Review for new AVR520
Clear, warm, crisp music. Powerful detailed home theatre. More power then anyone with decent speakers will ever need.
Excellent product.

None

Excellent productn offering above average music and home theatre sound quality. Sound is beautiful and detailed. Offers all the features and power that you will ever need.
Great product. 5 stars

Similar Products Used:

Marantz, Denon, Yamaha, Onkyo

don't know

don't know

i owned the 7000 for around 6 mos now. now my family members and my friend asked me to put together a system for them. but they don't want to spend $1500 on a receiver as i have. so naturally, i looked to H/K 510, which is a step down from what i owned.

i do have a comment that i want to leave for everyone who's doing research on any product, especially H/K. this site should not allowed people who has own their product less than 6 mos., at least, to leave a feedback/review. what i've come to learn about H/K's recent line is reliability problems. i see a lot of 4 and 5-star reviews left by people who's own their H/K for between one and three months. how can anyone rate reliability in one to three months? and how reliable is the review?

i have owned my 7000 for over 6 months now and still hesitant to give it a thumbs up, simply due to all the problems i read from other owners. luckily, i have had no problems so far (knock-on-wood!!) and the receiver sounded great. clean, clean power!! this is why i decided to check into the 510 or 520 now. but i am very leary about it's reliability, especially when this is not a purchase for me.

just a word of caution and perhaps, a friendly warning!! oh well, you could always return it or have it serviced if you don't mind unhooking everything and go for however long it took to be service without a sound system :)

i'm giving it 3s all across simply because i have not own this receiver. sorry if i messed up "the rating" for all the peeps who cares so much to see a close-to-perfect rating on this product or this company.

Similar Products Used:

H/K avr-7000, onkyo, denon

Clean Power, Detailed sound...

Remote....

Listened to many products around the same price range from Sony regular line up and ES, Onkyo (Integra), Yamaha and just found the H/K to be more detailed in sound and good bass. I use the receiver with Mirage Frx-3's,Frx-1's,Frx-C and a BPS-150i to round it out. Still tweaking the sound but find both the H/T and stereo aspects of the receiver to be good. Sound Quality very impressive and seem to hear more detail the longer I listen. Very happy with purchase although abit unnerved by some of the reliabilty problems plaquing some of the buyers posting in this forum. One puzzling question noticed in the specs between H/K website and the owners manual is that the size of the current transformers seems to differ from +/- 45 amps to +/- 35 amps depending on what article you look at. Have to do more research for answer.

Please note: my review below is actually for the HK AVR520 which is the current model taking the 510's slot.

As far as I can tell, they are essentially the same except that the 520 has a bit more power.

Pre-amp main inputs and pre- amp main outputs. Macro buttons on remote. Looks!!

No amp for the multi-room source. Remote hard to program other brands.

Follow up on last review that I wrote. YES you can use the macro (M-1 thru M-4) to use one button to start this unit the Television , CD or DVD close blinds dim the room lights set the ceiling fan speed control, all this with the press of one button. Front jacks can be used for the gaming gear that you make have, next turn around and the same jacks can send A/V signal to a recorder. Each of the inputs can go Coax, Analog, opt, (1-2-3). Main pre amps in's and out's can hookup more powerful amps for larger rooms. Or us as Pre/Pro unit. Have not had any problems at this time. This is why I did not go with the AVR 7000. I have 3 Equalizers in the main pre -amps ins and out jacks. For the 901's and the 802 speaker system that I am using. This unit control all my gear. I have 10 pieces of gear hooked to the unit. The remote is all that I need to get the system up and running. The on screen menu is very good. The Sub can go to just the L/R + LFE or L/R only or LFE only. The E-Z speaker level also works well if you do not have SPL meter. You also can set unit to come on at same volume no matter how loud it was when power went out. Tone control works with all modes. (Not with the 6 channel direct).

Similar Products Used:

Pioneer / Yamaha still using in other rooms of home.

Great Sound , Clarity , Terrific Looks , Ease of setting up .

None at all

I am using my avr 510 with jbl s-26 in the front and the rear with a jbl s-centre as well as a jbl pb 12 . This setup is just awesome and it is almost impossible for any of the competition to even come close to the sound reproduction for the price . The unit far beats out anything that Yamaha has to offer . I just think that all the negative fead back that I have heard from some people on this site is truly unfair . This is by far the best system that I have come across in many years.

Similar Products Used:

Yamaha

Soft but yet Clear, Precised and Detailed sound. Stereo performance.

Remote doesn't control my TV and only support a few funktions on my DVD.

I have been a loyal HK customer since five years, when I changed from Pioneer to HK. The reason was sound performance, HK simply sounds relaxed without loosing detail. The sound is very well balanced and never gets hard or sounds strained, this applies both to stereo and homecinema mode.

The features are nice, especially the HDCD-decoder and the very easy to use OSD-function.

What is bad about it?... Well the remote is a big disappointment. It has every presupposition to be one of the best ever...if it wasn't for compability. The first one I recived wouldn't learn anything and the built in liberary didn't support my equipment except for the VCR. Luckily I got a new one without any hazzle, but this one still refuses to control my TV-set and some functions on the DVD-player. Since I'm a perfectionist this bothers me very much and keeps me from being totally satisfied.

I still do recommed it!!

Similar Products Used:

Yamaha

Multiple Flexible Inputs/Outputs
Power, Warmth, Channel Separation

No Phono Input

System:
Harman Kardon AVR 5000
Harman Kardon DVD 5
Sony CDP-Cx450 Jukebox
Grundig Xentia 82 100hz TV
Paradigm Cinema Sub/Center/Main/Surrounds
QED Cabling
Creative SB Live sound card with Digital I/O

Review of AVR 5000 (240V Version of AVR 510).
I researched and auditioned many units in the expensive New Zealand market and short listed HK, Yamaha, and Denon components in similar price ranges. Selected this unit because of reputed and observed audio quality, the superior flexibility of inputs/outputs and the ability to power bigger speakers if required in future. The looks didn’t harm its chances either.
Required digital audio inputs include DVD (coax), Computer and CD Player (optical), Analogue inputs; TV, Sat Receiver, VCR, and Phono (via a pre-amp) with part time connections of Video Camera and portable MP3 Player.
With very close neighbours I run a Paradigm PDR8 Sub plus Cinema satellite speaker setup and seldom give the amp free reign. Even given these limitations, almost every person I have demonstrated the system to (typically using Roy Orbison’s Black and White Night via DTS) has immediately expressed an intention to upgrade their own system along these lines. Lovely warmth, plenty of grunt, and separation or ambience as required.
8 Months on I have had only a small glitch, one channel failed and the unit was replaced by the local agent (Listening Post) within 2 hours. I have no hesitation in recommending this unit.

Similar Products Used:

Sony Pro Logic Receiver.
Auditioned Denon 3801,Sony,Yamaha RXV 800, etc

nice looking...true,clean wide bandwidth power...vmax featue for virtual surround in a home theatre application (using only 2 stereo speakers)...high quality internals

cluttered remote(aren't they all)

i got this at a great price(normally sells for $800-900).
if you want to duplicate the bose 321 virtual surround sound, the vmax feature lets you do it better with better speakers while you're at it or you can go all out with the whole 5.1 or 6.1 setup.
.....overall high quality product & worth the money even if you pay full price

(crutchfield has them on sale for $699)

a 2 star rating is an insult to this fine reciever(see below) especially if you don't own it:o

Similar Products Used:

none

Very smooth, warm sound. EZ set remote adjusts levels for you while you sit on your lazy butt.

volume knob, display lights dim overtime, remote

First of all I would like to say that the sound quality of the 510 is great! It sounds great w/ polk audio RT800i's and a velodyne sub. One drawback I have with this unit is that the volume knob tends to wear out very fast. This could of coarse be the fact that at circuit city we do not use the remotes very often. However, even though we do not use the remotes frequently they still tend to wear out after about 3-6 months.

I do not actually own this unit however I feel I have the right to write a short review on this product because I used this unit every day for the past year to listen to cd's as well as dvd's. The only reason I do not use it anymore is because we now have the AVR-520 which is basically the same unit with a few added features. (ex. Dolby Pro Logic II and 5 watts per channel power boost.)

The Onkyo units that we carry are built much better and cost less but don't sound as smooth and warm as the HK's. The Onkyo's tend to be a little brighter sounding than the HK's with bass and treble set flat. The Harman's almost sound as if they are tube rather than solid state.
(notice that I said almost!!!)

Overall there are better units out there if you listen for them. NAD is a little more expensive and not as snazzy looking but is much better!!

Similar Products Used:

all of onkyo's line for the past 3 years, denon, nad, marantz, and all of the brands that circuit city stocks (sony, kenwood, jvc, pioneer, etc...)