Customer Reviews

TEAC AGH300mkIII AM/FM Stereo Receiver

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've been looking for a compact amplifier and was pleasantly surprised to find this receiver. Great apartment therapy -- this unit is really designed for small spaces. It even has a sleep timer and a function to dim the LED alpha display, which would be great in a bedroom. However, the dimmer function doesn't affect the piercing blue LED indicating the selected source, which limits the usefulness of dimming.

My receiver is paired with tiny Mordaunt-Short Carnival 1 bookshelf speakers and a Carnival 7 subwoofer. The Teac drives these speakers cleanly to an uncomfortable volume. It has plenty of line-level inputs for connection to an iPod dock, satellite radio receiver, etc. Great choice if you want a simple, solid and compact two-channel receiver at a reasonable price.

My wife and I also looked at the TEAC Reference Series 200 CRH-227I CD Receiver with Dock for iPod (has an integrated CD player and iPod dock, but has a lower-powered amp section: 20w per channel.) My wife found that the integrated iPod navigation on that unit to be awkward, and we never play CD's directly anymore. So we opted to connect an iPod to the AGH300-MarkIII receiver thru an Apple dock.

We got this unit because of space limitations, and are pleasantly surprised by its quality and performance. By the way, it also looks beautiful.

Great item. Use it in my office with a pair of B&W CM1's and a B&W subwoofer. These speakers are quite expensive and sound great driven by this little jewel. As a precaution I would recommend that users do not block vent holes on top of case or the unit will get quite hot. Semiconductors do not like that. I have a speaker on top of the unit now but have it spaced about 1 inch and that seems to allow enough ventilation. You can't go wrong with This amp for the money. Also would like to mention that the AM section is exceptional. Better than anything I have used at this location. FM is also good but that is easy to find in most receivers.

This is a great little reciever! It has a nice high quality look and feel to it, and its power is far more than adequate for even high-ish level listening in most rooms (unless you're driving very low efficiency speakers in very large rooms). Most speakers are around 85-90dB/watt efficient, so for most reasonable listening you'll likely only use 1-5 watts per channel. I'm only mentioning this as many will likely overlook a small unit like this simply because of it's low power output compared to full size recievers.

The only reason I didn't rate this a perfect 5-star is because I feel it needs to offer an internal crossover and sub-out. Most people will likely use a reciever such as this to power a set of bookshelf speakers, and anyone wanting full bass with such a setup will opt to use a sub. Also, its modest power rating would mean much less if an internal high-pass crossover kept the bass frequencies from being amplified and also kept them out of the smaller bookshelf speakers.

Another nice-to-have would be an iPod docking port, but this is starting to get pushy... I feel this unit offers quite a lot for the price.

As far as sound quality goes, I'm not a serious audiophile with tons of high end equipment to compare this too, but I do have a high end Pioneer home theater reciever and some excellent Energy Reference Connoisseur speakers (RC-70 fronts) for a reference. Using the TEAC reciever to power a pair of Energy RC-Minis and an ESW-V8 sub (high level inputs), the sound is excellent. I live in a townhouse so I have not pushed it too hard, but believe me there is PLENTY of power in this unit for listening. My setup may not rival a night club in output, but that's not the intention (and it sure sounds a heck of a lot better!).

I would reccomend this reciever to anyone needing a compact unit for average listening levels. One word of caution; the unit is quite deep, be sure to read the size specs and make sure wherever you intend to place it will have enough room.