Is the H/K AVR 7550HD still worth buying?

What other features are you looking for in a new receiver?

The 3600 would not be a worthwhile upgrade over the 2600, as you suspected. The power difference is marginal and feature set/connectivity nearly identical.

The current top of the line HK (3650) only adds DPLIIz and HDMI ARC over the 7550, despite it being a few years old. The 7550 is substantially more powerful, and has several other features that have only been seen on the top-end HKs (e.g. EZsetEQII, dual independent subs, Logic7 layering on multichannel streams, bass management on multichannel analog input, etc.)

In this post I made a detailed comparison between the AVR 7550HD, 3600, and the current 3650 features;
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1338866/official-harman-kardon-1565-1650-2650-3650-thread/30#post_21574146


I am a big H/K fan, but If you want any 'newer' features than this which have become commonplace on most other AVR brand lineups, (such as airplay, AVR control apps for your iPhone, pandora, dual HDMI outputs, etc.) look into brands other than HK. Other brands typically offer a better bang for buck and roll out new models+features much faster.
New HK models aren't due until next year and it's uncertain what new technologies will be included.
Edited by dRockHK - 8/5/12 at 2:55pm

FYI - I've had a few 7550HDs now and have experienced an occasional/intermittent green flash when using the HDMI output on all of them. You may experience the same condition even after switching from your 2600 to the 7550

I've been very happy with this receiver over the past 4 years. It may not have the latest bells and whistles but it sounds absolutely incredible. Very powerful and built like a tank. I have a feeling this was the last of the overbuilt flagship HK receivers.

I have been looking at the 7550 myself. I will be replacing my AVR 525. I like the 525 but with no HDMI switching is often the unplug replug method. I do like the HK sound and I am not sure I want to give up Logic 7. I enjoy decoding TV sound with Logic 7. So the overlay of Logic 7 from other processes is very attractive to me. I use the 525 as a pre-amp into an HK 2.0 5 channel amp. The rear surrounds are being taken care of by a Hafler amp. Subwoofer duty is done with an older Kenwood amp into two subwoofers from a split signal off of the sub out of the 525. My other option is to get a Marantz pre-amp, but the loss of Logic 7 is not something that allows me to jump on that option. I guess if there is any take away from all this it will be is anyone having trouble with running a 35 foot HDMI to the projector off of their 7550, or will it be fine?

The 7550HD(760 in Europe) has been officially discontinued..
You might find a new, sealed unit in someone's inventory but most of the units now available are "B" stock refurbs..

Just my $0.02..

Uses the same video processor as your 2600 (Faroudja FLI30336 "Torino")

I'd recommend moving away from H/K. Their feature set is just so awful compared to Denon or Onkyo and they always seem to have more issues than other brands too. The previous post mentioning how HK still uses Faroudja, when several better manufacturers moved beyond them years ago. They also have inferior auto-calibration. And the $1000 (Yes, I know street price is a few hundred lower.. woo hoo.. still a major ripoff) AVR-3650 has no pre-outs?! Hell, the back of that thing looks as sparse as a Denon 1912 (other than having 12v trigger at least, but that's to be expected from receivers half that price (street) in my opinion)!

Sorry, HK, but less is NOT more. Please, guys, just let them die (unless they want to actually put some effort into their products). If I didn't care about pre-outs, I'd take a Denon 2312 over the 3650 any day, and if I did, I'd still be able to score a 3312 for less than the 3650.

My vote thus is no.
Edited by DonoMan - 8/8/12 at 12:24pm

My bad, but I would certainly take a 4311 over it. Better connectivity, more power, better video processing, better auto-calibration, HDMI 1.4 with ARC support compared to 1.3, etc.

Or also, if you happen to be in a room that needs a lot of correcting, the Sherwood Newcastle R-972 for a lot less money might be an interesting option. Trinnov is supposed to be quite awesome. Latest firmware supposedly fixes the issues that reviews complained about too. Not quite as advanced as the 4311 but still pretty good connectivity. No network stuff though. I kind of wish I could afford one myself.

I had a Sherwood Newcastle R-956 at the same time as my HK AVR 325. Both very good sounding receivers with plenty of power. I found the Newcastle was ergonomically less desirable than the HK with some strange features or lack thereof. Both could be complex for the novice buyer. I loved the finish on the Newcastle and the LCD front panel display.

Sherwood's may be more user friendly by now, its been 10 years. I ended up selling my Newcastle to some college students last year. Still have the HK in my office.

As mentioned previously, the 7550HD is now officially discontinued. We had (2) of these as we supported HK in its development cycle, I sold one on E-Bay 3 months back and the other one my son has been using without any issues. It is built like a battleship, and its Room EQ works quite well especially for (2) subwoofers handling also the full-process Logic 7 sounds incredible.

But as mentioned by others, it is now dated and the competition has passed it in certain areas like # of HDMI inputs. It was the flagship AVR for HK but now they need to step up and introduce a sucessor..

Just my $0.02..

For what it's worth, I'd take a Denon 4311 over the RX-A2010, and the H/K wouldn't even be a consideration. The Yamaha is very nice but I just wouldn't take its YPAO calibration over Audyssey. The HQV Vida video processing in the Yamahas is nice. One of my uncles has a 2010.

Oh, I didn't realize the 2010 was available for so little. My bad. I'd take the 3312-3313 then, personally. Again, because I prefer Audyssey. But that 2010 is definitely nice too. It would likely be just about at the top of my list if it just had Audyssey XT32, or at least XT.
Edited by DonoMan - 8/14/12 at 5:57pm

Between those two my choice would easily be the 7550HD. I have used both the A3000 and 7550 and the Yamaha is in its box while the 7550 is in the rack. Have you searched for a refurbed 4311?

I think what lets it down for Yamaha is its YPAO. I have never liked the EQ YPAO applies as it always seems to kill too much detail. It sounds so much better with EQ off or on manual GEQ with your own adjustments. Speaker distance settings and crossover settings and such usually benefit from manual adjustment over what YPAO set as well.

So after over 6 months what happened?