pleanty of power - easy new set up features off the remote control. hdcd decoding also mpeg decoding.

none that i can find

pleant of power. I am running klipsch speakers - my room is 20 x 20 and has open walls to the kitchen. this receiver has plenty of power. Sounds great in home theater mode as well as regualr stereo. It has what is called logic 7 that plays all 5 speakers at once in regualr stereo mode - NICE - love the system.

Similar Products Used:

denon - onkyo

Sound quality, preamp out/main in for all channels, ability to connect an equalizer, front pannel analog/digital inputs/outputs, analog dials for bass/treble/balance

Remote control

Let me start by saying that the HK AVR510 is an excellent receiver that delivers terrific sound everywhere in the sound spectrum. It has a warm midrange, terrific highs, and reverberating deep bass. Do not let the power rating (70 watts X 5, 80 watts X 2) mislead you; as I will explain below, this receiver performed better than more powerful units like the Denon AVR-4800. It does lack some features that other receivers have (such as tape 2 monitor and component video switching for progressive scan DVD players), but sound quality was the most important factor for me. The AVR510 also drives my 250 watt, 4 ohm Boston Acoustics VR-M90 speakers with no problem. It sounds great at low volume, and I have played movies and music at high volume for hours at a time, and the receiver handles it with no trouble. You must have good ventilation, however.

The receiver's preamp and main amp sections are separate, so there are five channel preamp outputs and five channel main inputs. This is fantastic for connecting sound processors like equalizers. I know many people today think it is a bad idea to connect equalizers to receivers, but I believe it is essential. IT makes a huge difference in sound quality (with all receivers). For DVD watching, you of course must stop any processing.

The AVR510 has front pannel optical and coaxial digital inputs as well as composite audio/video and SVideo inputs. All these inputs can be converted to outputs. This is a very useful feature. For example, my VCR only has one rear pannel composite video input, and it is connected to the output of my satellite receiver. Now if I want to record a DVD onto tape, I would have to manually make a connection from the back of my DVD player to the front of my VCR. Here, I can just use the front pannel outputs of the AVR510 and connect them to the front pannel inputs of my VCR.

The receiver also has analog dials for bass and treble adjustment. I much prefer this over the digital dials that some receivers have. This is really a personal taste, but I don't want to have to look at a display to see what my settings are. And finally, a lot of receivers don't have a balance control. This one does.

The only weakness I have listed is the remote. I think most of the previous reviews speak for me as well. It feels cheap and the buttons are badly laid out. The way the numbers are positioned (1 2 3 4 in a row, 5 6 7 8 in a row, and 9 and 0 below 6 and 7) is ridiculous. But I have already programmed my Sony universal remote with all the functions I need from the AVR510's remote, so I don't care about the quality of the remote supplied.

I am now going to compare the AVR510 to the other receivers I tested. I auditioned every receiver I listed in the "similar products used" section. Let me explain my criteria. I am not a surround expert. I always have and always will think surround sound for music is terrible. If you don't enjoy two channel stereo music, you need better speakers. So I tested all these receivers with stereo music. I used a variety of speakers with each receiver to test how much each speaker affected the sound. The speakers ranged from the Bose 301 bookshelf speakers to the new 4 ohm Boston Acoustics VR-M90 floorstanding speakers.

I first compared the HK with the Onkyo, since these were the most matched in terms of features. I used switchers, so I could have the same source into both receivers and have both receivers output to the same speakers. This way I was able to switch between receivers on the fly. The AVR510 clearly sounded much warmer than the TX-DS787 and the TX-DS696. The onkyos were more direct but lacked an enveloping feeling.

Once I eliminated the Onkyo, I tried the Denon AVR-4800. I was incredibly excited about this receiver and would have bought it if I was comparing receivers in a store. It was the most impressive on paper and by a lot. It was also quite a bit more powerful than the AVR510. But when I hooked it up and listened, I was very disappointed. I had asked a friend of mine who sets up audio equipment for conferences in hotels for suggestions when I started out on my adventure, and he had said the Denons have poor bass production. And he was absolutely right. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The AVR510 ran circles around it in terms of sound.

I was still interested in a very feature rich receiver, so being disappointed with the Denon, I tried the Yamaha RX-V1. It's sound quality was very good and comparable to the AVR510, but I decided it just wasn't worth the price. The Denon was worth every penny of its $2 thousand price in terms of features, but the Yamaha at $1600 was not a good deal. And it had something like 49 DSP modes, and I think even 1 DSP mode is a waste of circuitry. After all, DSP is nothing more than an EQ with some reverb added. I can do that myself with the equipment I have.

I was still interested in trying out a more powerful HK, so I auditioned the AVR7000. It did make a difference, but not enough to warrent the loss of features. And I wasn't willing to wait for the AVR8000's release later this year. So I settled on the HK AVR510, and I couldn't be happier. I have used the system now for about two weeks, and I have experienced none of the trouble mentioned in other reviews with the units being defective. I also have most of my equipment connected via digital connections, and there is no problem with decoding, popping sounds, or delays at the start of tracks.

I have also been watching a lot of DVDs with my new system, and they sound fantastic. The range of sound and lifelike qualities are incredible. Since I didn't compare surround video decoding for the different receivers, I can't say how the HK does in relation to the others, but as far as I am concerned, it does an excellent job.

The bottom line is the AVR510 is a fantastic unit and a steal at its price, and I would highly recommend it to everyone. However, if you are not in a hurry and are willing to spend up to $2 thousand for a receiver, I would recommend you wait for the release of the AVR8000. It is going to be an incredible unit. I am probably going to buy it when it comes out and put my AVR510 in another room.

Here is my current set up. I can't remember the model numbers for everything, so that's why they're not listed for all the components.

Receiver: Harman Kardon AVR510
CD Player: Sony 200 CD changer
MD/CD Player: JVC
Tape Deck: Technics
Equalizer: Onkyo 12-band with gain adjustment
VCR: Toshiba
DVD Player: Sony DVP-NS400D
Front L/R Speakers: Boston Acoustics VR-M90
Center Channel Speaker: Boston Acoustics VR-MC
Rear Speakers: Boston Acoustics VR-MX
Speaker Cable: Monster Z2 Biwire

Similar Products Used:

Harman Kardon AVR7000, Onkyo TX-DS787, Onkyo TX-DS696, Denon AVR-4800, Yamaha RX-V1

Design, sound, remote... well heck everything.

None discovered :)

Now I know what everybody means by the curtain that seams to be hanging in front of your speakers when listening to an Onkyo. I "luckily" bought an Onkyo 575 that had to go back for repairs twice in 6 months and my local dealer really handled this inconvinience great by giving me the option to buy another. Big credits to the guys at Radio Roelandschap at Amersfoort! I had my eyes on HK for a while, but didn't buy the AVR 65 then because of the reliability problems which luckily scared me off then, coz I like the 5000 much more. But now with my AVR5000=AVR510 in the US, WOW! I went for the Onkyo 676 or the HK 5000, but what a difference. It beat the Onkyo at all fields. Design, sound and the ease of use with this fantastic machine. When I listened to the HK, I suddenly saw the room in which the musicians where performing, everything had so much more detail, warmth and brilliance as with the Onkyo I had the idea the musicians where standing inside a non furnished concrete room of some sort. What have I been missing for the past year... Also this receiver is much less noisy when operating. As the Onkyo gave a loud noise when it switched from DD to prologic and back, the HK gives less or no noise at all. I digged through my whole collection of dvd's and cd's again and rediscovered them all. And when it needs to be silent this machine is as where the Onkyo gave me a noise from all the speakers from day one. Also I don't know what people are bragging about with the remote. I really like it. It's buttons are well layed out and match the colours and functions of my other devices. Also I really like the way it is back-lit, especially when you press a function and the device this function is attached to lights up red, so you can see which device you are controlling at the moment. Also it is much more direct then the Onkyo's. So to end this story, the only thing I can say is well done HK and I don't know why I should be questioning reliability from day one like others do while this baby performs so well...

Similar Products Used:

Onkyo tx ds575

Detailed sound. Rich sounding built in decoders for digital material. Pretty front panel display. Huge array of digital and analog inputs and surround modes. I like the Logic 7 effect (try it with Pink Floyd The Wall.) Learning remote. Very flexible source configuration. Lots of features oriented toward digital sources.

Learning remote ALMOST gives me a one-remote solution, but not quite.

I had an HK AVR 500 for about 6 months when suddenly the internal computer quit working. After a shop failed at repairing the AVR 500 ($600) Harman-Kardon replaced it with a brand new AVR 510 ($1000)!

Sound quality is equivalent to the AVR 500 (excellent.) The AVR 510 has a much better looking front panel--dumping the old black on black Darth Vader look for a more colorful display with more lights. A back lit display lists the huge array of inputs and surround modes, and interesting surround speaker display. The display reminds me of top-end components such as Macintosh amplifiers (though the comparison ends there.)

Some cool-but-useless features: MP3 decoder (this one puzzles me--where do you get a still-ENcoded MP3 stream? PCM digital from computers is already DEcoded), and HDTV switching (manual admits quality loss for HDTV signals above 480i. Purists will not detour HDTV signals through the amp anyway.)

One of my favorite features is Logic7--Harman-Kardon's prorietary Pro Logic decoder. Where as Dolby Pro Logic produces 4 channels, Logic7 produces 6 channels and really does improve the sound field, using some wiz-bang decoding process. Improves most audio selections, but ruins others.

This receiver is a good match for my Tannoy M3 speakers. Try it with Eagles - Hell Freezes Over (DVD - DTS) and you'll be impressed. My 5 star rating is based on this class and price range, of course.

Similar Products Used:

Harman-Kardon AVR 500

- Excellent sound (Stereo, DD, DTS)
- LOTS of power!!
- Design
- Logic 7

????

For 3 years now, I have used the Technics SA-TX50 THX reciever. I thought it was one of the best recievers around, and it is actually listed as 7th in the top ten AV Recievers on www.consumerreview.com.

But that thing really sucks in comparsion to this one. And i really mean it. The HK AVR510 simply rulez!! The sound is mind blowing. Both in sourround an stereo. There is so much power in this reciever!

Lots of digital inputs and outputs, future ready (6 ch input), and it really looks cool to.

Here's one advice:
- Sell whatever crap you own, and go get this one!!!

Similar Products Used:

Technics SA-TX50, Yamaha DSP-590

Sound, Looks, sound did I say sound

No impedance switch,

I am very happy with the sound coming out of this reveiver. I have DynAudio mains and a B&W sub and the HK has no problem in driving them to their fullest. I was going to use my Hafler Amp to boost the signal but after a few weeks have heard no reason to. As for the looks this thing is classy and the DTS and DD sound amazing especially with my new field speakers. The only thing I dont like is the lack of an impedance switch for 4 ohms.

This is the best receiver you can buy for under $1000

Similar Products Used:

HK AVR500