Lots of digital ins and outs. S-video switching. Great in Dolby Digital.

DTS decoding, phantom volume

Well it happened to me.

I've only had the phantom volume problem once but my major gripe with HK is their DTS problem. Some guys Have reviewed the AVR500 and have had the same problemn as well.

During playback of DTS DVD's LD's and CD's, I sometimes get a strange "buzz" in one of my speakers. I am usually listening to a DTS movie reasonably loud and when this occurs I'm afraid it is going to ruin my speakers. And it's not always the same speaker. Sometimes the center, other times the left sorround, etc. You get my point.

It has happened with my Marvin Gaye DTS CD and all of the following moves:

DTS LD'S:
Jurassic Park
Spawn
True Lies
Liar, Liar
Stargate
Boogie Nights
Goldeneye

DTS DVD'S:
12 Monkeys
Lethal Weapon 1, 2, and 3
The Bone Collector
Jaws

I bought from onecall.com in March 2000 but they rep there told me they only have a 15 day return policy for defective products. He advised I talk to HK directly.

I e-mailed and I was told to take it to a service center. NO OFFER TO REPLACE.

So I called. After waiting 45 minutes on hold, I was finally told to take it to a service center even though I insisted that it be replaced. Just kept getting the "I'm sorry sir..."

So, looks like I'll be unhooking the unit this weekend. I'm pretty disappointed with HK. They know they have a defective product in the stream of commerce and instead of replacing it, they push you off on some local service center who you have never done business with.

Guess I'm SOL.

Great value but overall low because of customer service, DTS problem and phantom volume problem.

Great price. Love the HIGH CURRENT. Multi-room is cool, DD/DTS decoding. Plenty of in/outputs.

Remote could have been backlit, Maybe could have bought an HK with more power.

Starting to love this HK. The sound is a HUGE improvment over my original unit(Kenwood 100wx5). The sound has been great through my Sony 315s(Post crossover upgrade) for music and DVD. I was worried because of some of the reviews on this site, but for the price, I thought I would take a chance. I have not had any of the problems listed on other posts. The multi room option is great. I like the input/output options on this unit. It leaves you with options if you feel like being creative in the future. If I had to buy over again I might buy an HK with a little more power but I still like the sound of mine just the same. I had HIGH expectations from a Harmon Kardon and can say now that I have one, I don't want any other brand. Good job HK.

Onscreen Display, Pre-Amp outputs, 6 Channel inputs

None at this price othere than the impending fear of failure based on the other posts.

I needed somthing to bridge the gap between my old Parasound Pro logic pre-amp untill OUTLAW releases their new pre-pro, so I purchased this unit to act stirctly as a pre-pro in my hometheater. I am actually pleasantly surprised at the quality of sound this baby puts out for it's price. Like the poster below, I am banking on my past history with refurbs that the problems have been ironed out in the refurb process. I wouldn't quite call this an audiophile pre-pro but for the price it does the trick nicely. No coments on musical performance since i use a dedicated audiophile system for music. All in all not bad and is a good complement to the B&W 600 Series

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None, first time for a receiver.

Big time sound, 6 channel input, DD DTS, Warm sound.

None except for mine will occasionaly put out strange noises through different speakers when I am watching a movie in DTS mode. This has happened almost everytime I watch a movie in DTS mode.

Overall I think this is a great receiver I have had no problems with mine I bought it out of box from CC for $420 and paid an extra 60 bucks for an extended five year warranty which I am glad I did after reading these reviews. My avr 300 was made after January thus I have experienced no other problems than the one I mention when receiver is in DTS mode. I am very pleased with the look and sound of this receiver. The Dts problem is sporadic and I am considering having it repaired or seeing what CC will do if I take it back and gripe. If anyone else with this receiver has experienced the Dts random noise problem please e mail me. I would like to know the best way to resolve this.(rell@firstva.com)

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None really

Great features, Lots of different sound capabilities , easy setup , Lots of future connections for upgrading . All in all a great unit for a great price.

I have yet to find one .

For the price it is a very good unit with no negatives to date . I have heard from others about problems but I have not encountered any .

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I was going to buy a comparable unit from yamaha but I decided to go with harmon kardon, I think I made a good decision .

discreet circuitry, power and clarity, s video switching, sturdiness

remote was confusing at first, that's about it.

Well my friends finally convinced me to jump of the "low end " sony bandwagon. And I was glad I did. This receiver rocks. The crispness, power, quality; it blows the old sony de915 away. I was going to go to the sony db series but I changed my mind and went with the H/K. Movies sound excellent and the music cds aren't too shabby sounding either. I finally figured out the remote and set a macro to turn on everything at the push of a button. That's real nice. Also nice to have just one remote do it all. I would highly recommend this receiver. It brings sound to a whole other realm, well at least in my house.

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Sony, sony, sony

high current amp, ultra wide band width responce, digital

surround mode logic processors, volume controlswitch

I'm a tech., by trade. I always feel like some displaced charactor from the movie "TRON", constantly wandering the circuitry paths. Sound is so important. HK has the best amp. circuitry. Their patent on responce in all their stuff is only matched by the other $3000 lines of equipment and up. But they seem to have short changed them selves this round. I'm stuck with my second unit because the 45 day return policy is over. The first one had its surround mode logic process short out and failed to reset itself. The surround off mode is fine, no complaints. I returned. Paid $25 in shipping. That sucked. I feel that was a heat problem. They need to retro fit an exhaust fan. I've done this to my second one. The fan is tied into the switched AC outlet. I feel much more comfortable in surround mode circuitry now. But for some reason they used a digital rottery switch on the unit that changes the volume in switched incraments. Why! None of the competion use it. This switch only works on microwave ovens. It causes a low volt power surge in the volume logic processor. The loudness can go eather way depending on the direction the knob is turned. It'll just take off.I've got Klipsch horns and woofers and they shook my house and freaked out my wife and two small kids. "LAW SUIT" JUST kidding. Leave the knob alone dear. It opperates fine with the remote and may become your best friend as it should be. Learn it, Live it, Love it. Until the next chapter of the on going saga of the HK line. Be ware.

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yamah,sony,teac

performance

Reliability

When it actually was working properly, I was satisfied with it's performance. But,I've had to send it off twice for repairs. First, the tuner failed completly and the unit was gone for weeks. Now, I'm boxing it up to have the volume control repaired. The volume control is vague and the volume will occasionally spontaneously jump to an extemely high level.
If you really want to use this product, I'd suggest buying two in hopes of having one working unit available at all times - and don't discard the packing materials.

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Sony AVR333ES

Great sound quaility; DTS other bells and whistles

Front panel selection buttons are a bit small

If this product had not failed I would have been satisfied. However, like others who have posted reviews here for this same product, mine too has failed. The sound completly went away for all devices after it made all kinds of squeeling sounds. I read some of the other reviews after I brought the reciever in for repairs and I thought 'why me'? Good news though. Circuit City said they were unable to repair the reciever and gave me a refund. End of problem. I have now puchased a Onkyo reciever.

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Onkyo

non-digital audio

everything else

Here's a partial list of the reasons I returned the H/K AVR 300:

- Loud clicks in all speakers when adjusting volume. This is just stupid. No other receiver I've looked at had this problem.

- Transformer hum in center channel speaker. Turn the thing on and put your ear right up next to your center speaker while no signal is being played back. You'll hear it. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

- Stupid digital section took about a half second to realise there was no more dolby digital data when it stopped for whatever reason (menu changes on dvd, pause/cueing the movie, etc). This resulted brief bursts of super loud white noise through all 5 speakers.

- I could crash my unit by doing this: play back a dolby digital dvd, pause the movie, wait until "no data" is displayed on the reciever, switch the receiver to an analogue source (like the ol' tape deck). No further sound would come out of the unit until I turned it off and on again.

- Very confusing menuing system. Very confused remote layout. Atari 2600 quality on screen displays. This made the unit hard to use for no good reason.

Here's why it took me a month to get around to returning it:

- fairly flexible back panel, I could hook up all my stuff to it with plugs to spare.

- dolby digital sounded great when the unit wasn't barfing out white noise.

- it sounded fantastic (for the price) when playing back a cd.

So, all in all, the amplification section of this receiver is pretty good. The rest of it seemed to have been designed in about a day and I doubt that anybody at H/K ever tried to use these things before they started building them by the boat load in China.

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yamaha 795a, marantz 7000