A generation or two have passed since I bought my hk equipment an this comments are just to honor the venerable hk CD player HD 7600II out of production since 1992 but that great musical quality you all find in your FL-8450 is in my HD 7600II too. So if some friend of you is selling it's HD 7600II CD player don't hesistate buy it.If your FL-8450's sound great in 1998 what would you say about
listening to a CD player with equal sound quality or maybe even greater 6 years ago, a real wonder, that's my hk HD 7600II, it wasn't as affordable as the FL 8450 is, but anyway, a lot of critics said that the hk HD 7600II's cost was at least half it's real value, what I think is the same about the FL-8450.
Thanks to that 3D bit Stream technology.
What I rate here is not maybe a model or other but the harman kardon contribution to design and produce very musical CD's. We all must be thankfull.

I have been looking for a cd Changer for the last 2 months and finally I made up my mind the H/K FL8450 was it. Looked at the Adcom GCD 700, NAD 523 & the Nakamichi MB1. The H/K for the money is the best one of the bunch plus it has dual discrete analog output, sounds fantastic with great build quality and matches nicely with my AVR25MKII. It sounds just as good as the Adcom at 1/2 the price and for the rest of them NAD lousey build quality & reliablity and as for the Nak just for get it.

Just picked up a FL 8450 from Sounds unique in San Jose (408) 287-3002,same place I bought my Magnavox 560 (& modified much) about ten(!) years ago.
This was a demo unit and the last they had. I got it for $238, but judging
by the messages below I may have paid a little too much. I listened to
several different players and selected the HK based on excellent sound.

Reverberation tails are very clean, detail good, highly listenable, but a
tad soft sounding overall. The low end is definitely a little soft. (Driving
Sennheiser HD580s directly from the headphone jack isn't easy though, which
is why I use a Headroom heaphone amp.) This is definitely hi-fi and
unexpected at the price. I plan to use it to listen to music at work,
probably with a Headroom headphone amp, so listenability is probably more important than the final 10% of clarity. Headphone level control was deleted
from (follow-on product?) FL 8300.

(Re-listening at home, sound quality is definitely better through a Headroom.
But then so is any source, even my portable CD player. Using a Headroom amp
is analogous to running speakers from a good high-end amp instead of a bad receiver. The Headroom amps are the greatest thing to happen to headphones
since Stax and Sennheiser. Highly recommended. See: http://headroom.headphone.com/ )

Inside, the HK FL 8450 has a large central plastic frame, making the chassis
quite rigid, but the electronics a bit hard to see. The only 2 ICs I could
spot are Sony CXA 1082BS and CXA 1081S DIP chips, presumably performing decoder,
filter and DAC functions. There were no visible op amps but lots of discrete
transistors. Without a schematic it's hard to say if the circuitry is dual
differential as claimed, but there are certainly enough discretes for it.
Of the single +/- 12V and +/- 5V fixed voltage regulators, the +5 had the
largest heatsink. May ask HK for a service manual so I can modify it,
starting with the power supplies. Most high end players have more than a
dozen regulator sections, and it's for a *&^% good reason...

3 star rating is only in absolute terms; in it's price range, it's probably
a 5. To my eye, appearance and feel are excellent. It's really great to
see HK continue to bring high-value, competent audio products to the mass
market. As a piece of affordable consumer electronics the FL 8450 is
outstanding.

I used to have the H/K FL8450. It's a nice cd player if you are listening casually and could care less about clarity, component structure, warranty, adaptibity. I know owned the Marantz CC-67se. As you know "Stereo Review" compared these two CD players and found that the H/K FL8450 lacks clarity. I noticed that when I used to own the FL8450. S/R gave the Marantz CC67se the highest rating for quality, clarity, and component structures. It's the best CD player out there for the money, it's built like a tank with all the highest audiophile quality component inside it, it does not look good as the H/K FL8450 but why are you going to buy a cd player for the look? H/K is a nice cd player but for years, I think they are using less heavy duty equipmentsto most of their products since they are mass marketing most of them.

The FL8540 is the second part in my audio chain. Like the HK AVR 25 II, I first auditioned the cheaper FL8300. The FL8300 was not up to par. It has a headphone output that has no volume control. If you try using a headphone, get ready for a splitting headache. The sound is not too thrilling.
Too bad Harman Kardon has discontinued the model.

Anyone considering this player for pure stereo music--DON'T. The highs sound very grainy, the bass is fairly sloppy, and the midrange is not detailed. The only good things I have to say is that it looks good and can hold 5 CDs at a time. My advice: buy a Marantz single-disc player. I sold my H-K and bought a Marantz 67SE and it made a world of difference.

I have had the 8450 for about a year and hadn't had any problems with it until about 2 months ago. It started skipping, cutting off, changing cd's in mid songs and just sitting there spinning. Seems to me that the problem I am having is not isolated, but others have encountered the some of the same problems. I contacted H/K and was told to bring it in to get it serviced, I will let you all know how it goes. In the meantime I am searching for another quality cd changer. For these reasons I can only give it a very low 3. Any suggestions for a new changer please email me. Thanks.

Great sound. Very warm and natural. Great build quality.

Very warm, pleasant sound; like a turntable--though I had to return the first unit due to defect (it was a refurb, however). Either way, fantastic price, and very solid build. Looks like something from Star Trek, too. Nice touches. However, gripes include that it sometimes mis-shuffles CDs, rattling one of the disks free of its place in the carousel.
But based upon the price, it is difficult to beat. Sounds softer, but more listenable, than my $1200 DVD player.

Well, I am back to do another review on this hunk of metal and plastic. Since I last wrote my H/K has died. This piece of junk won't even detect any of the cd's in it. It keeps displaying "No Disks", but I tell you there is up to 5 discs in there. So please, if anybody would recommend a worth while changer to me please email me. Maybe I can get this one fixed and take it to the pawn shop or something. I take back my last rating and give this thing a 0 rating. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. (Well, since I can't select a 0 rating I guess the closest would be a very, very low 1.