Price Paid:  $150.00 from Circuit City

Summary:
I use this reciever primarily as an amp for my CD player. After the initial purchase, I was greatly impressed with the overall sound, which you can read about in the other reviews. Then I spent some time with the surround sound, and found that it muted & distorted so bad that I eventually quit using it. After about a year, it began that unnerving buzzing while in standby, which seems to be a common problem for this model judging by the other reviews. Assuming either EMI susceptibility or Ground Plane Ref. Noise issues, I tried some selective wire routing, case grounding, internal cleaning, & eventually the problem went away. The speaker jacks are very cramped & don't take well to monster cable. I suspect that a few loose wirestrands from cable where costing me some performance issues. Also, the seek function on the tuner is worthless, which wouldn't be very significant given the fact that you can program 29 presets, except for the fact that the memory clears whenever the power goes !!! So you find yourself reprogramming the presets more than you'd like, which brings me to another aspect of the design philosophy that peeves me a bit... you're dependant on the remote for programming your presets... and if that's the only thing you use your remote for (like me) than you also tend to misplace the darn thing... I'd rate it lower, but the overall sound is nice & counts for a lot... If I were to redesign it, I'd rip out the surround sound and put the money into static memory, EMI imunity, and spreading out the jacks.

Strengths:
Nice sound

Weaknesses:
Poor tuner seeking, loss of presets when power is off, week surround sound, cramped jacks,

Price Paid:  $45.00 from ebay

Summary:
This is one of the best receivers for the money. Very natural sound,tight bass,non intruding highs. I'm running Yamaha 6390's in front,the sound is exceptional. Also, this is a sturdy machine. The right channel went out for awhile,so I used a PerfectDuster to blow away all the dust that accumulated inside,and presto!! the channel is back!!! So a word to the wise: some problems can be fixed just by doing a cleaning of the interior. You don't even have to open the chassis,just spray the air through the vents.

Strengths:
Good Pro-Logic

Weaknesses:
Back Panel design too cluttered

Similar Products Used:
Onkyo Marantz

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
Bought this receiver "as is" from ubid.com for $39 plus S/H. I'm currently using it as my bedroom system. I was first introduced to HK in college when my room-mate brought back an HK stereo receiver after X-mas break. The sound was incredible. Elements of music that I couldn't hear through receivers by Kenwood or Sony were vividly and effortlessly reproduced by the HK. The high-current of the HK amp's makes all the difference in the world. Solid craftsmanship from a reliable company. I'm now a proud owner of several HK receivers and CD players, along with other products from Harman International (JBL, Infiniti). My bedroom setup: HK AVR10 A/V receiver HK FL8550 CD player Infiniti IL10 speakers Monster Cable interconnects 10 gauge speaker wire (NOTE: HK recommends minimum speaker wire gauge of 12--this is to ensure proper transfer of current from amp to speakers) Monster Cable Quick Lock terminators I'm giving this unit 5 stars overall, since I paid less than $80 for the unit + S/H over 2 years ago, and it still works flawlessly.

Strengths:
Clean sound, banana plug compatible speaker posts, high current, simple front panel, plenty of power for small room

Weaknesses:
No speaker set B outputs, no spade compatible speaker posts

Similar Products Used:
HK AVR-65, AVR-300, AVR-320; Kenwood, Yamaha, Nakamichi

Price Paid:  $300.00

Summary:
It is a very good unit for music. I would not use it for home theater.

Strengths:
Great for music.

Weaknesses:
Bad for home theater.

Similar Products Used:
Sony

Price Paid:  $135.00 from eBay

Summary:
Let me say that I was very skeptical of what I would get for a paltry $130. Wow! What a suprise! The AVR-10 does just a good of a job as filling my guestroom with clean, warm and accurate sound as my $1000+ Adcom system. However, my Adcom kicks ars in a bigger room. The AVR-10 is solid, elegant and packed with enough features to handle the job of providing outstanding sound and quality home-theatre-experience to a mid-size room. The AVR-10 looks great too. For the money, I have to give it a 5.

Strengths:
Great sound, good looks and plenty of features.

Weaknesses:
Don't expect it to blow away a 40 x 40 room. One of the owners of HK is commi-liberal politician Jane Harman. ;)

Similar Products Used:
Denon, NAD, Adcom, Arcam, Sony, Kenwood, Bose.