Official Harman Kardon AVR 254 & 354 Owners Thread - Page 21

While my PC does not have HDMI, I can confirm this behavior with both optical and coaxial digital from my PC (PCM). The 354 simply loses signal during silence and takes too long to pick it up when a sound comes along, cutting off the first 1/2 second or so.

realjeep

i tried there will be blood with my ps3 and UK 255 and found like everyone else the sound dropout 30 mins into the movie. I also have a samsung 1500 standalone player and as expected if bitstreaming to the 255 there is no sound dropout, also i set it to pcm so the sammy will decode the hd audio and send as pcm to the 25 and again no soundropout. Thus this problem seems to ps3 related to me. I have no soundropout at all with the sammy only with the ps3.

So since I don't own brand X source, I should demand that all problem posts relating to that component be relagated to it's own separate thread? And when those problem also occur with other components, they should be posted to yet another thread specific to those components? And at some point, someone may notice that a particular bug is being described in ten separate threads, so maybe it's a more general problem? Would we then create yet another thread documenting problems that affect "most" components?

The problem isn't with the PS3, it's with HK (and just about everyone else) shipping something that hasn't gone through proper testing. A problem thread is a great idea, but it doesn't make sense to make the thread specific to one component.


Stop making so much sense! You'll just confuse the haters

HDMI.

Which is why I said that I'll try out the Xbox 360 on the work setup. If I can recreate it, or if other people on here can recreate the issue with the Xbox 360 getting its audio clipped as well, then I will ask a mod to retitle the other thread to something more appropriate. Maybe something like "Official H/K AVR 254/354 Audio Dropout thread".

I feel like several people here are engaged in a Mexican Standoff...everyone has their fingers on the trigger and are just waiting for the right comment to start a shootout. Let's all take a step back, take a deep breath and try to get to the bottom of the issue.

For the time being, let's maintain the status quo. That is, anything related to the PS3 goes into the PS3 problem thread. I'm keeping a close eye on the possible Xbox 360 problem (if anyone can duplicate it, let me know), and if anyone has problems with another A/V device post it in here. I check both of the threads several times a day so I'm keeping pretty current with everything.

That sound good to everyone?

Anyone know what I should set my crossovers at on my H/K 254 for bose 301 series 11 speakers? The auto calib just sets them as large....

It's pretty telling about one's own pretty twisted mindset when he immediately assumes anyone has any kind of bias - classic childish knee jerk reaction.

If it would be 360 or Wii in the 90% of the problems here I would say the same thing; obviously - but I'm sure almost everyone figured it...


Only if people are utterly clueless... but hey, I can see where this assumption is coming from...


Nonsense, especially keeping it in this thread - that would be plain idiotic, to force everybody to cut through all the crap that might never affect them.

Set everything to 80hz.

http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messa...79/128214.html

Apparently 'basic quantitative analysis' (a.k.a. comparing numbers) weren't part of your studies - interesting, I never went to school here but I always assumed it comes around 3rd-4th grade like in Europe...

Anyway, sheer trolling never deserved any meaningful answer so let's just leave it like that...


Thanks for confirming my guesses about your mindset...

If I recall this was the last plan we proposed in your thread, IIRC.

Yeah, but this is 2008. Nobody reads 5 posts back anymore You remember what happened with the posting of the accommodation/employee discount pricing

Lol :d :d :d

I've played GTA4, watched a few HD trailers, etc. on my 360 Elite (HDMI) & have zero sound drop-out issues through the 254 thus far. That doesn't mean there aren't or won't be some but at this point, I don't have any problems on the 360 front.

Thanks Irish!!!

OK, but the bullet and joined the 254 owners club this afternoon. So far so good.

Sound (what I can listen to with 2 young ones around) is as clean as expected. Calibration was a good start, but as was discussed, it sets the cross overs really wrong.

Having some issue with my Comcast/Motorola box being seen as 2 ch stereo, but it seems to have fixed itself with a hard rest, so probably swap it out soon.

But I am not using a PS3, so no real problems to report

Scott

Are you using PCM out?? I don't have any problems with Dolby Digital-which I always use anyway, but in light of the issues with the PS3 I switched my xbox to PCM to test this.

I just pulled the trigger and joined the 354 owners club tonight!

I was still going to wait a while, but I was able to pick up a 354 from a local best buy using a $100 dollar off coupon we got in the mail... at that price I couldn't wait any longer!

I've got my video sources hooked up right now, but I am still waiting for some more speaker cable to hook up my rear speakers. Once I get that in the next few days, I'll post more about how I like my first receiver!

Dumb question but how do you do that?

You have to go into the system settings.. I am not 100% sure where that is right now but you have to choose "Digital Out" and not "Dolby Digital"

Anyone have ideas on problems with the Bridge II and the 60GB Ipods (no photos) and the 160GB Ipods (no videos or photos) reported back in post 301?

What is the advantage?
Thanks.

You're absolutely correct, so I'll make this short.

I suppose I did come across a bit strongly, mistaking your repeated "PS3 crap" and "would never buy any PS3" statements as anti-PS3 fanboism... but you can see how someone could jump to that conclusion, can't you? Anyway, sorry for jumping to conclusions. I'll even forgive your ridiculous personal attacks this time. Let's move on and discuss important things. Cheers.

I just picked up my 354 receiver and I have a pretty basic question.

In the manual it says when I go into Standby mode the power light should turn amber, but for me it stays white/blue-ish. Is this normal?

The volume light turns off, but the only time I see amber lights if when I press the Main Power Swich on.

Did you get a chance to test the Elite with PCM enabled? I'm anxious to hear if the audio drop outs can be duplicated.

As far as the advantage of digital out versus Dolby Digital out...its the same difference as PCM vs. Bitstream. Either let the Xbox decode it or let your AVR decode it. In other words: no difference.


Mine turns amber when its in standby (eg- push power on the remote). When on it lights up white.

Even my avr335 did that with optical. The 254 is no different with any digital sound as it always takes a second or two to synch. The only difference with HDMI with the 254 is that the 'synch' is lost immediately when the sound is done. The optical on my 335 maintained a 'synch' for 10 seconds or so after the last sound was played and as long as you played another song in that time frame the beginning was not clipped. This just seems to be typical HK behavior iyam. The buzzing noise has also been a problem with HK for years. Their high end 7 series receivers had recalls 4 or 5 years ago for the same thing. HK seems to always suffer from the same QC issues year after year, generation after generation. Great technology but little to no QC or beta testing appears to go into their products from what I can see. If they had ANY beta testing at all then some of these niggling issues like BTB/WTW and random PCM sound drops would have never gotten through...

As has already been stated earlier: someone stated that they bought a pio 1018 to test this with and hooked everything up to it and there were no problems with sound dropouts at the same location where the 254 experiences issues. Yamaha and Denon also no issues. The problem is certainly not with the ps3. It is an HK problem. When a device works flawlessly with any other brand of receiver but has problems with one specific brand only then it is a problem with that brand of receiver, HK in this case. It just is not logical for people to still claim that this is a ps3 issue when none of the other mid-high end brand name products are having problems with the ps3.

Jayhawk, I also think your idea to rename the 'ps3 problem' thread to an 'all problems thread' is also a much better idea than to leave the thread specifically as a ps3 problem thread. It would be a much cleaner and streamlined solution to have a single thread with all the major issues so that HK support can browse through it and see all of the same issues that everyone is having. For now they all appear to be ps3 related which should tell them that THEIR receivers are having problems with the ps3. Starting a ps3 problem thread to me makes it appear that the problem is with the ps3 and not with the HK which in this case is simply not true. I also agree that we should keep the focus on the hardware and off the personal attacks for differences in thread creation opinions :/

Just a quick question... I'm putting an order through monoprice, and was just wondering if this cable
http://www.monoprice.com/products/pr...seq=1&format=2
would work for doing firmware updates from my laptop.

Thanks

In following to Escrotumus' post, if the thread is renamed, from my memory, these are the issues so far.

1. Torino chip always on, even if disabled (not passing through BTB/WTW)

2. PCM lock-on delay/drop-outs (ie on PS3, PC, I think someone may have mentioned it on the 360 as well)

3. iPod browsing issues, unresponsiveness
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...0#post14325560

4. Rattling from fan (not sure how to describe this one, solution somewhat exists)

5. Volume OSD timing (solution exists)
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...7#post14327067
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...7#post14329057

6. Logic 7 turning on for no reason (gotta find the post and clarify the issue, sorry)

7. Centre channel volume change
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...7#post14340977

Sorry to cut this short and so unpolished. I'm just at work and gotta go, will come back to this tonight and add the needed references and clean it up (unless no one wants/needs it)

+1 Almost all of the issues raised in here were problems rampant with earlier models minus the HDMI complications. Even flagship models suffered from delays at the start of songs, clicks, and so forth. QC is embarrassingly bad for these receivers and there is little evidence that HK cares about fixing problems that have been around for years and complained about by their customers. Now they can blame all the new issues on HDMI but really most of these have been around for awhile.