Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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69 of 72 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent receiver for Music, November 11, 2006
I had a 7.1 channel Home Theater Receiver (HTR), but I got rid of it in favor of this stereo receiver. For me, the HTR was excessively complicated with too many menus to work through just to play music from my collection of LP's, cassette's, or CD's. The Teac AG-790A is simple to use for playing music. This receiver can control four speakers. The description of this product does not mention that if you want to control two sets of speakers (4 in total), they should be identical. There is no way to adjust for differences between two sets of speakers with different sound qualities or power ratings. TEAC's manual makes the same recommendation for identical speakers if you are going to use four speakers. The controls are very easy to use, although as one reviewer mentioned, I too would have preferred more dials instead of buttons. I know, "old school". Still, the buttons are very easy to use. I have a phonograph, cassette recorder/player, and CD recorder/player all attached to this receiver with a couple of Bose speakers. The radio tuner is great too. The sound of music this receiver produces is fabulous. However, for those times when I want to emphasize the bass sounds, I might add a powered sub-woofer as my "second set of speakers". There are bass and treble controls on this receiver, which work great. I am really talking about the sound quality of my speakers and not the receiver. I am talking about really pumping up the bass beyond what my speakers can provide. A sub-woofer with its own internal power system connected as the second set of speakers will allow me to adjust for the differences between the different speakers independent of this receiver. With the bass, treble adjustments available on this receiver, there really is no need for a powered sub-woofer, unless you are a bass freak as I am sometimes. That is just a personal choice. This receiver provides a lot of adjustment with its bass, treble and loudness controls. The bottom line is I highly recommend this receiver for music lovers.
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66 of 71 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Needs Improvement, February 11, 2007
The TEAC AG-790A could use some improvements, even considering its budget price. I have several complaints. From the moment I turn on the unit, there is an ever present background hiss coming through the speakers. It is especially noticeable during quiet passages in music, or when listening at low volume levels. The tuner sensitivity is very weak; only the strongest local stations come in good. One thing I find extremely annoying on this model is that some of the settings will always return to their default settings, no matter where you put them. For instance, when you select FM mono, it will return to stereo as soon as you change stations. Another is the tuning mode; when you select "manual tuning mode," it will keep returning to "preset tuning mode!" Speaking of presets, there are no numeric buttons for direct preset access on the unit or the remote, so you have to scroll through them all to get to your station. The volume control is another major issue. It tends to "jump around" if you are trying to make fine adjustments to the volume. It, like most models today, has the type where digital numbers appear on the display when you turn it. I will have it set to 10 and want to go up just one or two; as soon as I grab the knob, it "jumps" down to 8 first. I even had it jump to max volume while listening with headphones. I almost threw my headphones across the room! I prefer the older style volume control where you had a pointer on the knob with a numeric scale around it. Oh, and while we're on the subject of knobs, here's a neat trick: make the bass/treble/balance control buttons round so that in your frontal product photos they will look like conventional knobs even though they are actually buttons! To adjust the bass/treb/balance, you must press the button then turn the volume knob to make the adjustments. I hate this! I like to just grab a single knob and tweak my settings, not go through a two step process every time I want to make an adjustment. Another peculiarity is the sleep timer setup. The scale counts down instead of up. In other words, if you want to set it for 20 minutes, you have to press the button to go from 90, 80, 70...all the way down to 20. If the timer has counted down to 10 minutes and you want to add another 10, you must count down to 0 first and start over at 90 and count down until you get to 20 again! I have never seen a sleep timer on any other device that works in reverse like this one. They usually count up, so if you want to add time you just press once or twice. The functionality of the sleep timer is not usually a major consideration when I shop for gear, but it just seems a little strange that they would design it that way. Another thing that is worth mentioning is that the phono input sensitivity seems a bit low; I have to turn the volume control up to a fairly high level before getting a decent sound level when using my turntable, and I have a phono cartridge with a high output level. I originally purchased the Sherwood RX-4105, but I returned it because it did not have phono input or tape "monitoring."(see my review of the RX-4105) As far as sound quality goes, I think the Sherwood was a little better, due to the hiss I mentioned on the TEAC. However, the tuner was just as weak on the Sherwood. I went with these models because my old receiver gave out and I was looking for an inexpensive model to tide me over until I could save some money for a more expensive model. The TEAC fills the bill to some degree, but I wish I had spent a little bit more and got one of the Onkyo models. At least they have numeric preset buttons, and conventional bass/treb/balance knobs. This review may be too much useless information for some people, but I know the product specs and features list doesn't always tell the whole story.
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38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent low priced stereo receiver, March 16, 2007
First my qualifications: I am older, with a large collection of vintage vinyl, and a love of on-air classical music. My stereo system uses two Acoustic Research AR-2Ax speakers. I am not a modern audiophile.
That said, I am completely satisfied with the Teac AG-790A receiver. I required phono inputs, and this relatively inexpensive receiver has those and they work. I also listen to a local classical music FM station (Santa Barbara still does have one) and this unit has endeared itself to me by the way it locks to that signal. I have also used its video input to play the sound from a six hour VHS tape of swing band music.
In short, it has done everything I wanted. If your needs are similar to mine, you'll not go wrong with this unit.
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