I bought this around February and by april, it would rarely read discs, or else it would move the discs around to different trays.I was putting up with it until it just happened to lose, one of my Morrissey discs inside of it!That was it , I returned it and got my money back.Being only 17 I havent really tested many CD players, and was very upset w/ the HK, because it was my intro CD player and it really sucked that well, I ended up feeling like I got a lemon.
For the time it worked, it did sound better in my mind then my brother's Onkyo340, and it also sounded a lot more real than my current CD/DVD player the Sony DVP550.If H/K could make a decent attempt at a tray for it, it would be a good deal!

Well, I have had this player for about one year, and I have not experienced any of the problems I have read below. Maybe I just got lucky and wound up with a good one. I think the design and sound quality are outstanding. It was a difficult decision for me to replace my 9 year-old single disc unit (HK HD-7500) which still sounds perfect, but you know, guys and gadgets......

i bought the hk fl8350 despite the reviews on this page simply because i got a great deal and loved the sound. i went to circuit city and bought one (new), with a 3yr extended warranty (which i insisted upon) and a pair of monster CD interlinks for $300. i noticed that all the low scores were from people who had malfunctioning cd players, not from anyone disliking the sound. i got a chance to "audition" the denon 360 ($170@goodguys), onkyo 370 ($229@circuitcity) and the hk8350 ($289@circuitcity) in my home system. all the salespeople who helped me were very acomadating - i paid for each cd player and let them know i would bring it back in three days if i didn't like it. i kept my packaging as intact as i could and both circuit city and the goodguys gave me my money back. when i returned the onkyo, i told the circuit city guy that i also wanted to purchase a warranty for the h/k, and he hooked me up with a great deal.
anyway, to the cd player. very acurate, almost dark, sound. the onkyo and denon were both too bright for my tastes, and the onkyo wasn't close to haveing a good soundstage. the denon came close, but lacked something i couldn't quite place (still a great deal at the price though). the h/k sounded beautiful... i get a good *idea* of where each band member is in the soundstage (i figure that's why there are $1000 cd players). i hear things i never heard before on my cds, and find myself loving my system even more than i did before.

as for the reliability thing... that's what extended/full coverage warranties are for. i feel VERY safe with my investment.

equipment used (not the best/most expensive stuff out there, but i love it):

harman kardon avr40 receiver
acoustic research 308ho speakers
monster interlink cd

I purchased my unit in Sept. '99 because it had a really lovely, warm sound. But it began to fail (wouldn't recognize discs) within a few months, and I brought it in for repair. The unit I got back from HK worked well for another 7 months or so, then began to fail. Fortunately, the shop -- Cambridge Soundworks -- were very gracious, and let me swap it at this point for a Marantz, which seems much sturdier. I have to say that I would not buy another product from H/K after this experience -- they clearly have a very serious quality control problem. But I would buy again from Cambridge Soundworks.

Sound quality=5, reliability=1. Sound quality is what matters... pray you got a good one

Excellent sound for this price category, nice looking and convenient remote

Mechanicals

Well I can't disagree with the other posts on this product, I too have had to return mine after about 8 months when it stopped recognizing discs. The hardest part was getting it to skip discs in front of my dealer but it did happen. I recieved another HK8350 and now, 6 months later, it has a new problem with it taking a couple of turns to stop on a disc rather than going straight to it. This experience has turned me off multi-discs to say the least.

On the up-side, the sound is very nice and I like the remote. It would be nice if it had a stand-by mode however as I don't have a switched supply on my amp.

This experience will lead me to upgrade to another brand rather than the 8550 as I now have little faith that HK can make a good overall CD player.

Sound

Reliability, construction

I have already reviewed this product and not much more can be said about it. The window on top of the original review disclosed the name of the company I purchased it from. I did not mean to reveal the company, but did make a desparaging comment about dealing with small operations that cannot provide sales receipts. I feel I need to be fair and set the record straight. Blue Dragon Electronics sells over Ebay where reputation is very important. When I requested a receipt so that I could take my non-operating player in for repair I was told they couldn't give me one. However, Chris, who I was corresponding with, quickly exchanged my bad one for a good one. I do not want to give the impression that BDE is not a good company to deal with, I think Chris did fine and treated me quite fairly. I would buy from him again. I would hate to think Chris lost business because of a comment I made on this board.
As for the changer - the replacement is working great. I think it is an excelent player when it works and wish H/K hadn't thrown away their reputation by farming production out to a Chinese company that pays workers two dollars a day. Even JVC hasn't sunk that low. Malaysian production seems to be to higher strandards.
My one star rating still stands due to the reliability problems. Since I have already rated it I will give it three stars this time so as to not effect the average.

Sounds good, so far...

Long seek time? Goes through a disk detection routine each time power up/tray opens up.

I actually bought the new FL 8370 and have requested Audio Review to put this CDP in the list to be reviewed... In any case, it has been working okay so far except for one annoyance... On a few of my disks like the City of Angels sndtrk and my collection of Andrew Lloyd Weber tunes, sometimes if I skip from say track 1 to track 10, it seems to take awhile! Sometimes 30 seconds at its worse to seek to the next track. Once it actually seemed to "time out" and jump to the next disk in unit! This happens relatively infrequently, hard to replicate, and only on some disks. Otherwise it seems to recognize the disks okay... I'm not liking the sound of this so far... Is this early symptoms of the dreaded HK CD disease that everyone is lamenting about?

Similar Products Used:

Kenwood multichanger, Teac PD-D2700

SOund quality, asthetics

Disc Recognition

I am returning this piece of equipment today. Like others, the CD player sounded beautiful when I got it hom. But, to my dismay, it stopped recognizing discs like the others. I know HK has made good products before, but not this time.
CRR

Recently I purchased the 8350 to replace my dyeing 7 year old Denon CD player. During the seven years I owned my Denon it never once had a single problem. While shopping around for a new CD player I considered Onkyo, Sony, and Denon. I ended up purchasing the 8350 despite some of the negative reviews simply because I was impressed with it in the showroom and it seemed to be better constructed than its competitors. Unfortunately, the very first time I used it it had problems. For example - and true to the negative reviews - the player refused to recognize a CD I had placed in slot 2. When I moved it over to slot 3, it worked. If I opened the drawer while a CD was playing, inserted a new one, then hit the corresponding CD’s tray number, the player would not always recognize it; I had to first close the drawer and then choose its number. The unfortunate thing about the 8350 is that it really is a beautiful looking piece of equipment and a terrific sounding CD player, but I wasn’t about to keep something that experienced problems the second I hook it up, regardless of any 3 year warranty I may possess.