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The Official Harman Kardon H/K Citation Owners Thread

Allison3 said:
Welcome back! Your first stop should be to visit hifiengine, where you can find the manual for the Citation 11. That will help guide your connection quest.

Short answer is that you should connect to the Onkyo using one of the Pre Out terminals of the Citation. If you had the proprietary cable for the 11, you could connect that to the Onkyo so you could use the selector switch on the 11 to switch between two pairs of speakers OR headphones (the benefit of the latter being you get the full benefit of the amplifier output to the headphone jack, for those hard to drive cans.)
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Thank you. If I were to connect the speakers to the 11’s speaker connections rather than the amps speaker connections wouldn’t I be able to switch between speakers with the 11?
Also would that proprietary cable have rca plugs at the other end? I’m guessing the cable had the same connection at both ends for the Citation 12 amp.
 
Skotyman said:
Thank you. If I were to connect the speakers to the 11’s speaker connections rather than the amps speaker connections wouldn’t I be able to switch between speakers with the 11?
Also would that proprietary cable have rca plugs at the other end? I’m guessing the cable had the same connection at both ends for the Citation 12 amp.
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Actually when you remove the cover of the preamp you will answer your own questions. You will see the special cable simply powers the switchable outputs from a amp and back into the preamp, to allow you to use the speakers directly from the pre-amp. My impression was to power speakers to different rooms and switch between them. Mine are unused.
 
Going to try something different , running a tube amp with my HK 17….

wonder how it will do…has anyone else done something so crazy…?
 
I recently purchased a Citation XXI preamp. I works really good, but when trying to attach a Marantz 551 eq, I don't get any sound of it. I followed both instructions from Citation's manual and Marantz 's as well.
Going nuts.
Any tip?
Thanks in advance, a have a wonderful weekend
 
Well, in all honesty I thought I was good until I swapped in a Yamaha C2…the 17 is now in the basement, not sure what to do with it…the C2 is just better…to my ears…
 
I came across to an unorthodox solution. I plugged the CD player to the IN and the Out to the tape 1 in the preamp. Secondly I plugged in the R2R deck to the TAPE sockets in the eq, and to the Tape 2 inlet in the preamp. Works fine. Didn't try to record anything yet.
Thanks for your help
 
This thread seems a little old and cold but you never know. I'm looking for a set of plans for the wood cabinet for the citation 15 tuner. Anybody?
 
Old thread for sure. I'll give it a kick.

Needed for a repair. The Citation V owner's manual pictorial diagrams. I have everything else. Detailed photos of the capacitor board and output wiring may also solve the problem.
I have a unit that was "improved" and while it works, performance isn't very good. A lot of basic wiring was changed and they though increasing capacitance was a good idea (not!).
I'm trying to save this unit for the owner. So any help would be deeply appreciated.
 
anatech said:
Old thread for sure. I'll give it a kick.

Needed for a repair. The Citation V owner's manual pictorial diagrams. I have everything else. Detailed photos of the capacitor board and output wiring may also solve the problem.
I have a unit that was "improved" and while it works, performance isn't very good. A lot of basic wiring was changed and they though increasing capacitance was a good idea (not!).
I'm trying to save this unit for the owner. So any help would be deeply appreciated.
Click to expand...
Best place for this ask is in the "Digital Docs" forum.
 
Thank you Doug, much appreciated.

I think the pictorials were a pull out from the manual. No one seems to have them. I was really hoping a member might have the actual, original manual. The online sources seem to have copied from each other.

I'm not familiar with them. Searching now ...
 
anatech said:
Thank you Doug, much appreciated.

I think the pictorials were a pull out from the manual. No one seems to have them. I was really hoping a member might have the actual, original manual. The online sources seem to have copied from each other.

I'm not familiar with them. Searching now ...
Click to expand...
Have you tried Hifi Engine?
 
Hi Roadrash,
Naw, he blocked me ages ago simply due to my memberships on audio websites. Never once did I do anything he accuses people over. I even went to bat for the guy.

His site, his rules and decisions. Too bad as HiFi Engine was useful. I get my information from other sites now, or pay for it when I have to. No biggie. Don't download from HiFi Engine and send it to other people. He doesn't like that at all. He would block you if he finds out.

At this point I really need clear pictures of one properly wired or in original state. Either that or the pictorials. No one on-line has the pictorials for this amplifier I can see. Figuring exactly which solder points to use is extremely time consuming. I hate wasting time.

-Chris
 
Just to complete this story. A good friend happened to have one he built from a kit. He had the documents I needed, so following them I was able to properly complete this amplifier. Thank you Pat !!!
He dropped off his amplifier as well, so everything could not only be corrected, but performance checked with an original amplifier. The rebuilt amplifier performed close to the original - but the rebuilt unit had some weak tubes. It'll be better once the owner installs good tubes. This amplifier has been saved.

Just working on an MC240 that had also been attacked by someone who "knows more" than the team of engineers that designed the piece to begin with. Another nightmare, grounds have been messed with yet again! All I'm going to say is this. If you are a "bright bulb" who knows more that engineers did back in the day - STOP! You guys are causing thousands of dollars in damage with your "improvements". When you change grounding or major power supply stuff, you are wrecking the amplifier. When you add bypass capacitors, you are merely making a mess. Please stop it!!!!

Personally, I wish those people who cause this damage were made to be financially responsible for remedial work. So far, owners and following techs pay the price and that is not fair.
 
anatech said:
Old thread for sure. I'll give it a kick.

Needed for a repair. The Citation V owner's manual pictorial diagrams. I have everything else. Detailed photos of the capacitor board and output wiring may also solve the problem.
I have a unit that was "improved" and while it works, performance isn't very good. A lot of basic wiring was changed and they though increasing capacitance was a good idea (not!).
I'm trying to save this unit for the owner. So any help would be deeply appreciated.
Click to expand...
Anatech, did you get the info you were looing for? I just bought a Citation V that hasn't arrived yet. Supposedly the transformers were checked but no restoration.

There is a pdf floating around of an upgraded capacitor board. Looks like DIY with a pattern for the board. Also been looking at a HiFi Audio kit

Included in this kit:​
  • High quality, authentic electrolytic and film caps
  • Detailed instruction with colorful images, schematics, manuals (all of these are in electronic form (can be printed), much better than printed versions due to zoom availability)
  • Diodes, bridge rectifier, thermistor, lamps (if shown in the picture)
  • Fuse/s
  • Instructions on how to clean the chassis, faceplate, knobs
  • Support/help to a reasonable extent
  • The kit is compatible with all power grids (110-240v)
They appear to use MPT film caps and Rubycon electrolytics. Cost is $157 for the Cit 5. I wonder if you, or others, have heard of them? I may pose that question in the regular tube audio forum.
 
Hi Dennis,
Thanks. The issue I was having was that the previous servicer completely changed the wiring and ground locations. I've seen this a few times, and it is extremely time consuming to get things right again. Ground points are critical - never mess with them no matter how much you think you know! (comment in general to everyone).

A friend had one of these that he brought in for me to examine. The cost was I had to adjust his and measure the performance. The end result was a properly working amplifier with wiring returned to how it should be. He was the one who built his kit amplifier in fact!

I never advocate people buy repair kits. I've seen to many that do not have the correct parts included. Sometimes even the wrong values as schematics may not be correct. "Audiophile" capacitors are often not as good as the real deal. Each capacitor type has a circuit location they perform best in, one size does not fit all. There is no "best capacitor". A good trained tech knows which capacitors are best for each location, and sometimes we have better ones today than before.

Believe it or not, a good service person has great skill, knowledge and experience way beyond what you can read on the internet. It's up to each person what they want, and I get the allure of doing it yourself. In the 1970's and before, all we had were the right parts. Many folks could do it themselves properly. But they respected the engineers that designed these things.

Did you know that some resistors have a breakdown voltage of only 75 VDC? The normal highest is 350 VDC? Old carbon compositions were 500 VDC, but there are extremely good reasons to use something else today. Just saying.
 
anatech said:
Hi Dennis,
Thanks. The issue I was having was that the previous servicer completely changed the wiring and ground locations. I've seen this a few times, and it is extremely time consuming to get things right again. Ground points are critical - never mess with them no matter how much you think you know! (comment in general to everyone).

A friend had one of these that he brought in for me to examine. The cost was I had to adjust his and measure the performance. The end result was a properly working amplifier with wiring returned to how it should be. He was the one who built his kit amplifier in fact!

I never advocate people buy repair kits. I've seen to many that do not have the correct parts included. Sometimes even the wrong values as schematics may not be correct. "Audiophile" capacitors are often not as good as the real deal. Each capacitor type has a circuit location they perform best in, one size does not fit all. There is no "best capacitor". A good trained tech knows which capacitors are best for each location, and sometimes we have better ones today than before.

Believe it or not, a good service person has great skill, knowledge and experience way beyond what you can read on the internet. It's up to each person what they want, and I get the allure of doing it yourself. In the 1970's and before, all we had were the right parts. Many folks could do it themselves properly. But they respected the engineers that designed these things.

Did you know that some resistors have a breakdown voltage of only 75 VDC? The normal highest is 350 VDC? Old carbon compositions were 500 VDC, but there are extremely good reasons to use something else today. Just saying.
Click to expand...
anatech, good post. I do have some questions.

Can you give me an example of different caps in different parts of a circuit? I recently read a post claiming that installing a good plate resistor may improve a circuit more than installing better capacitors, but the author neglected to say what good resistors are. I thought all resistors were about the same.

And, of course, the big question. The Citation may be here this week. Where do I start with it? Unless it arrives close to usable condition, I'm going to be a little out of my depth and I think the last technician that locals trusted (120 mi away) is no longer in business.
 
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