Got a Panasonic A110 as a gift fom my wife and decided it was time to have digital surround. I had run a Dynaco passive unit off my Onkyo for video and that was fine with my VCR. Reasoning that DTS will never be a viable format for video ( just my opinion ) I auditioned Yamaha, Sony ES, Denon,Kenwood, and HK AVR55 which was way too expensive at $799 or the AVR 75 & 85 for $999 and $1599. But the darn thing stuck in my mind and when I finally made the Yamaha V1103 my choice I called Onecall. Out of curiosity I priced the HK and got a price of $565 with 2 day delivery.It came in 2 days and is all I expected.Got the Monster Cable coax interlink and It got better. While the HK is considerably under my Onkyo in wattage, it more than makes up for it in sound. Music has moved out from the speaker boxes and into the room ( and especially more with the coax link, I really didn't expect to hear a difference between cables ),and my Klipsch Kgs never sounded better.The Dolby Digital tracks on rental discs also sound great, with less hiss in the surrounds then cheaper units, but about the same as Denon and Yamaha. The HK design is clean, the sound is exceptional, and while I don't have it all that long, it is built well enough to allow me to keep it a while. Lots of inputs and outputs ( including 3 s video), all banana plug leads ( but only 1 main speaker )and not alot of bells and whistles. It's early to post this, but I haven't seen this one reviewed and must say that based on my initial impressions, that is a shame. Given the price / performance ratio, this receiver is a steal. I give the Harman Kardon AVR 75 a five and recommend it, as well as Onecall. ( Again based on my experience thus far. )

HK AVR 75 for Sale $250 Great condition as new, no defect. made in Japan. 5 * 65 Watts DD ad etc.

I am planing to upgrade to AVR510.. Help me out :)

Sound quality, ease of use, value

Too few digital inputs, non-backlit remote, DAC

The Harman/Kardon AVR75 is a very good receiver in its price range (I paid about $550 for it last summer). It has seen duty in a Dolby Digital setup, but right now its being used in a 2 channel music system. It does very well in both roles as it has adequate power to drive my low efficiency NHT 1.5's. Sound quality is excellent as long as you're using the analog inputs. The DAC built in is fairly poor for pure audio applications. You'd be better off using the DAC in a cheap CD player than using the optical or coax input. The remote is not the greatest, but it does its job. The worst thing about it is that it's not backlit, but back in '97 (when the receiver was brand new) that was pretty standard. I don't know if you can still buy this unit, but if you can find it used, it's a very good receiver and you probably would have to step up to separates to get a substantial upgrade. All in all, this is a great unit.

Andrew

Similar Products Used:

Sony non-ES receiver, Parasound PSP 1500/HCA 1203/HCA1000

Upgraded from a Sony strde515 to a Kenwood 1080vr. I thought the Kenwood sounded pretty nice, however after reading all the reviews about the HK AVR75 I was interested in how it would sound for just a few dollars more. Bottom line is I bought the AVR75 from UBID for $447.00. pretty good considering it sold for $1200.00 last year. After I watched a movie in surround, and listened to a few CD's I was very impressed. I hear a level of detail that I just did not hear from the Sony and Kenwood. I think it is because of the high current design of the HK. I'm only listening to Dolby Surround as I do not have a DVD player yet. That will come next year. I can only imagine how theater like this system will sound when I go Dolby Digital! P.S. the Kenwood 1080 is a really nice receiver for the money. I sold mine for a profit of $50.00.

I have owned this receiver for 6 months and one night I was watching a movie the receiver suddenly shut itself off. The next thing I know the receiver could not be turn on any more. So what happended? Does anyone have this problem, The receiver was perfect until then. Now I really start to wonder HK realibility. UBID often sells them and I wonder because it was poor realibility that set them to as a B products???????

I have this receiver for two months. I use it for both music and movies with Definitive Technology Pro Cinema 100 speakers. They sound great and very clear in both low and high volume. They need to fix the manual and the remote tho, butthis thing deserve 5 stars. Highly recommended.

I can't believe some of you people are taking a star away from your reviews becuase you think the manual is hard to read or that the remote is ugly. My question is: Did you buy the reciever based on how the remote looked or even take in consideration of how the manual turned out or did you buy the reciever because it simply produced unequal performance? Yeah, that's what I though. I am a previous HK 25MKII owner and am very pleased with HK products. I stepped up to the HK AVR75 to have dolby digital capabilities and noticed that it reproduced better mids and highs compared to my old HK 25MKII. But the 25MKII reproduced slight better bass response. All-in-all, for $535 total, you can't complain.

The remote and the manual for this otherwise exceptional reciever are laid out in a manner that reminds me of instructions written in English by a persons using Chinese to Enlish Dictionaries that were so commomnly recieved with computer peripherals in the 80's (When PC's were more often built from component parts to save the then $2000+ price of an IBM XT with a 10 megabyte hard drive). These manuals were written by persons who had never heard the English language spoken and had no concept of syntax or composition as it applied to English. (All the words were there but you just had to find them on various pages and move them around in your brain until they made a lucid statement.)
Thank you HK for taking me back to use skills learned in my fledgling techy days. In a word the manual and remote are frustrating and poorly organised, but after a few exasperating days it begins to fall together a piece at a time and then the real adventure is on. If you are a PC game player you'll have more fun deciphering this manual than "MYST" but the graphics in "MYST" are much better. As you become familiar with the remote, and appreciate how simply it learns to control every other component you have, things look a lot better.

I listen to Music and Movies at a ratio of about 80:20. The more you learn about this fine reciever and really listened to it, the more you will be overwhelmed by the smoothness and detail of its reproduction of your favorite sources. Early on I realized I was enjoying an exceptional piece of audio equipment that produces a vibrant, warm, clean, distortion free, crystal clear sound; that was music to my ears (no pun intended). It accurately and faithfully reproduces, no matter how hard you drive it. So many recievers spec out well but are mediocre in the sound room, not the case with this one.

For the money, you can not beat this receiver. At $1599.00 retail it was a good buy for those who must be first on the block with the latest and greatest, you know, the guys that have no self esteem around their "friends", unless its propped up by their material possessions. I'm an expert on this personality type for I'm a recovering "audioholic" myself and own a couple of $2500.00 amps to prove... I too have been there. I purchased my AVR75 at Web Auction on March 18, 1999 for $407.00 plus about $20.00 freight (With its excellent very conservatively rated high current HK amplifier section, it weighs in at UPS at 44.5 pounds, for those of you who are impressed by heft).

The AVR75 does lack a sixth input for upgradability to whatever newer decoding standards manufacturers can develope to push their marketing efforts to a new generaton of consumer lust for technology. A Yamaha representtive recently told me the industry view is, "digital AC3 will be the standard until a whole new technology beyond AC3 and DTS is developed and all DTS sources will be dupped in parallel to provide AC3 coding as well", so this isn't a negative to me.

This is a tremendous receiver. You can audition Denon, Marantz and others but for those of us who chase effortless and accurate reproduction and do not plan to chase each new whim of technology this is the one. The music and Dolby Digital movie features of the AVR75 sound as good as it gets for under $2000.00, assuming you couple it with equally good speakers. I currently own Klipsh, Pinnacle, JBL, Cerwin Vega and Bose and rate the systems I own in that order, best to worst. The HK AVR75 brings beautiful music from the throat of them all. I would give this reciever a six if I could (if it were not for the manual) but because of the manual I'll give it only a five. More importantly, I'd give it, without reservation, a BUY rating, you'll grow to love it. ;)

I'm listening to it right now and I can't wait to stop writing this. First I read the reviews here and I went for it just on trust. I received it and started lsitening. Mmhh? Nothing very impressing, :-( kinda disappointed compared to my old ONKYO Pro-Logic 55W. But I couldn't stop listening more again. and again ... and again... And this is magic!! I am rediscovering my ears. Because every single time you feel like you are discovering a new kind of sound with more harmony, different places in space, a new level of sound. Especially obvious on stereo for modern music as well as classical in AC-3 if you watch Amadeus in DVD. I love music from Mozart to Bjork and Techno. On Bjork, it's like I never had heard her before: her voice, the richness of the sound effects... Whoa!... I use JBL LX600 and that already sounds amazing. Imagine with better speakers...! For Beethoven and classical, it's like I am rediscovering how a violin or a piano really sounds like! There is like a real dynamic in the sound. I use a DVD Toshiba 2109 to read CDs though. But with Coax cable. I've had two Onkyo receivers before. I rated them fairly better than average electronics but this HK...!!!! This is just a new kind of music in stereo. My best friend has a good DENON Pro-Logic. I've heard it thousands of time, it seemed OK to me. Today, I discovered how much this was different to the HK AVR75. In stereo (and Dolby), the Denon just sounds like noises and clicks!!! :-( So sad. I feel like from now on, I'll always suffer with inferior sound. And I haven't heard anything sounding quite like this one. Especially at $500 these days. (As about the remote and manual, it is ridiculous compared to the real matter: sound) If you want the best to drive an electronic component, go buy a f***ing computer. We're talking sound here, not remote controls.

I got my unit about 3 weeks ago from Onecall for $530 (including shipping) and it was nicely packaged. So far I am very impressed with the AVR75. I use this unit 50/50 for audio & HT and have connected it with 12 GA multi strand speaker cables from Radio Shack to pair of PS-10 Design Acoustics power speakers so currently I am listening to stereo mode only and will upgrade to B&W 602s+601s+CC6 soon. I have connected this unit to the Toshiba 2109 (you'll see my review of this unit in few weeks). The audio is amazing. I listen to Jazz, Classical & modern rock. The sound is very detailed & clean w/plenty of punch (incredible base). As previous reviewers have mentioned the remote and the manual are lousy but I'm not loosing sleep over the remote since soon I will add the Marantz RC2000 MKII universal remote to my setup.