Harman Kardon Receivers.. AVR-7300 vs AVR-354

Hi ! I'm looking for a bit of advice here. I have a few years old avr-7300 that has some dsp board issue (optical inputs gets funky) and i'm in the process of fixing it, it's all taken apart.


However.. i got many harman receivers here, and while this unit is out of the home theater, i plugged a avr-254 instead of the 7300. To my surprise, this lower end receiver seemed to sound better than my 7300. I know the technology in the 7300 is a bit older, but to me, that thing was way better than the 254...


I also have a 354 with no use for. Should i replace the avr-7300 with the avr-354 (i know it has a bit more bells and whisles, hdmi and such) but, are my ears playing me a trick right now ?


Any input would be really appreciated, i just don't know what to do, while i'm waiting for digikey to deliver my capacitors...


What would you do ? Thanks.