I got a "refurbished" one of these from uBid, that arrived Friday. Woe unto me, for not finding this thread of review comments before bidding ($98 plus shipping). As others have mentioned below, the thing (fresh out of the box) began complaining about disk errors within the first hour of use, and the drawer does not close properly 80% of the time.
I am limited to 90-day H-K warranty service, and it looks like this thing (even if repaired once or twice in the next three months) will have a service life of less than a year. I will certainly apply "Caveat Emptor" to any future uBid purchases - if I even bother going back. Likewise, my long-held view of Harman Kardon as a quality manufacturer is now seriously tarnished.

When it works, the sound is great. Alas, that's less than 10 % of the times I've tried to play CDs on it.

This product sucks! Cannot begin to tell you about the problems I have hadwith this player. First it would only play certain CDs on certain days of the month. Then the 5 Disc tray stopped rotating. Then it completely died! I had it
taken to the repair shop three times; but after the warranty expired, just gave up on it. Finally decided to just throw it into a garbage dump (probably the most joy I got from the player). Please don't buy it! Save yourself some trouble!

Never have i been so disappointed in a product!
Ditto the the above who are:
1. Showing error messages
2. Heating up
3. Tech can't fix it
4. Turntable won't turn....grinds slowly and then prematurely stops.
5. Forget the remote
6. Eats CD's


For the people above who have encountered "minor" problems....read this

"IT GETS WORSE!!!!!!!!"

By the way HK's attitude is (having made numberous calls) *shrug* or *go screw*

HK, having no ability to compensate their victims, will never see one more cent of mine!

The only thing this item is good for is a door stop, and i resent giving it a rating of 1.

Joan

Some follow up comments for the FL8300. Problems found: overheats and skipping as the tray loads in. I finally got a chance to audition it against a Parasound CDC1500 changer using the digital output on both units. The HK sounds much brighter and etched. The difference is really noticable. I guess it's not even good as a transport. 3 stars for the price.

I've owned this piece for about three years paired with the AVR20 MkII Receiver.
PROS:

1) GOOD SOUND FOR THE PRICE.
2) It's been reasonably reliable (on most discs).
3) Paired well with their AVR 20 MkII Receiver.
4) Nice features.

CONS:

1) POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE (VERY long waits on hold, little help once you reach someone). Don't they realize how this affects owner loyalty?
2) Wouldn't play certain discs (When I contacted HK on this three weeks (!) after the warranty expired, they decided to honor the letter of their customer care policy instead of the spirit). They're in the legal right to do this, but see item #1 above.
2) The ergonomics of the buttons-under-the-open-tray thing remains annoying. I noticed they corrected this on their more recent products.
3) The remote is buggy and sometimes changes tracks in the wrong direction (i.e. I'll push the button to go from track 3 -> 4, but it goes from 3 -> 2 instead).

Like just about everyone else here I purchased this CD Player from ubid and paid $77. I had read the reviews on this site before purchasing it and noticed that the majority of good reviews came from persons purchasing a 'refurbished' unit, and the negative reviews came from people who purchased the unit new. So I figured to take a chance and purchase a refurbished model hoping HK had resoved the bugs with this player when they are returned. I think I made the right choice. I have been running the digital out on this player to my Denon AVD-2000 digital processor and have not had any problems with it. It sounds great and have a very warm feel to it. If you can find this player refurbished for under $100, I would recommend you take the chance. And as far as the remote is concerned, I have not had any problems. I am able to use all the functions available on it. Hopefully the remote mentioned below is just defective.

It turns out, the HK service department has come up with what is necessary to repair these units, and then sell them as a "refurbished" model. The fact of the matter is, buying them as "refurbished" is the best way to buy the Fl8300. The problems with the loading mechanism has apparently been repaired, but be warned, this unit still gets REALLY, REALLY Hot. Never, ever placed it on top of a receiver, especially a top-venting receiver, like all HK models. The sound is itself is good, although really "brassy", which can be corrected somewhat with a decent EQ.
Don't try to control it with an AVR40 remote though; the RW and FF buttons will not function at all - you are limited to play, pause, stop, and skip disc functions.
Also, be careful not to put your receiver on sleep mode, as this CD player has no real "play one disc, then stop" function, which unfortunately means that CD player will be abruptly shut off if plugged into the switched outlet on a receiver.
Overall though, a fabulous unit, if not somewhat quirky. But, for $112 bucks, come on, you can't beat that for HK sound.

I have this player for half a year now.Plays and sounds wonderful. No complaints there.
It doesn't eat my CDs either.
Lately I noticed that the turntable makes some strange noise when turning.
Also, sometimes, not always, when I am changing tracks on CDs, it stops the disk when I change from track 8 to 9. Just as if I pressed Stop.
I also can't make it play with my receiver through the digital coax output. However it already plays wonderfully through analog outputs, so I won't complain about that.
Overall, I'll give it 4.

In spite of having read several doomed reviews of the FL-8300, I bought one for cheap from E-Bay. As expected, it had problems. Skips badly but only sometimes -- other times I can listen for many long hours without any problems. Some front panel buttons have stopped working. And in spite of all this, it sounds GREAT. A significant improvement over my previous CD players (Kenwood - the worst, two Pioneers, and an old Fisher). This is running through an HK AVR-40, good cables, and good speakers (PT808's). Worth the money if you can find it cheap (around $100) but not any more than that. Wish I had an HK amp that could take a digital input...

I bought mine about 6 months ago as a uBid refurbished model. So far, so good. My digital outs and analog outs both work, and I haven't seen any skipping or problems going from track 8 to 9. The only problem I have is that since I have it plugged into the back of my AVR55 for power (also purchased through uBid), it gets cycled on and off fairly often as I use the receiver when I'm watching TV. If the tray circulates too much, as it does when it scans the discs every time it powers up, the discs can shift on the platter causing it to miss discs that are there from time to time. Sonically, I think it's peachy keen, especially using the digital out to my receiver, as I have convinced myself the DACs in the AVR55 are better. 4 stars due to good value.