Quote:
Originally Posted by
butie120 
This is the receiver that I'm debating upon due to the big markdown at Best Buy for $199, and with $75 in gift cards I could bring it down to $125. The big thing holding me back is the lack of Audyssey as I hear the Ezset setup isn't that appealing or useful. But that was just one person's opinion. Is it difficult to override the "HDMI Standby Passthrough"? I hear you just need to buy a splitter of some sort, but I have no idea how to set that up.
It's either this or the Denon 1613 for me. The Denon is on sale at Fry's for $288 so I have to decide soon. Ahh! What is your general thoughts or opinion of the receiver so far? I'm trying to get as much feedback about this receiver as possible before I make the plunge.
You really need to listen to both the receiver or at least receivers from their family to see which one you like better. For me its my third receiver. I started my journey on surround sound with a low end onkyo and onkyo speaker set back in 2007. I thought that it was great for surround but I was not with the music sound quality. It sounded lifeless and harsh with more shrill. So i was getting the itch to upgrade. I sold the onkyo speaker set and the receiver in craigslist bought Harman Kardons 5.1 speaker set (HKTS 18 from J&R) and HK AVR 254 (from HK's ebay store as refurb) in 2009. Boy, it really rocked... with the power and sound quality. One of my friend who had onkyo.. after listening to my setup also upgraded his gear to harman Kardon. He was little bit unlucky though.. after 1.5 years of ownership his HDMI board failed. HK has 2 years of warranty even with refurb unit. They replaced his AVR 254 with AVR 2600 (AVR 254 was out of production). So he basically got the upgrade for free, so I was impressed with their support as well. My experience with Denon is limited. Another friend bought a brand new house with open concept in the family room (open to kitchen and living room). So it was a difficult room from acoustics point of view. On top of that all his satellite were in wall with hardwood floor. So it was really really difficult room to get good sound. he got this $600 Denon receiver with Audyssey (not sure which version though) with all latest features like HD Radio, networking and others (back in 2010 it was cutting edge). He did the audyssey setup. But with so much of reflection, you can probably do room correction upto certain extent only. And his speakers didn't have the punch as well both for music as well as movies. So I would not pass judgement on the Denon, but his setup didn't do justice to what he has spent. I told him to get two front towers to fill up the room. He hasn't bought them yet though. In the meantime I also bought a brand new house in 2011, I made sure that my family room is a perfect rectangle and carpet. No open concept for me and no in wall speaker for me. The sound was of course even better than my previous apartment, because it was more enclosed than before with speakers placed at proper places. New year 2013, I decided to throw a new year party in my basement, so I bought two infinity primus towers (P363) and looking for a new receiver so that I can move my current HK AVR 254 to the basement. I checked back AVSforum after long time, and saw that lot of new features have come in to the new crop of receivers. I wanted the HDMI standby passthrough feature, because I didn't want to run the receiver for casual TV watching. I thought of the splitter setup, but it leads to more complicated setup. I saw that HK no longer sells via ebay and the other HK AVR receivers were pricey for my budget 9with wife not too happy with purchase of towers and now another receiver on the way). So I got the yamaha RX-V373. It had all the features I wanted and was rated higher than my previous HK AVR 254. I connected it to my towers. It was wimpy and not inspiring at all for music. On top of that it didnt had OSD via HDMI overlay. I moved it to my family room to its intended place. It failed to deliver video output over a 50' 24AWG HDMI cable. The signal was I guess too low for my TV. HK AVR 254 never had problems delivering signal to the TV using the same cable. So I thought that all these new receivers with their wimpy power supply are at fault and I probably need a mid range receiver. Somebody told me that HDMI spec gurantees signal only upto 16ft. By this time 31st came in, I put the AVR 254 to work at my basement. I set it to two channel stereo mode to get the maximum out put from it.. and everybody appreciated the setup and had a good time this NYE. After that I returned the yamaha and noticed that BB is clearing on AVR 1700. I decided to take a risk (everybody was saying the power supply is much lighter than previous HK receivers - AVR 254 is about 28lb). I was impressed when I drove the tower in the basement with two channel mode in AVR 1700. It actually has more power than AVR 254. The OSD graphic was a downgrade though. This weekend I snaked one more HDMI cable from my TV to the AVR 1700 in the for HDMI standby passthrough solution. I already have logitech harmony, so it was breeze to redo the setup and add one more macro. Surprisingly the infrared commands for AVR254 and AVR1700 are same and my previous activities were working even without adding AVR1700.
IMO, harman Kardon has one of the best quality sounds in all receiver. If you appreciate music sound quality, its one of the best choice I have come across. From my experience even HTiB can output decent surrounds, but music is not a piece of cake and more challenging for lot of setup. You need to see in a showroom/friends place how much audyssey improved the audio experience. But if your room is acoustically good enough, you can blindly go with AVR1700 with such a good deal. It was good in my basement too..its about 800sq ft L shaped unfinished and not a walkout basement , whereas my family room is 200 sq ft rectangle. So basement was little bit of challenging, but the towers filled up the space pretty good and I don't have surround setup in basement, only stereo.
Edited by kousikb - 1/14/13 at 7:44am
