Kenwood 1080VR A/V receiver Review

Kenwood's Model 1080VR represents a breakthrough in A/V receivers. Priced at $700, it is one of the first receivers providing full Dolby Digital (AC-3) decoding at a cost substantially below $1,000. As you will see, this unusually low price doesn’t mean that Kenwood has skimped on either features or performance.

For example, in multichannel operation the maximum output power across the front three speakers is specified as a hefty 120 watts per channel. Maximum output power for the two surround speakers is pegged at 60 watts each, only 3 dB lower. These multichannel wattages are specified at the rather high distortion level of 0.7 percent, which can be audible at times. During two-channel stereo operation, the specified output power for the front left/right channels remains 120 watts each, but the rated distortion drops to a comfortably inaudible 0.06 percent. All of these ratings turned out to be conservative.

The receiver’s Dolby Digital facilities include not only AC-3 decoding but also a fairly complete array of adjustment and setup features essential for top multichannel performance. These include switchable 80-Hz high-pass filtering on the main (front and surround) speaker outputs, a line-level subwoofer output with matching 80-Hz low-pass crossover, individual channel-level adjustments for the main and subwoofer outputs with a built-in test tone, and image-improving speaker-distance compensation that seems to operate only in Dolby Digital playback (it should be on in all surround modes, a common fault) and only on the main speakers (omitting, wrongly, the subwoofer output, also common). The 1080VR includes the late-night mode of Dolby Digital operation and can be switched to compress the audio for reduced-level viewing should the program material contain the necessary AC-3 compression data.

Several other DSP (digital signal processing) surround-sound modes are provided, none of which can be superimposed on the receiver’s Dolby Digital or Dolby Pro Logic decoding (other receivers let you do that, but it always reduces the clarity of dialogue). The additional modes are intended for music enhancement and include settings labeled Arena, Jazz Club, Stadium, Church, and Theater. They introduce different patterns of multiple delayed artificial reflections and reverberation into all speaker outputs except the center. Each DSP mode in turn has three adjustable parameters: simulated wall “hardness” (three settings), simulated room size (three settings), and effect level (five steps).

The 1080VR’s FM tuner is an RDS (Radio Data System) device and will display on the front-panel readout or on an attached TV monitor any transmitted RDS text such as call letters or traffic information. Other RDS facilities allow you to automatically seek RDS stations according to one of ten program types (news, sports, classical, country, and the like). You can also tune in any FM or AM station directly by its frequency, using a front-panel numerical keypad, and there are presets for up to forty stations.

Two digital audio inputs are on the rear panel. The one with an optical connector is associated with whatever component is connected to the Video 2 A/V input, and the one with a coaxial connector is associated with Video 3. Both inputs will accept either standard spdif digital audio data, such as from a CD player, or Dolby Digital multichannel data from a DVD player, a laserdisc player’s AC-3 RF adaptor, or any number of possible future Dolby Digital devices. Analog audio connections are provided for a moving-magnet phono cartridge, a CD player (I’d use one of the digital connections, however), and a tape recorder. The A/V connections include one VCR (Video 1) and three play-only video sources: Video 2, Video 3, and an auxiliary A/V input on the front panel. Somewhat luxuriously, the receiver also has connections to hook up a stereo equalizer, which can be switched in by the bizarre procedure of holding down the front-panel display-dimmer key for more than 2 seconds.

Aside from the Dolby Digital connections, the receiver’s rear panel is conventional. There’s an F-connector for an FM antenna, push connectors for an AM wire-loop antenna, binding-post connectors for the front speakers, push connectors for the surround speakers and a pair of auxiliary stereo speakers (for second-room operation), RCA jacks for all line-level inputs and outputs, and RCA jacks for all the video outputs. Those video RCA jacks mean that the receiver switches only composite-video signals, not S-video signals, which I consider essential for getting the best picture out of a DVD player. If your monitor can accept S-video signals, you’d have to hook up a DVD player’s S-video output to it directly, because you can’t route the output through the 1080VR. This may prove inadvertently advantageous, however, as it could reduce the possibility of a hum-generating ground loop.

The Kenwood 1080VR’s remote control comes preprogrammed for hundreds of components (VCRs, CD players, TVs, and more). You can select each component’s basic remote commands by entering a four-digit setup code into the 1080VR remote’s numerical keypad. The remote can even memorize a sequence of twenty steps for more automatic system operation. If codes for the component you wish to control aren’t already in the handset, they can be downloaded by telephone (the remote “listens” to the commands over the telephone earpiece). More on the remote later.

On the whole, our lab measurements only backed up what we found in our listening tests. The Kenwood 1080VR was a powerful, clean-sounding receiver in all operating modes. Along with the output-power figures, note the low noise levels in both Dolby Pro Logic (measured through an analog input) and Dolby Digital modes. Even when it was measured like a CD player with our special CD-player test tones, the results for such parameters as linearity and 16-bit excess noise show that the 1080VR’s digital-to-analog (D/A) converters, which are employed in all modes except stereo and source-direct playback from an analog source, performed particularly well. Tuner performance was average.

With one rather startling exception to be discussed later, the 1080VR sounded great. Dolby Digital soundtracks were as stupendous as always, with spectacularly wide dynamic range. The same sonic cleanliness was also characteristic of stereo playback* from digital sources and even of ambience-enhanced playback using the DSP modes (Jazz Club, Theater, and so on). In fact, the DSP modes of the 1080VR were among the best I have found in an A/V receiver, providing a useful degree of enhancement to a very wide variety of music without exaggerated effects. It was difficult to make the added ambience sound really gross, which seems to be the default DSP setting of most A/V receivers. Just choose the basic ambience mode carefully, and you'll do fine. As usual with such processing, ignore the names of the DSP modes. Try all of them to find the one that works best with your program material.

Kenwood takes great pride in the versatility of the 1080VR’s remote control. The pride is justified, but only in part. Following the component chart in the manual, I could indeed program the handset to control a CD player, a DVD player, and our sound-room TV monitor. But I found the multiple button presses required for the handset to emit foreign-component commands to be extremely offputting, not to mention easily forgettable and difficult to teach to significant others or progeny.

Besides, you’ll eventually require the foreign-component’s original remote to activate the many features that the 1080VR can’t control.

Furthermore, the remote’s versatility seems to have complicated operating the receiver itself! Selecting an input component or surround mode may require cycling through quite a few choices before you get to the one you want. The multiple-function buttons mean that you can too easily place yourself accidentally into a mode for controlling one component when you want to control another, or the receiver. Even for a computer-savvy user like me, the remote’s setup procedure was unnecessarily complicated — and it wasn’t made any easier by Kenwood’s confusing and poorly organized manual. The remote is a relatively minor problem, however. Use it just to control the receiver, and you won’t have too much trouble.

A while back, when reviewing an earlier Dolby Digital product from another manufacturer, I mentioned that each company seems destined to make a few errors when it introduces a new Dolby Digital product category to its line. That has occurred with Kenwood and its 1080VR, too, and the error could have unpleasant consequences unless you take a simple precaution.

Say you’re using a DVD player for both CD and DVD playback and you slip in a DVD after playing a CD through one of the DSP modes via a digital input. You will be “treated” to rapid bursts of full-level noise, which is what a Dolby Digital data stream sounds like undecoded. If your volume was turned up high enough and you were standing near one of the speakers, such outbursts could be literally deafening, though most likely only temporarily. As I can attest, the effect is certainly attention-getting when first encountered. Fortunately, you can avoid this problem simply by remembering to switch to Dolby Digital decoding before (repeat, before) playing a DVD (or a Dolby Digital laserdisc). Going in the opposite direction, playing a standard audio CD when the 1080VR is set for Dolby Digital decoding, doesn’t pose a problem, as the receiver rightly mutes until you switch it into stereo or a DSP mode. Kenwood has also discovered the problem, and it will be fixed in future units.

Now to place this in perspective. The nonmuting of Dolby Digital output at inappropriate times prevents me from being able to recommend unqualifiedly the 1080VR that I tested. You should look for an up-to-date unit in which the nonmuting is fixed, however, because this is a damn fine receiver otherwise, with ample power for all but the largest listening rooms, very low background noise in all processing modes, useful and unexaggerated ambience processing, and a simple yet comprehensive on-screen setup system. Now if only Kenwood would rewrite the manual and supply a second, dedicated remote control. That would greatly enhance the exceptional value already provided in the 1080VR, and the company would really have a winner on its hands.

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