Great sound , Lots of cool exra stuff

the remote is a little hard to learn

Overall I have found the unit to be very good for my application and have found no problems to date.I would buy one again in an instant .

Similar Products Used:

yamaha,onkyo

Remote control.

Set-up was somewhat confusing, and remore is not well-laid out nor backlit, but the sound is strong, plenty of inputs and outputs (S-video, Digital, analog.) Confused by some of the poor reniews it's received herein, but so far so good.

Easy set-up, decent sound, good high-end through the mains and center channel.

Clicking noise through speakers when volume is adjusted, transformer hum through center channel. Bad FM reception. Poor surround sound. Lacks midrange and sub-base

After auditioning many receivers: Onkyo, Denon, Yamaha and Sony, I found the HK to be the best value. Unfortunatly I did not read the reviews on this site before I bought it. It is a decient receiver, but you can do much better for $600.00. The clicking noise during volume changes is not needed and is annoying. The rear surround channels are week, very flat sounding and not detailed. The transformer hum through the center was strange. Most of these problems are minor. I bought mine for movies only and my older Sony had better surround sound. The midrange is week and the base is muddy. I had to turn up the volume on my sub and also on the receiver and it still didn't have the chest thumping impact my Sony did. I finally ended up with a Marantz SR5000. Awsome receiver. See my review. Had the HK for 2 weeks and returned it. The Marantz wins hands down over all these other receivers.

Peace Out!

Similar Products Used:

Sony str-de725, Marantz SR5000

Clean good sound, excellent surround even in prologic mode

Occasional (very rare) loud crackling/popping sounds in DD mode

I was apprehensive about buying this receiver because of all the complaints I've been seeing here. However, I got a great deal with theglobe.com, and got it for $462!! (no wonder shop.theglobe.com has closed its electronics store). I've used it for almost six months now, and watched a ton of movies. On two occasions, the speakers started crackling so loudly that I had to turn the system off. The crackling went away after I switched it back on, only to come back a few minutes later. It was frustrating, but it never happened to me again after that.

The sound quality is very excellent, and even the pro-logic sounds much better that my Yamaha prologic RV590. I would have given this an overall 4.0, but am going to give it a 5.0 to offset some of the criticism here.

None that I can assertain.

All speakers going out. Volume suddenly going full blast.

Well folks I ran this puppy right back to CC after spending some time trying to decide between it and the Onkyo 575. I had faith in Harmon Kardon since I still have one I bought in 1972 in the garage and it rocks.
I hooked up the HK in no time Popped in a cd and was amazed at how low the volume was had to go to half volume just for a good listening level. Compared to my old Sony 535 which I never got past 1/3 level although the Sony did flash protect for its whole life when ever it felt like but thats another story.

The HK lost all volume after about 5 mins of play then I shut it off waited a min. When I turned it back on the volume was at full tilt and spinning the knob had no effect on trying to lower it!!!!
Ok there was also clicks heard at the front speakers when adjusting the volume Minor fault.
I hurried back to CC and exchanged the HK for the Onkyo 575. I'm not to thrilled with the video sound quality but the sound when playing a DVD thru Sony avr330 is good but, here we go again, the volume has to be past 1/2 strenght to have a good sound level.

I guess this will be a continuing saga cause I think I'm taking the Onkyo back to CC for a Sony 935.

Good Luck out there!!!

Similar Products Used:

Harmon Kardon 4 channel bought in 1972, Sony str de535, Onkyo ds575

Super tight bass & tons of nice features for the money

Remote could be better, but more functional than a few others I've encountered. Sound is to my liking, but could be almost too smooth for some tastes.

Ok, so here I am a 2-channel stereo freak who listens to jazz, but still enjoys the thrill of great movie sound. I've got an AVR30 and I'm paranoid to upgrade from pro-logic because I'm afraid the new models will make my old 2-channel jazz recordings sound like crap. WRONG!

I finally got tempted to at least give the new models a shot when I found a great deal on this AVR300. Since popping-in Diana Krall & some Trio Jeepy by Branford Marsalis, I never looked back. The bass is tighter, the vocals smoother, the imaging better, et. etc.

Incidentally, these musical tests were performed with an HK 8400 CD player and an Audio Alchemy 1.1 DAC with Tara interconnects & Pinnacle Classic Gold Tower speakers.

So what 'bout home theater? With my JVC 701 DVD player and an optical cable (Theta) and my Jamo dipole surrounds, Apollo 13, Star Trek VI, First Contact, & Amadeus all gave me that you-are-practically there feeling in Dolby Digital.

Indoscrub (DVD single by Mickey Hart) was great in DTS too! However, my JVC DVD player seems to choke on Universal Pictures DTS DVDs....more on that in the DVD review section.

Similar Products Used:

HK AVR15 & AVR30

One of the cleanest and smoothest sounding amps I have ever heard.

When I tried to hook up additional speakers to this product I shorted the amp out. This surprised me because my old $199 pioneer amp handled it fine. I guess that is what the sacrafice is with the lack of watts and the increase of amps. With this reciever you get wonderful sound but definitly has it's limitations of power.

I would never tell someone not to get a AVR-300, but I definitly ask if they intended on hooking up outher speakers. I actually sold this product when I worked with Circuit City, and this reciever made me alot of money, but I would definitly call it a high end reciever in the beginner bracket. I have no hard feelings I just had a problem that I could not hook My outside niles speakers without shorting out my receiver.

Similar Products Used:

I now a proud owner of the Denon AVR-3300.

DD and DTS. startling clarity in how it sounds both for music and movies. s-video inputs o'plenty, binding posts for all speakers, the remote controls everything sat/tv/avr/dvd. capable of loud volume levels but not thunderous levels. get the avr500 or 7000 if thats what you want. this one rocks my house pretty damn good though.

i don't care for the manual too much, it is a little confusing.

Overall a great unit, very good sound quality and has ample power to play at loud volume levels despite the 60Wx2, 50Wx5 power rating. I am much happier with this unit rather than the yamaha htr-5150 which labeled their 2 S-video inputs as DVD and VCR. Everytime I went to watch my DSS I had to choose the VCR input. That bugged me so I got the H/K and they don't label all of their inputs specifically which I like. I love my system now

H/K AVR300
Polk CS400
Polk RT600's (fronts)
Polk M3IIK's (rears)
Energy e:XL-10s (sub)
Sony S330 DVD

Similar Products Used:

yamaha htr-5150(didn't like the S-video input configuration)

Clean front panel. Good volume control. Easy setup. Input/output flexibility. Inexpensive Dolby Digital and DTS receiver.

Sound a little thin to my ears. Excessive high treble especially during music. Boomy matrix surround modes not very usable. Make sure ventilation is good!

Like others, the low price made me a buyer despite the warnings from earlier reviewers. All in all, great for movies but only "very good" for music. Not as good as my Pioneer Elite for music playback, but I wanted a low-cost way to upgrade to Dolby Digital and DTS. PLus, the receiver has 6-channel pre-amp outputs and inputs. I think the power is sufficient - no problems powering my Klipsch KG3.5s. Actually, the volume on my old Pioneer--perhaps because it had 110 watts per channel--was almost impossible to control. One click on the remote would take it from "nearly inaudible" to "way too loud" especially with movie dialogue. HK volume control is very good especially at lower volumes. Volume clicks don't bother me but they ARE present when you turn volume up or down. On-screen display a little confusing and not very "pretty" but usable. Remote not too good - I hate it when manufacturers put numbers 1-5 and 6-0 on a row for example. Makes it difficult to change channels unless you're looking right at the buttons. Setting up the unit was easy. Did it in about an hour - and that includes a 4-year-old bugging me the whole time! Unit DOES get a little hot but not too hot to touch. I doubt I'll have problems as long as I keep front doors open and don't put anything on top of it.

Similar Products Used:

Pioneer Elite VSX-49 Pro Logic receiver

Good value for a DD/DTS receiver

early production problems; no A/B speaker support

I was looking for a reasonably priced DD/DTS receiver. My first receiver was a low end Sony, and I wanted to move up in quality. My choices were to either spring $1000 for a "good" receiver (NAK AV10, Denon 3300 class) that had a respectable power amp section, or go with a separate power amp and receiver. At that time, the Harman Kardon 5-channel power amp (HK PA5800) was on special for $300 so I decided to go the separates route. IMO, the main differentiator between receivers is their power amp section. Having a separate power amp freed me up to get a good quality receiver as a pre-processor without shelling out big bucks. By the way, pre-processors are more expensive than receivers! So I decided to go for a receiver with pre-outs, even though I wouldn't be using the power amp section at all.

I narrowed my choices down to Denon AVR 1800, Sony STRDB 830 and the HK AVR300. All of them are available in the $500 range. Here is my comparison chart:

Denon AVR 1800:
+ best preamp quality
+ A/B speaker support (I wanted this)
- no preouts for rear
- no S video support

Sony STRDB 930:
+ excellent feature set! (upto the wazoo)
- perceived lowest preamp quality

Harman Kardon AVR 300:
- good preamp quality
- good feature set

I was discouraged from getting the Sony by some comments I read from other users that straight 2 channel audio quality was poor. Denon was not as flexible because of the lack of 5 preouts, so I went with the AVR 300.

I got an early unit from J&R that had the volume control
problem. I was not able to reliably adjust the volume using the knob. Also the volume would go up and down for no reason. I took it to a HK authorized service station - the tech claimed he fixed the problem, but it remained. Then I called Harman Kardon after reading this board. It is well known that the early units had this production problem. I'm shipping my unit to them now for free replacement.

Other than this problem, I'm very happy with the unit. The volume clicking problem is a non-issue IMO. There is _no_ noise with the volume at the highest position with a source selected without playing anything. The tuner performance is worse than my Sony, but attaching the provided dipole antenna fixed that. Usability is good. You can choose the same optical source for CD and DVD. I have the DVD set at Dolby digital, and the CD with no surround and the receiver remembers each source setting. The remote is not stellar but it works! I'm actually able to control all my components.

I was under the impression that I could take the pre-outs and feed it to the 6-channel input to use the internal amps for a second set of speakers. But selecting 6 channel direct inputs disables the pre-outs, so this does not work. In addition there is no way to independently control if the second set of speakers is ON or OFF. I finally used an external A/B switch to get the job done.

Overall, I think this is a good receiver, good bang for the buck (if you ignore the volume control problem). Given the fact that HK is replacing my unit, I don't want to ding them too much.

Similar Products Used:

Sony STRDE930