Kenwood VR-3090: TV...Onscreen!
Written: Sep 11 '00 (Updated Sep 23 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Nifty remote!
Cons: Hard to set up, too many batteries required for the remote.
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| Alkaiser's Full Review: Kenwood VR-3090 |
This is one nice receiver. Zeorai bid on it in an auction he didn't intend to win...and well, he won. He was a bit disappointed by that, but nevertheless he made sure to have one hell of a time setting it all up. I remember heading into work one day at 8am, and coming back at 4 and finding my living room this huge mass of styrofoam, plastic, and remote controls.
After all that got cleaned up, we tried out the thing and it worked great. 1 big remote control, controlling all of the electronic appliances: TV, Radio, DVD player, VCR, Cable Box. I wasn't excited about this because I'm lazy or anything, it's just that we lose remote controls here faster than your average child is going to lose interest in that lame Razor Scooter. To make matters worse certain key components like the DVD player and the VCR don't have all the functionality built into the front panel, so you NEED to have the remote, and there was no way we were losing that honking contraption that is the Kenwood remote.
On the downside, that honking remote needs 6 batteries to operate, so the remote's dead fairly quickly, at least on the first batch of batteries that came in the box. I'm almost willing to just figure how to plug that thing into the wall.
The interface on the remote is a bit confusing, too. Some of the menus are hard to flip through to chage stuff rapidly, and the fact that it's a touch screen doesn't make it the easiest thing to operate quickly. When people pick it up for the first time, there's a lot of explaining to do to get that person to understand how the thing works, in order to operate it.
Also a bit awkward is the way sound is displayed in negative decibels, but when sound comes out, you're damn sure that's a positive decibel level. A roomate turned on the speakers while it was set to -10db thinking "Oh, that isn't that loud." Our unfortunate friend who happened to be sitting near the speakers could hear right for the next half hour, and he's already deaf in one ear.
Another problem with the receiver is that if you've got it hooked close to all these various electronic items, inteference is huge. Radio stations come in real bad because the antenna can't get far enough away, and the signal just get whacked in the crossfire of all the other equipment.
Setup seems to be the biggest problem with this machine. Any time we try and add new devices to the thing it takes hours...and may or may not work right. Once the batteries for the thing went dead, we unplugged everything so we could use it again, and then when we tried to plug it all back in, well, problems. The same goes for when we hooked up the new 35" TV. If you're a newbie...stay away from this it'll give you fits if you aren't a patient person.
I guess it provides enough powers to the speakers and stuff, but since I'm not a huge sound guy, I wouldn't know all that much about what's going on. Once we slap some decent speakers on this thing I'll give you an updated review from my perspective.
A good buy at what my roomate got it at, but don't pick it up in the $1000 range.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Alkaiser
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 - Top 500 |
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Member: Clayton Chan
Location: Irvine, CA
Reviews written: 655
Trusted by: 344 members
About Me:
Broke the 700 pound mark on my leg lifts.
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