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Harmon Kardon Quality???

Jayrosc

Jayrosc

Super Member
So the guy at the local Hi Fi hut tells me that Harmon Kardon is a once great company that fell from grace decades ago and now produces crap. While this may be true, I wouldn't mind getting other opinions. Looking at a Harman Kardon HK3480 stereo receiver later today. Built in 2006, some guy will take $100 for it. Gotta say that I'm hoping the claim that this is a good company gone bad is exaggerated. Any thoughts?
 
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I used to be a fan of HK. The older stuf, lets say till 1995 was great. Solid built, heavy and it allways worked without any problems.
I own a cassette deck, 1986, still works fine with the Original belts. Good stuff.
A few years ago I bought a dvd player, 21, with worked for 1,5 years. No warrenty so crap.
My brother had a reciever, surround , mid 90's. A lot of power but terrible sound. Yes even after tuning it right.
I think HK is done. A pitty because it was a great brand.
 
Sadly, now crap. More broken HK stuff on eBay than any other brand, IMHO. Good through the early '90's, but I'd steer clear of the later stuff. :thumbsdn:
 
I haven't had any problems with my 3490 since I bought it new. However I've seen lots of refurbs for sale and lots of complaints of problems with that line.
 
Agree. Older Harmans (until mid-90s) were decent to very good, with some minor issues. Downhill from there. I would not buy another Harman made after 1995. The sound is OK, but really cheaply build, very prone to failure. That's based on two H/K CD players I had and 3 or 4 H/K receivers my friends had.
 
The Harman Kardon Citation Series from the 80's is good. I still have and enjoy my HK 21 Preamplifier.
 
most of their gear from the black plastic era on was subpar.Ive had and luved their early solid state dual trany recievers for what they were,the 930,630 were punchy ,good sounding recievers.
If you go back into their tube era there component were totl and today bring big bucks for a reason...impecible sound,i run Fisher tube gear but would luv a HK citation 2 amp citation 1 tube preamp combo

hunter!
 
Harman sold his company to Beatrice Foods in order to accept his appointment in Jimmy Carter's administration. BF then sold off Harman Kardon to a Japanese company. Any H/K component before 1976 would be the ones to acquire. The last components that were made before the sale was the Citation 17 preamp and Citation 19 amp. One look at the specs on the Citation 19 and you will see why the Citation series was considered high end audio.

Power: 100 watts minimum per channel. Both channels driven into 8
ohms from 20Hz to 20kHz with less than 0.08% THD.

Bandwidth: From below 5Hz to beyond 65kHz at less than 0.08%THD
into 8 ohms, channels driven at 50 watts per channel.

Frequency Response: From below 5Hz to beyond 50kHz, +-0.5dB at
less than 0.08% THD, from below 5Hz to beyond 140kHz, -3dB
at less than 0.08% THD.

Total Harmonic Distortion: Less than 0.08% from 250 milliwatts to
100 watts RMS, both channels driven into 8 ohms from 20Hz to
20kHz.

Hum and Noise: Better than 100dB below 100 watts.

Information from The Citation 19 Professional Solid State Stereophonic Power Amplifier Technical Manual.
 
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I have a few H/K products; an AVR 20 Pro Logic receiver ($20), an AVR 230 Dolby Digital Receiver ($40) and an AVR 80 Mark II Pro Logic receiver ($80). They all work well and sound good IMO although only the AVR 80 is in use at this time as a power amp for the surrounds in my AV system. They are notorious for bad CD players esp the carousel models and like Onkyo they did have problems with the (forced) transition to HDMI.

These AV receivers were well built as far as I could tell and offered good flexibility. The 80 and 20 models had preamp out/main ins while the 230 had quite a lot of ability to adjust surround parameters and also has preamp outs.

Of course with what I paid if any went bad it would not be a tragedy. I would also offer up the thought that maybe HK has been more upfront on repairs than say Onkyo where I see many models on CL which specify non working HDMI boards.

However if you want to keep badmouthing their products maybe I can pick some more cheap ones 2ndhand.:D
 
You might find a poor later model and refurbish it. My experience is many models of cheapo designs used the good designs of earlier units but got cheap on components or perhaps the comp. mfg'rs were just pumping the market with bad caps etc. but the designs might be good. If the transformer and pots are still good, could build a decent 0.1 thd system.

My bro. has an older fisher preamp that is after company resale and the caps are prime for better caps in the tone circuit. The quality of the pots is worth a look but these cleaned up nice with small shot of cleaner lube. small shots on lubing pots.
 
Harman Kardon SB-16 Soundbar

I only had a few Harman Kardon components with no major issues. I never owned any of their AV line receivers but have tested some in electronic store showrooms. What i did like is their line of soundbars. I wanted to change my computer speakers soundstage to this Harman Kardon SB-16 soundbar. It sounds really nice and clean. The wireless sub not only looks elegant but sounds tight and smooth. :music:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69gi86Bg9eM
 
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Citation 21 preamp, 23 tuner, and 24 power amp here. These are late 1980s. Reasonably good units but not quite the build quality of the 1960s. I've had a few minor problems (also with a CD 491 tape deck) and it appears that many of the smaller electrolytic capacitors may have insufficient voltage ratings.

The Citation 21 preamp developed an intermittent problem that would clear itself before it could be traced. Since capacitors are cheap and the major work is disassembly for access, I recapped it and discovered that there are cases where, for example, a 25 volt capacitor is being run at 24 volts.
 
Harman Kardon peaked in the late 80's to early 90's. Their seventies stuff was by no way their best. Yes, I have had every era and type of hk gear (I was also the first hk fan on AK). Matti Otala got involved with them in the late 70's, and that's when they really took off in terms of sound quality. Their mid 80's integrated amps and separates still sound really great.

While they aren't quite what they once were, their sound quality is still better then average. They still turn out really great quality gear, like the hk990 which is about as good a quality integrated amp as any mass manufacturer has made.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
HK is one of few AV gear makers who is honest about power rating. Though if you are looking for good stereo amp - get HK990.
 
I still use my AVI200 MKII integrated amp from 1995-96. This amp is from a time when HK was hesitant to jump into the home theatre market which is why it's strong point is stereo, not surround. Lots of power, build quality and nice stereo sound.

I also have a TU 915 tuner hooked up to the AVI200.The tuner is from around 1984 and is a great performer--underrated IMO.

I think HK took a nosedive when Costco, BB, etc...started to sell the brand.
 
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