Great power, high current reciever, Many inputs,optical out, clear balanced sound(at first)

Volume clicking(POPPING),Hissing from speakers...

I read the reviews on the HK 300, and can agree on some of the problems others are having....FOR STARTERS---I purchased this unit from CC paid $599.99 for it.(This is O.K.) unpacked and set it up in no time...I was really happy to hear good sound, balanced sound. Then everything fell apart. After watching The Matrix the sound became impossible to hear as my HK 300 Began chopping up main, center,rears into pieces...switching the unit to cd and back to dvd did not solve the problem...I took the unit back to CC to exchange the unit thinking this just one bad unit out of many good units. My 2nd hk300 decided it was going to make clicking and eventually Popping noises from all speakers when you would adjust the volume , followed by a hissing noise, With or with out a device selected (dvd, cd, etc.), which really bothered me..Thinking I may have hooked something up wrong, Checked my connections--All O.K. I went so far as to have a good friend a HT Guru/ Installer to check it out. This what he said... The Humming is from a bad power supply...The clicking noise, he didn't say, HK did, they said it was problem they heard of before= ANOTHER BAD UNIT... He did say something intersting The reason Hk volume sounds lower in DD/DTS with large speakers seleted is because it is Taking power from the mains( dropping from 60 watts to 50 in DD.)I was really unhappy about This AVR, took his back to CC for a Full Refund..I really loved The High Current power of this AVR (35 amps), but there problems that need tending to..So I decided to wait and see if this was bad batch of AVR's...Am i crazy, no,I really like the looks and sound of the HK 300 if it would work right. I will try the HK 500 soon To see if logic 7 is really worth the money.. I have tried Yamaha's rx-v595a, and the sound in the Hk sounds better, but Yamaha's remote is even worse.....I gave the HK 4 stars,for the amount of inputs S-video,optical,and optical out, sound, power, and On screen menu. 2 stars for the problems two times...

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Yamaha rxv-595a

Everyhing

nothing

I bought this receiver four weeks ago and it's very good. You can connect many things to this. It even has on screen display which amazed me because it's easier to set it up. The only thing that I didn't like was when I turned the volume up or down there was like a pooping sound but by now I got used to it and don't even hear it. I'm giving it a five stars.

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Sony, Jbl

Good power, looks great, awsome Dobly Digital, fairly easy to set up, S-vid switching, lots of connects

Remote isn't so hot, no backlight, couldn't get it to work well with TV/DVD

Why did I not buy this thing sooner. All that I have been able to do is watch movies!

I come from a background of enjoying movies and also musical listening. Thus my life has begun anew.

Haven't had any problems thus far.

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first home theater receiver

Good value for the money
Good features
Great sound

More power
More sound modes

I have had this receiver since the beginning of February and I love it. No problems yet but I still haven't got a DVD yet because I also bought a new Polk Audio H/T speaker system at the same time. Got it for $453.00 from One Call (only use authorized internet retailers period, for whatever you buy). I have had this receiver at -5 DB for over 3 hours straight with my CD player and not one problem. It rocks.

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Old Sony Audio / Video receiver - no comparison.

GREAT stereo sound, very nice bass. Very sleek and modern appearnce. Remote runs really old gear.

Very non intuitive on screen display. May not have enough juice for action movie fans. Remote only partially backlit.

I'll start off first by saying that I have a May 2000 model of the AVR300 and work at a major retailer here in Indpls. As of this production date all problems with the AVR300 and AVR500 are over as far as I can tell. H/K has assured us of this. But more than their word, I have sold quite a few and haven't heard any of the well known and well justified complaints. (clicking, phantom volume knob) Anyhoo, my major dillema came down to the Onyo TXDS676 or the AVR300. The Onkyo had a clearly better remote IMO that was fully backlit, and a tad crisper highs during demos as well as more wattage per chanel. But in the end the awesome sound and bass response in 2 chanel stereo from the H/K coupled with the ulta sleek design won me over. In surround mode the AVR300 drops to 50w per channel, so to get the sound I want I have to go almost full blast, but movies only make up 30% of my usage. Sometimes I wish I would have sprung for the AVR500 because of higher juice and backlit remote, but my wallet said no! I'll end with a peice of advice for those making the same decision. If you have a nice powered sub at home and do alot of Home theater I would go Onkyo, but if music is your bag or if you have a passive subwoofer type setup (Bose AM series) the H/K will blow anything in this price range away. I'm giving it four stars for value and four and a half for performance.

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Onkyo, Sony, Denon, Yamaha, Kenwood.....

Great sound even at HIGH volume, high current amp, 6 ouputs for multi-room setup.

Only 50 watts per channel in surround / 60 stereo

It took a lot of convincing for me to consider a receiver $200 more than the one I just purchased (Sony845) that had only 50 watts per channel, but I got a good deal ($450) for an open box buy so I took a chance. I actually now have both units at the house and STILL haven't decided quite what to do or to go to another receiver. The HK does sound REAL nice however. The salesman convinced me the Sony wouldn't sound near as good as this one ... and he was right. My only big draw back is the 50 watts per channel. I'm actually able to turn it ALL the way up and still not break my eardrums. For my older units .. if I went up near all the way I'd have a few noise complaints from the neighbors. So I'm still a bit stuck on where to go and what to buy (any advice would be GREATLY appreciated). Bottom line .. this receiver does sound great and I haven't noticed any of the problems mentioned by others. Also .. I personally like the remote. Very simple, and for ONCE the thing works on EVERYTHING I got!

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Sony STR-DE845

Great sound for the price, nice design, good package of features

ghost-operated sound control, low build quality,low power,
cheap looking sound control knob

Once my previous HK amplifier, 2 years-old HK 660, lost one its channels
(this is about the quality of the new HK products !),
I decided to try this last " digital revolution " HK receiver. First of all
it sounds great, though not as good as HK 660 did.
It also looks like it has not enough power to drive my Tannoy Definition speakers (HK 660 had no problems)
Surprisingly, my very very old 25w NAD 3020 drives them almost as well as this new 60w AVR 300.
The FM reception quality is just fair (worse than my Rotel 940) , and it is thus quite annoying that HK did not foresee a possibility of connection of an external FM tuner,
as well as the absence of tape2
would annoy those who use a tape recorder
or equalizer.
The most important quality issue is the glaring sound
control, which boosts
sporadically by 20-25 db. So don't forget to switch it off when leaving,
otherwise your neighbors may kill you (or your speakers may be blown up)
The design is nice, at least more original than
all these very similarly looking AVRs like DENON, SONY etc. It is good
that HK spend money to employ decent designers, yet they could also
spend some more to improve their build quality, which is quite low, just as low as some no-name chinise brands.
So ask for extended warranty if you decide to buy it.

I give it 4 stars for value (for it could be a great
product if they cared a little bit more of quality
control), but 2 stars overall since such reliability
issues are unacceptable for $900 piece of equipment

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my first avr, before I used stereo separates (HK,NAD,Rotel)

Sound Quality

Unreliable

In my opinion HK has the cleanest sound out of all brands. Nothing can compare to it in this category. The only problem is HK can't seem to learn from there mistakes. I bought the AVR-45 last year and had nothing but problems. The AVR had a humming sound and it interfered with my TV. Now it's Big Brother, the AVR-300, has more issues.

I'm going to hold on to my old ONKYO 525 Pro Logic until HK comes out with it's new line. I'll give them one more shot then I'll look elsewhere.

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Onkyo 525

Performance, sound quality

Reliability

I take back everything I said about HK in my first post. This receiver is junk. Bought it in January, buy February the volume control started go misbehave. By the end of February, it was unusable and the volume would go up and down on its own. I brought it in for repair in April, and saw that the new volume control was on order on April 17. August 1st, they finally shipped me a brand new unit. Guess what!? The volume control on the new one is all screwed up too!!!!!!!!! What junk. I've owned it for 8 months, and was able to use it for a total of under 1.

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Most. I worked in audio retail

if it does not work, how can we speak about its strengths ???

everything

I also join the previous reviewer to take back everything
positive I said about this HK "product" in my first post.
It is junk and nothing else. My AVR became unusable in less
than one month. The HK customer service takes ages to fix
it , and they are constantly LYING when you try to
extract any information from them.
If you have some $$ to loose,don't buy HK, send them to
animal rights fund

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see my previous review