Kenwood AR-103 Receivers
Kenwood AR-103 Receivers
USER REVIEWS
[Sep 06, 1999]
Mark Prokopchak
an Audio Enthusiast
A couple of months ago, my old amp blew. It was some relic from the '60's that my dad uses when he was my age. I don't remember the brand off the top of my head, but it was tube-type, and gave some pretty nice sound. Anyway, I went out to buy a new amp. WHOA! I walked into Circuit City, and there was nothing there but mega-watt, dolby surround, ultra$$$$ amps. Hey! I just wanted a well-built, lower-wattage, stereo amp. By chance, I walked into Sears and found this kenwood amp. It is perfect; everything I need, nothing I dont. period. |
[Dec 13, 1999]
Eric
Audio Enthusiast
Strength:
Enough power
Weakness:
Not enough fetures for what i am looking for I got this reciver about mid-summer and i thought it was good enough for me but, not to long ago I started thinking "I need something with B***s, and a lot of features for a home theiter" I also wanted something with subwoofer outputs |
[Mar 13, 1999]
Doug Mencoff
an Audio Enthusiast
I'm a music lover, not a home theater nut, and I find the lack of affordable , quality equpment these days to be apalling. After buying and returning AV receivers made by Technics and Pioneer for their poor sound quality, I found this Kenwood to be the answer to my dreams. It's only 50 watts per channel, so I can turn it up more to operate it in it's more linear range, without blowing myself out of the room, than I could with a more powerful receiver. And because it's stereo only, not made for home theater, the moneys seems to have gone much more towards sound quality, instead of surround sound decoding. I notice that it has a beefy looking power supply, and discrete, high current power transistors, a rare thing in inexpensive receivers these days. And it sounds just fine. Nice and open and detailed, but always rich and sweet, never brittle or thin or strident sounding. Quite decent sound for the price. Of course, to my ears, Kenwood has always made the best sounding stuff of all the mainstream Japanese manufacturers. I haven't heard them, but if their AV receivers sound as much better than the others as this one does, then don't even consider a Pioneer or Technics. |
[Feb 20, 2000]
Mike
Audio Enthusiast
Strength:
Plenty of tuner presets, separate A & B speaker operation, power
Weakness:
No digital input, could use 1 more set of inputs. I got this for Christmas as a "dorm" receiver... my good one is a dolby digital ready JVC... love this receiver the only problem I have with it are my speakers... I need to get some real good ones...the ones I have are severly limiting the capability of this equipement... perfectly suited for any 2 channel only environment (bedroom, dorm room applications) |