I finally bought one.....whew

[orgasmdonor]

I just purchased the Harman Kardon avr635 from Harmon direct off of ebay just 5 minutes ago. It is a refurb.....sorry Ed... I love you !! And it comes with the full 1 year factory warranty honored at all Harman dealers. The cheapest I could find brand new was for 669 at jr.com with free shipping. I purchased this one for $515 plus an extra 34 bucks for shipping....$549 total....Please tell me what you guys think about this. I have never heard a Harman...So I bought blind...All reviews I read state that this 41 pounder has awesome sound and at 75 watts blows the doors off the so called 100 watters. Give me input ...I would like to hear from you all. I have about $400 left for a good dvd player. What is the best company for a dvd player for music ? WHEW!!! I has taken me 2 months to finally make a purchase.

[Eric Z]

Congrats on your purchase!! Nice price, too. Don't worry about taking a long time to buy something- after you do the research, you make a much more educated decision. Also, IMO, don't worry about not listening to a receiver before buying- it's not like speakers where you should definitely audition.

I don't know much about good quality DVD players, but I'm sure others will respond.

Enjoy!
Eric

[orgasmdonor]

Thanks Eric..your input is appreciated.

[PAT.P]

Congrat! As for DVD player maybe look at a SACD,DVD-A ,Red book CD multi-channel.This would benefit all formats.I have the Yamaha DVD-C750 and its great.

[orgasmdonor]

Congrat! As for DVD player maybe look at a SACD,DVD-A ,Red book CD multi-channel.This would benefit all formats.I have the Yamaha DVD-C750 and its great.

Thanks Pat...I'm checkin into it now

[EdwardGein]

Good luck on your purchase. Your thinking & logic process make no sense, not so much on what you bought but your logic & thinking process behind it - Heavy Metal Thunder must have destroyed the brain but hopefully its what you want. In any case, don't switch careers & try to become a lawyer, I don't think that's your calling. Good luck

[orgasmdonor]

Ed ...I read about the H/K and i did not read one bad review. The sound/ power of this machine is supposedly a thing of beauty . I won't know until I get it hooked up and spend the time. You think the Denon dvd1920 should be the right choice ? I can not find a bad review on that except people say it's light (8lbs). It is supposed to sound great for the cash too. Time to go jherkin my gherkin.

[EdwardGein]

Let us know how things turn out I still think your wattage is too low for your purpose & if you got a Harmon Kardon receiver you may as well get the Harmon Kardon 31 DVD player with it, its obviously compatible but the Denon DVD player you mentioned sounds very good too. Get a good optics cable for $20 or buy at least a $100 set of analogue cables. Anyway, good luck on everything.

[PAT.P]

Good luck on your purchase. Your thinking & logic process make no sense, not so much on what you bought but your logic & thinking process behind it - Heavy Metal Thunder must have destroyed the brain but hopefully its what you want. In any case, don't switch careers & try to become a lawyer, I don't think that's your calling. Good luck

Somebody PMS'ing or is it a full moon?

[orgasmdonor]

I really wanted a Denon BUT I could not afford the 3806. That was the one I think I would ahve been happiest with. I think the power out of this Harman will surprise me. If it can give my large living area a good blasting. I'll be happy. My old sony gets preety loud...the sound quality can't be near as good as the Harmon. I'll keep you all posted in the weeks to come on this. If the Harman sucks I'll let you know why and we can all learn from it.

[EdwardGein]

Somebody PMS'ing or is it a full moon?

Nah, I just can't understand his thought process based on his posts. If he started with the Harmon Kardon set he bought, early on, I could follow his train of his thought, but he really didn't bring it up till the end, and it seemed to me almost like an afterthought. I hope he enjoys his set, it could be he perfect receiver he is looking for, I just couldn't understand his thought process from point A to actual purchase. For me personally, if I'm prepared to buy say a large screen Mitsubishi TV & I go to the store to purchase it, I don't change my mind at the last minute because some salesman says we just got in the latest state of the art, whatever brand & its our best ever & you should buy that 34" HDTV instead of the 48" one you were planning on. I'm not saying that's what he did but his mindset is different from mine, which is perfectly his right as ultimately he has to please himself not anyone else. Too much Lemmy!

[PAT.P]

Nah, I just can't understand his thought process based on his posts. If he started with the Harmon Kardon set he bought, early on, I could follow his train of his thought, but he really didn't bring it up till the end, and it seemed to me almost like an afterthought. I hope he enjoys his set, it could be he perfect receiver he is looking for, I just couldn't understand his thought process from point A to actual purchase. For me personally, if I'm prepared to buy say a large screen Mitsubishi TV & I go to the store to purchase it, I don't change my mind at the last minute because some salesman says we just got in the latest state of the art, whatever brand & its our best ever & you should buy that 34" HDTV instead of the 48" one you were planning on. I'm not saying that's what he did but his mindset is different from mine, which is perfectly his right as ultimately he has to please himself not anyone else. Too much Lemmy!

I change my mind all the time ,sometime the same day I go and return and buy something else.I change so often Im running out of room at home,I have equipment at work in my storage room.I have to keep away from audio store never come out empty handed .Just last week went to by a guitar stand for my son ,came out with a power amp.

[kexodusc]

Let us know how things turn out I still think your wattage is too low for your purpose.

WTF? Are you kidding? That receiver probably 99% as much power as the 3806, maybe more. It's certainly got more than enough power to drive his speakers.
Personally, I'm wondering if it was overkill, but it's a heckuva unit.
Hope it works out.

[EdwardGein]

WTF? Are you kidding? That receiver probably 99% as much power as the 3806, maybe more. It's certainly got more than enough power to drive his speakers.
Personally, I'm wondering if it was overkill, but it's a heckuva unit.
Hope it works out.

I thought he said 75 watts a channel My 3801 is 105 watts a channel

[kexodusc]

Yeah, I know what the specs say Ed. This goes back to the problem of what manufacturers can slap on paper in the brochures, and what the receivers wil actually do.
The 3801 is a powerful unit. It will deliver 105 watts X 2 in stereo. With 5-channels going all at once, it's power becomes capped a bit...Sound & Vision magazine bench tests every receiver they review. The 3801 scored 92 X 5 watts when all channels were driven. Very respectable.
H/K's that S&V review always, ALWAYS score higher than their rated power. Even with all channels driven.
The old 630 scored 86 watts/channel all channels driven...94 watts in 2 channels.

Now, don't worry, both these units will play distortion free, and deliver well over 105 watts to any channel if called upon (instantaneous peak power), which is all anyone should really be concerned about.
The difference between 105 and 86 (or 92 and 86 watts) is effectively zero. It won't even contribute +1 dB in volume. It would take 172 watts to add +3 dB, which isn't very much at all, as you can test for yourself on your receiver sometime.

If the differences in power aren't at least 50% there's not much benefit when comparing receivers. And even a small 50% difference will only make a tiny difference if every channel is playing maxed out at once. This is why people recommend doubling your power when you upgrade.

Power is very overrated. Some of the most high end tube amps in the world have 8 watts or less. With most speakers today being pretty efficient, even 8 watts will approach loud concert levels.
Most people could probably get by with a real 40 watts per channel. Plenty of power.

Makes you wonder why people will pay an extra $100 to go from 90 watts to 100, doesn't it?

[N. Abstentia]

My 3801 is 105 watts a channel

Well..not really. That's what they print on the box, but guess what?

[accastil]

I just purchased the Harman Kardon avr635 from Harmon direct off of ebay just 5 minutes ago. It is a refurb.....sorry Ed... I love you !! And it comes with the full 1 year factory warranty honored at all Harman dealers. The cheapest I could find brand new was for 669 at jr.com with free shipping. I purchased this one for $515 plus an extra 34 bucks for shipping....$549 total....Please tell me what you guys think about this. I have never heard a Harman...So I bought blind...All reviews I read state that this 41 pounder has awesome sound and at 75 watts blows the doors off the so called 100 watters. Give me input ...I would like to hear from you all. I have about $400 left for a good dvd player. What is the best company for a dvd player for music ? WHEW!!! I has taken me 2 months to finally make a purchase.

you may choose between rotel rcd02, cambridge audio 89, pioneer 655A. btw, you bought a really good receiver

[paul_pci]

For your DVD player choice you need to ask yourself this question: do I want to listen to high-res multichannel music such as the DVD-A format or the SACD format. And let me inject just one comment: My Metallica Black DVD-A is the best DVD-audio disc I have. If you do, then you would want to spend all of that budget on a Yamaha S1500 or a Denon 1920 universial player. If not, then practically any $100-200 player will do just fine.

[JeffKnob]

Congrats on the new receiver. I am sure it will sound great. I listened to a few HK receivers when I was shopping for one about a year ago and really liked the sound. I got a Yammie because of some of the features. I agree with the recommendation on the Denon 1920. I have it and It is a very good unit.

[Florian]

Grats on a new Receiver. Enjoy!

[orgasmdonor]

I would like to sincerely thank you all for helping me out.. ALL of you are good people and I appreciate you all taking time out of your day to help. I will be around to recipricate as well. Thanks

[teledynepost]

If you want to compare some numbers

Harman/Kardon AVR-630

Marantz SR4500

Both of these are the old 5.1 channel models, I imagine the 7 channel versions would be comparable. The Marantz you can get for about $370 refurbished inc. shipping.

[Tarheel_]

the HK DVD players have terrible quality problems.....i own a wonderful AVR 525 and love my receiver, but trust me, you don't want a piece of that trouble. Look elsewhere with a good return policy or warranty.

[EdwardGein]

Your out of your mind I have the Harmon Kardon 31 DVD player and the quality on this is fantastic both in terms of Audio & Video (and some people say its video is even better then that of upconverted ones) & gets great reviews all around except from you.

[anamorphic96]

I believe he is referring to QC issues. Reliability is the biggest problems with HK. If im not mistaken are you not on your second player Ed.

No one doubts the quality of pic or sound with HK. Just whether they will break down or not.

I believe we have another member who is on his 5th HK CD player and his second DVD 22. All issues relate to QC problems not performance.