I only have 1 s-video input on my TV, it was a must when I got my S-VHS VCR.
So far it's worked flawlessly. Great picture with no artifacts to speak of.

Stereo sound is pretty good. It's not the strong point of this receiver, but I don't know of too many that excel at HT and stereo reproduction.
Not complaining though....it makes my CD's sound great. It also does HDCD decoding, which I've just started using. Can't say that it makes that big of a difference, but this feature does work, so I'm pleased with that.
Connecting your CD player via digital cable seems to make a difference for the better. I tried some blind test by swithcing from analog to digital, and I always preferred the digital connection.

Pro-logic sound is actually better than I figured it would be. This receiver makes watching VHS very bearable.

One thing I've noticed is that the subwoofer output seems kind of weak.
I've just connected an SVS 20-39 sub with the 600 watt Fidek amp, and was expecting a stronger signal to the amp with the sub level bumped up to +10, but there seems to be NO difference in signal strength from about +2 to +10 on this receiver.

I wound up having to lower all my other channels into the - range to have enough adjustment room with my sub to make me happy.
Also, the 5 main channels adjust from -10 to +10, but the sub goes from -20 to +10, so that throws your calibration off a little...especially if you start with your main channels set to 0.

That aside, I'm VERY pleased with the overall performance of this unit. Kenwood has really started turning their image around (with me anyway).
I have to give it 5 stars overall, and since I got a great deal on my 3080, which magically turned into a 4080, I can't say anything bad about the value either, so 5 stars there to.
MSRP is a little high when you look at some other brands in the $800 range, but you'd never have to pay retail for this if you shopped around.

Please feel free to email me if you have any specific questions.

Similar Products Used:

Kenwood VR-309, VR-3080, HK AVR-500

Great Sound, Bearable Bass, Awesome Value, Plenty of Inputs

Minor clicking when adjusting volume!!!!!!!1

Great Sound for the price. You can't beat this unit, the sound is awesome the bass is there and the price is just right. I upgraded from my previous receiver the Kenwood VR-307. I have got to say what a drastic difference from a low-end model to a high-end!!!!!!!!

Similar Products Used:

Kenwood VR-307, Denon AVR-2801

Clear sound, lots of features and connections.

Poor subwoofer output.

Got a great deal. First thing I noticed was how clear and crisp the audio sounded. Nice remote that actually controls all my audio and video equipment. The only complaint I have(and it's a big complaint) is how low the subwoofer output is. I have a powered 10" Infinity subwoofer and an EV 15" subwoofer. Doesn't matter which one I hook to it I have to turn the gain all the way up.

Similar Products Used:

RCA, Technics, Pioneer and Sony.

Sounds very nice, easy to setup and use, way cool remote

Binding posts hard to get to

I upgraded from my little JVC p.os. bookshelf system to this Kenwood. Even before I added the DefTech pro80's I could tell a huge difference, and I am NOT a person with an expensive ear. Now that I have the pro80's hooked up, with a prosub 80 as well, I can say that this Kenwood 4080 works very nicely. Everything sounds great, and for me since I mostly listen to music and use it as my TV sound, there is more than enough bass with the sub. I simply have the speakers set to "normal' and the sub set to 'on' and hooked up thru the sub preout, and now everything just sounds awesome. Indeed, it took me a few days of tinkering with the sub so that i wasn't getting too much bass during some of the more annoying commercials.

The system was very easy to set up, and having one remote for everything is very nice. I got this from Ubid for what I think was a pretty good price, and for the $$ it's a pretty damn good new toy.

Similar Products Used:

none

EASY SETUP, SOUND QUALITY, POWER AND LOOKS TO DIE FOR.

NONE.

It was time to get a receiver with DTS, and the Kenwood VR4080 was it with the Denon 2801 a close 2nd. The 4080 flat out looks the sweetest of all recievers and I just happen to love Kenwood. I got it at a closeout for $499.99, it was the last one left, and new in a box. It was also $200.00 less than the Denon. The 4080 performs as well as it looks, pumping out 110x5 clean watts. A perfect test for the 4080 is Air Force 1, chapter 6 where the terrorists start shooting up the plain. This has some of the best surround effects for any DVD! Bottom line: I scored!

P.S. I had no probs with the remote.

My equipment: Kenwood VR4080 Receiver
Toshiba SD-2109 DVD
Toshiba TZ61V61 61" TV
Optimus PRO-CS5 Center chan.
Optimus PRO-LX10 (2)
Optimus PRO-LX5 (2)
Optimus PRO-SW200P SUB
All 12 G. wire
All gold plated bannana clips
Component video wires

Similar Products Used:

KENWOOD KVR7070 AND KENWOOD VR209.