The first one I brought home shorted out instantaneously. Fortunately, the shop I bought it from handed over a replacement on the spot (The Sound Room in Vancouver - highly recommended). I have Mission 731 speakers (I have a small place) and it is a nice combination. I am very pleased with it, it sounds great. Jazz sounds outstanding, the receiver handles the mid-range really well - clean, clear and rich. I have to admit though, that I haven't compared it directly against other similarly priced receivers. Also, the surround sound quality is excellent. Suffers from lack of Dolby Digital upgradeability.

This reciever kicks ass. Nothing else needs to be said. Unbeatable performance for the dollar. Hurry up and get one before there all gone.

What can I say to you about this receiver?! I love it, but yet I hate it as well. I bougtht this receiver at a local mid-high end dealer in my town. I went inside with the intention of purchasing something "different" but it had to also sound good. No plain Jane when it comes to quality was of utmost priority The salesman asked me what was it exactly that I had in mind. I told him this: Fancy sound fields at a minimum. The system doesn't need to have a tuner. Adequate output wattage without any noticable distortion at high volume without making my ears bleed. It has to have a Dolby Logic decoder chip. Ouput to each channels. And damn it, it had better be pretty! To my delight, the salesman fufilled these requests. Then what the hell is my problem? The problem was that liked eating transistors for breakfast. A total of 5 transistors to be exact. These 5 transistors resulted in 2 visits to an authorized fixer upper factories. The first time,(after only a month of owning it) I got it back in exactly 1 week. Hey, that was pretty fast. The second affair, (two weeks later) it took 5 weeks, that's right, 5 (five) weeks. Now you're probably asking me whether or not I'm an idiot for listening to it too loud. No, in fact it wasn't even turned up a tenth of the way when the familiar smell of solid state components began to fill the room. They asked me what kind of speaker cables I was using (Monster XP 14 guage). They said that it was a short that had caused the output transistors to to self destruct. Uh, say that again? What are the chances of two transistors the first time, and three the second time. This would only be true if these transistors were in a series, but they are not. Each channel has a large output transistor that requires a heatsink to cool and I can see that there are five of these for each of its channels. So what they were telling me was that I had two shorts the first time and three the second. Highly improbable. Anyway, I complained and I suggested that the "fixer uppers" to increase the voltage output of the next set of transistors. By golly, I think they did. Since I've gotten this thing back, it hasn't been so hungry for more transistors. Now for its good side. I like its sound because of its high detail. The bass is adequate and the extreme trebles are tapered off. If you hear this receiver in the dealer's showroom, you won't be stunned when you first listen to it because the sound is not bright and brassy. In fact it's rather dull. I like this quality in any stereo component. I find that you can listen to it a lot longer if it's not an irritating, piercing sound. I can listen to this receiver for hours at all levels and won't get sick of the sound. I can't say this to many stereo equipment, especially to cheap speakers and bad speaker cables. The displays too, impresses me. It's simple and isn't too bright. In fact it's adjustable. The price? I paid $700 for it and its retail is $769. Did I get my money's worth? Yeah, I'm very pleased with it now that it's sitting in my living rather than the repair bench. The dealer said that this is rare. I don't know whether this is common or not for this model (I'm sure it's not), but one thing's for sure. Eventhough I paid close to retail for this receiver, I'm glad I had bought it at my local dealer. They pushed pretty hard to get it repaired. They even asked the rep to replace it with another. I don't know what kind of service a mail order company would have done. Overall, I like it. Would I recommend it? No! I'd go with a Denon for the same chunk of change. I have a friend who's got a comparable model and his kicks mine's ass!

Ive owned my AVR 25mkII for about a year and a half. It is a truely increadible reciever. I compared it to the Denon AVR 2500, and the H&K has a much more refined sound. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a Great ProLogic reciever. There simply isn't anything better for the money. Do yourself a favor and go get one.

This is a simple machine that does the job very well. It will last long enough to give to your son's kids.

Straight out of the box you could tell that this was no ordinary run-of-the-mill econobox home-theater receiver. It looked and felt rock-solid, the switches were of high quality, and through the top, one could see the massive transformer and generously-sized capacitors. It was with breathless anticipation that I hooked it into my system and engaged the power switch. From the CD player the gentle strains of Tomita's "Snowflakes are Dancing" floated forth into the room. Smooth, effortless highs and natural mids, combined with a tight, focused bass. Better sound that I had ever heard before from my system. I sat back in blissful meditation, letting the music wash over me like a soothing mineral bath. This was no ordinary component. This was, dare I say it, one significant step closer to Audio Nirvana.

A very,very good value for the money,a nice looking reciever with a good next room remote.

None really,just that the remote could look a bit nicer or that the casing wouldnt leave a oily smuge each time you touch it.

Dont be fooled by the low power ratting of h k products,they prefer to base there circiut outpoot on current.This is an extreamly good value for the money and i recomend it to any one looking for a good sounding reciever for music use or maby movies.

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none can compare to the value of this product.

Good clean sound, nice design, solid build quality

ugly remote although functional. Manual sucks.

I have been using this receiver for the past 4 years with no problems whatsoever. The unit is solid and produces great sound even with my aging Boston Acoustics A70 speakers. It is definitely worth the cost in my opinion. It was quite inexpensive for the features this receiver has. Supposedly the high current design makes it free of distortion with better headroom etc. I am not an expert on this topic, so I will not comment further. I recently got the Boston VR965 speakers to test them out from the store. The receiver drives them hard with no problem or distortion. If you want a good amplifier/recvr but which does not have too many bells and whistles, for a reasonable price, you cant go wrong with this one. This is not a top of the line receiver by any means. If your budget is high there is a lot of perhaps better stuff out there.

The manual is pretty much basic and could use more detail. No problems with the remote except that it is not pleasing, but that is a minor concern.

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Onkyo receiver (dont know model #)

Lovely amplifier and preamp sound

Narrow LOS for remote, Dolby went out

I've been using this mostly as a preamp, sometimes driving my vacuum tube monoblocks (Cary), and as a home theater preamp. It doesn't approach most dedicated preamps, but is excellent for a receiver. The amp section is very authoritative, great bass, very dynamic with great headroom. It has very limited features, but I look for higher quality, fewer features when I can. I love the tone control bypass button.

But sadly, this receiver's time is ending, as the remote crapped out last year, and a couple months ago all Dolby processing fuzzed out. So, I'll be looking for new, but likely looking for HK again. I'm a bit concerned about the rumoured quality issues with HK, as I don't think their strengths are designing feature-packed everything-in-a-box receivers like Onkyo or Denon excel at. But I do admire their preamps and amp sections, which offer some of the best sound any receiver should be expected of.

Reliable brand, cleanly-styled face

For just a couple hundred bucks more, I could've gotten a Dolby Digital receiver.

One of the greatest things my dad ever gave me was his old H/K amp - wood/steel construction, weighed a ton. Two things about this receiver led me to buy a modern HK: one, it had the power to drive four floor speakers and an unpowered sub with no loss of quality. Number two: the receiver was thirty years old, and still kicking.

Confident in HK's products, I picked up an AVR25 II two years ago and very satisfied with the sound. I strongly suspect that my current speakers aren't doing it justice, so I'm eyeing up some Infinitys. Good stuff!

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Various JVC receivers, older H/K's