Harman Kardon Announces Two Home Theater Receivers For 2013

I never saw what the attraction was with HK. Low power and high prices. It has no better than other audio. What's the attraction? the name?

While they do tend to lag behind in technology I have never had a better sounding receiver then my old AVR 310. I miss it every time I fire up a movie.

the attraction?

easy: the quasi "boutique" angle.

Same for: NAD, anthem, arcam, etc.

That, and the perceived superior sound quality due to modest specifications, relative scarcity when contrasted with most AVR manu's, anyway (although HK did take a good hit from many when they- gasp- started peddling their gear through best buy) and really, humorous folk lore.

Not including room correction, could you tell the difference between them and a sony, pioneer, or yamaha, level matched, blind? Of course not. But the notion sounds great.

Go figure.

James

And of course the angle that they "poo poo" proven "new" technology that increases sound quality while instead focusing on the stuff that really matters.

again...

go figure.

James

A clear warm sound, higher power than the ratings would indicate, and Logic 7, though the latter is not mentioned here.

Announced? These have been on the shelves at BestBuy (Richfield, MN) for months.

...on the 1700, not the less expensive 700 - I was considering the 700 at BB one afternoon, unti I looked into that little detail in the user guides, thinking that at $300 that would be a nice buy.

All that said, they are attractive units, physically speaking.

They are great sounding AVRs.

New HK models do not interest me. They have clearly shifted from their overbuilt units to ones with shiny new features that people expect.

Just look at the weight specs. The new units are much lighter and from someone in the know, their amplification topology has been completely changed.

The 7550HD was their last and best AVR ever.

^^^
agreed. But I have to admit that aesthetically, still my favorite. But that's not enough to make me buy one though.

I disagree with the haters. The HK amps I've heard(which to be honest is only a few) sound really warm, rich and pure. My mother had an HK for 20+ years that was paired with some Altec Lansing towers and they(that combo) kicked out some extremely good sounding Fleetwood Mac and Pink Floyd . IMO. I'm excited for these amps, they're great options in the price category and AVR realm they fit in when you compare the Pioneer 522-822 or 1022 and/or the Sony 720,830 and/or Yamaha 373,473. And @Krutsch is right, they've been at my BBY out here in MT since mid September.

3700 must be on the way as well. They are behind in room correction, but fine receivers overall. Can sometimes be had at nice discounts, which is when H/K really makes sense.

Had the avr 1700 for a few days but returned it because it has no hdmi standby pass through. The sound was really nice. If not for the pass through it would have been a keeper for sure.

I wish they icense their Logic 7 to other manufacturers though. I truly like their Logic7.

The best looking receiver to my eyes. Absolutely gorgeous

I've never owned an HK AVR. Can you tell me what Logic 7 does?

Thanks in advance

Meh. New HKs do not interest me, at all. Yes, they look nice from the outside. The two models mentioned here have been at my local Best Buy for awhile now. Go lift one…it weighs almost nothing.

I think they used to make some solid receivers. I never cared for their EzSet/EQ room correction though.

Keep in mind, the old HK power ratings were really conservative, whereas these newer specs are overinflated by quite a bit.

It's Lexicon/Harman Kardon matrixing 2-channel music to (up to) 7.1. It's the most effective upmatrixing on the market, IMHO. It works really well in a dedicated HT and/or automotive environment.

That sounds good... that's something I would use a lot, in place of Dolby PLII for music. BTW, have you tried HARMAN Headphone with surround material and, if so, do you think it works (w/n reason, of course)?

Thanks again...

Bingo: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.harman.avr&hl=en

I love HK's sound, it's a lot different from others, regardless of what any highly opinionated but barely educated 'expert' is telling you here (BTW a lot of vendors sound very differently, only some seriously ignorant person would think they all sound the same.)

That being said HKs are usually buggy as hell - the arrival of HDMI really drove down their reliability...
I might give them another chance if they get the basics right in this 3700: give me 7.1 proper + surr-wide/front-height extension a' la NeoX/DSX (probably Dolby IIz?), update EzSet/EQ and keep EQing subs like before, update Dolby Volume (did not work on all inputs), do NOT use Faroudja anywhere and, of course, give me a pass-through option without bothering my video + I'd like to plug in my phono... if these are solid then I can still live with it (via my DVDO Edge) until they fix the bugs. Ahh and keep the price under $1k unless you include proper 4K scaling (eg analog/digital sources)

Yes, it sounded far better than anything else with music, I miss L7 every day when I put on some music (but I certainly don't miss the HDMI/video issues my last HK had... :P)

Yes, for 2-ch to multi-ch conversion, Logic7 is the most natural sounding and the least gimmicky of them all.

As far as the headphones go, I've never tried it. What's the model number, maybe I should review it.

They make nice looking stuff, but I read so many mixed things about their reliability/quality. I unboxed a 1700 a couple months ago for store display and was surprised how lightweight it was for a $500 AVR. Not usually a good sign. fascia seemed cheap and plastic-y too.

Oh, I meant using any headphones with an HK receiver that supports the HARMAN Headphone function (like the 1700 does).

HK used to include Dolby Headphone, which in my experience w/ another implementation is pretty convincing. However, Dolby charges a lot to license that functionality and, as such, no one offers it anymore. Instead, HK (and others) have developed their own version of virtual surround for headphones and/or two speakers.

I was just wondering if you have an HK AVR that includes the HARMAN Headphone feature and if you've ever tried it.

Not just 2 to 7, but 5 to 7 as well

Not my first choice for a basic receiver. But avr 700 does a great job and looks great. For $110 shipped directly from harmon kardon site. Can't really go wrong. Especially with mixed review. Now that i have had it for a month now. I would recommend it.

Yes, I understand that but the 2 to 7 is just... Wow!

My apology for the misunderstanding. Yes, I tried it, I prefer Dolby Headphone as my go-to technology followed by Yamaha Silent Cinema

Yeah... I was afraid of that. I like DH, as well. H/K has some clearance models for sale now that still include DH, but they are unable to work with HD audio codecs (or even extract audio from the HDMI stream), so I am hesitant to pull the trigger. However, for $199 you can have what would be an awesome movie headphone amp with the AVR-154 that could handle Dolby Digital and DTS and it includes Dolby Headphone processing.

I think I am headed over to Yamaha, however. I exchanged some e-mails with Yamaha's technical support with the x71 series and beyond, they are finally able to process the HD audio codecs w/ Silent Cinema - previous models couldn't do that; and, with the new 673 model that can enable the dsp modes w/ Silent Cinema and still retain the full versions of DTS (i.e. w/o stepping down to dts core).

However, I've heard from others that the rear positional audio is much better with Dolby Headphone, so we'll have to see.

Thanks for your comments.