New Hiss from Harman/Kardon AVR300

[sumeraficionado]

Turned on my 10 year old HK AVR300 the other day and had a terribly loud hiss coming through all 5-speakers. Muted speakers but hiss continued. Tried headphones and sound thru jack was clear. Disconnected all speakers and hiss stopped, listened using headphones and sound thru jack was again clear.

Harman/Kardon AVR300
http://www.audioreview.com/mfr/harma...2_2718crx.aspx


I'm debating whether to take it into the shop for repair or to look for a replacement. I love the AVR, and don't really want to replace it. $95.00 bucks just to look at it. Any thoughts from the forum on what could be wrong, how much I should expect to pay to fix-it, and whether I should just replace?



Thanks in advance.

[JoeE SP9]

I'm not certain with your gear but usually the headphone signal is the same one the speakers get. It's just usually padded down. Have you tried connecting one speaker at a time?

[markw]

Odds are your headphone jack is driven from something other than your output stages, say an op amp or the like.

Since the hiss is there until you disconnect (not just mute) the speakers, odds are that you have a situation with the power amp stages, possibly in the power supply.

Now comes decision time. Sounds like they want $95 just to troubleshoot the unit and determine what is wrong. On top of that there's going to be the cost of repairs.

Before complaining about the price, consider that they are professionals and literally have to fix the unit before they can tell you what's wrong and give you an estimate. Consider also that a good tech went through a lot of training, probably has years of experience, and has to own some fairly sophisticated gear in order to do what he does.

Have you priced new receivers? They offer a lot more features and performance at much lower price points than ten years ago.

[sumeraficionado]

Odds are your headphone jack is driven from something other than your output stages, say an op amp or the like.

Since the hiss is there until you disconnect (not just mute) the speakers, odds are that you have a situation with the power amp stages, possibly in the power supply.

Now comes decision time. Sounds like they want $95 just to troubleshoot the unit and determine what is wrong. On top of that there's going to be the cost of repairs.

Before complaining about the price, consider that they are professionals and literally have to fix the unit before they can tell you what's wrong and give you an estimate. Consider also that a good tech went through a lot of training, probably has years of experience, and has to own some fairly sophisticated gear in order to do what he does.

Have you priced new receivers? They offer a lot more features and performance at much lower price points than ten years ago.

No complaints here about the service fees... I certainly understand their situation. Also, I believe the $95 inspection fee is credited toward the total repair bill, so if the total repair comes to $95, that is all we pay.

What made me hesitate was looking at some of the newer system, as you referred. It looks like we can get a H/K replacement for under $300. We primarily use the system for digital audio-in, coming from both our Mac Computer System and our Comcast Digital Cable Service. Any suggestions for models for us to look at?

[markw]

Your requirements aren't at all difficult to meet and virtually any low/moderate priced receiver will meet them. There's a lot out there from other fine manufactures such as Denon, Marantz, and many, many more as well as H/K.

Is a H/K unit a requirement?

[sumeraficionado]

Is a H/K unit a requirement?

No, not at all. The H/K was actually just given to us as a present 10 years ago by a family member who is an audifile, so I just assumed we had a really good system.

I'm just not into systems with lots of lights and digital readouts. I like the simplicity of the older elegant systems.

Probably the only other thing I would love to do with this system is to connect it into our home computer network, but I always figured I'd have to build a custom computer system to act as our home base station.

Overall, we play a lot of movies and digital music, and virtually everything now is stored on large external hard drives. So, currently, most everything goes through our MAC G5's optical-out connection to the H/K, and then through our 5-speaker system plus separately-powered woofer. Speakers are Wharfedales. Woofer is Dahlquest.

[harley .guy07]

You can look at this two ways. One you got the unit as a gift so you don't have any money in it and if you like it then it might be worth having it looked at. But the other side of it is exactly what the other people are saying that for what you are using this unit for there are some very good choices out there for not a lot of money and they will sound as good and most likely have features that were not available 10 years ago that you might consider useful. The brand mentioned above are all good and you should go out and have a look at whats out there today. Yamaha, Denon, Onkyo or Integra,newer HK and others might have units that are just as powerful or more and will definitely have better features and updated DACs and cleaner sounding circuits especially since you are running digital media through it.

[sumeraficionado]

Would anyone like to throw in some specific suggestions for replacements? I'm open.

[markw]

Denon, Marantz, Onkyo are all good, reasonably priced brands, and I'm sure there are others as well.

If you want to maximize your dollars, I've bought factory refurbished and guaranteed units from this site: http://www.accessories4less.com/ and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Just read the features/specs to make sure they can handle your inputs, but I don't think that will be a problem.

[luvtolisten]

I would buy a refurb without a second thought as well. I had a Harmon Kardon AV120, replaced it with an NAD T-754. The video portion is outdated, which I don't care about, but it was a significant improvement in sound and much easier to use than the HK. The features it had were useful, not so much bells & whistles. You can get a refurb NAD T-744here for $369 + shipping:
http://www.spearitsound.com/nad/T744.asp

or a new one for $399 + shipping:
http://www.audioadvisor.com/prodinfo.asp?number=NAT744

A friend of mine bought a Marantz SR 4002, and he has been very happy with it, which can be had for $299 at the site Mark suggested.

[harley .guy07]

Would anyone like to throw in some specific suggestions for replacements? I'm open.

Mark w. is right all those are good brands

yamaha rx-v 465,565,665 are all good units and from around 400 to 550 dollars

Denon avr-1610,1709,1910 are 379 to 549 dollars

Onkyo txsr 507,607 are from 399 to 599 dollars

All of these units will give you good power and all the features that you had with your HK plus quite a few more.

Also try the used market I believe you might be able to save some money on a good used unit. I would recommend HK but have heard some of their units having reliability problems. But it might have been just a rumor thing seeing how I have not personally worked with the new HK receivers. Good Luck