Harman Kardon AVR120 A/V Receivers Reviews

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
This is my first quality receiver. It is everything I could have asked for. True it is more than that compitetion. The sound is loud and crystal clear. My Blurays & DVD's come through the AVR 120 perfectly. My next HK is their 7.1

Price Paid:  $399.00 from harmonaudio.com

Summary:
Don't let the low watts fools you. AWESOME SOUNDING UNIT!!!!! Very smooth sounding. I watch alot of T.V. DPL II & Logic 7 come in handy. I like Dolby Pro-Logic better. It just sounds smoother to me. DD & DTS are AWESOME for DVD's. I bought 2 HK's. 120 & the 220. It's the only brand I will buy from now on.

Strengths:
Looks Power & Sound.

Weaknesses:
Remote,but it's a none issue to me. I use a Sony learning brand. :)

Similar Products Used:
Yahama,Onkyo,Sony,Pionner Kenwwod & Sherwood. HK is the best out of the ones that I have owned.

Price Paid:  $300.00 from frys

Summary:
This is one reciever you need to stay away from. After only a year I lost the microprocessor that memorizes your settings and the right front channel went out for no reason. Bummer. I won't buy HarmanKardon anymore. This was my second reciever from them. Now it's my last.

Strengths:
Cant' have strengths if it doesn't work.

Weaknesses:
Really weak when sitting in the closet.

Similar Products Used:
1983 model HK still works.

Price Paid:  $400.00 from Circuit City

Summary:
After testing out other brand receivers (sony, etc.) I tried out the AVR 125 and that's when I instantly busted out my credit card. I have only had the receiver for 2 months, but I am very impressed with the unit. The sound is phenomenal, very clear. As stated below this thing has plenty of power, don't be fooled by the power ratings. I highly recommend this receiver. Buy it, you won't be disappointed. Kudos to HK for such a great product.

Strengths:
Great, clean sound Looks awesome High-current amplifier Digital inputs/outputs Build quality

Weaknesses:
Only thing I can think of so far is the remote could be improved

Similar Products Used:
Kenwood, Sony, other receivers not in the same league

Price Paid:  $799.00 from Future Shop

Summary:
Got this pretty-looking monster at Future Shop. Unlike a great majority of you uninformed consumers out there, I was aware that it had more than enough power in watts and amperes for my needs. Even while it was breaking in, this mean machine could shake my bedroom with just a pair of Paradigm Titans up front, Polk R15s for surrounds, a campy little Quest center, and NO subwoofer. Ahh the power of high instantaneous curent capability. I watched Star Wars ep. 2, Jurassic Park 2, Gone in sixty seonds, Joyride, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves etc. etc. It was fun to play with my new toy, although in the back of my mind the Voice of Practicality told me it was foolish to pay this much money for sound. I took my H/K (carrying it ceremoniously like a treasure box) to my den and hooked it up in twenty minutes to two 250 watt Polk rt 100i towers for fronts, polk 400i center, Polk rt25is as surrounds.Yeah baby, Jurassic Park 3 sounds shakes the floor like a tremor. Getting to the power specs, let me be clear, the 45 watts times five is rated in continuous average power from the frequency range that humans can perceive (20 to 20000 hertz). If you actually look at the instruction manual of a Panasonic or Sony receiver some day for fun, you might see they specify something like 100 watts at 1 khz into 8 ohms ONE CHANNEL DRIVEN.That's bad. If you could see their power output on a graph while playing a movie, you would see a brief and occasional spike at 1khz going all the way up to 100 watts. And that would be driving only one speaker. Once you hook up five speakers,with more drain on the receiver's limited power supply, the spikes would probably only go as high as 70 watts or so. Thats horrible.Welcome to the world of Distortion. 100 watt receiver you say Panasonic?It's hardly even a 350 watt receiver! If you look at Hk's web site, they state that watts are "an incomplete measure of power." Even so, if you rated the HK avr 125 amp in the "different manner" of budget amps, you would get a peak rating of 180 watts at least with ALL channels driven together, and over 200 watts per channel in stereo mode. To put it technically, its hung like King Kong.If H/K wanted to be deceptive to its consumers, they could very well call this a 1000 - watt receiver. Yes it does have more power than you need, unless you live in a football stadium, but let me get to my gripes. The remote doesn't have enough options for controlling various components, The volume knob feels loose and very low quality to the touch. I prefer Yamaha's remotes,although they aren't the best, and they are also no slouch when it comes to receivers, in my book. It's a bit bright in a darkened rooom at night. I would like to see component video switching as well, along with a-b main speaker switching instead of that silly multi-room function. The price seems a little high for a receiver, but compared to the marginally lower cost of other receivers with far lower quality components you will find, in the long run, that it is worth every penny.

Strengths:
Very High-Current Wide bandwidth amplifier H/K made the first HI-Fi receiver Doesn't run too hot unlike higher curent H/K amps Next years models (avr 325 and 525 etc.) have built in cooling fans. Looks nice

Weaknesses:
Cheesy volume Knob No A-B speaker switching No DTS ES or Dolby Digital EX Too bright at night with all those green lights

Similar Products Used:
H/K avr 500,320 Yamaha htr 5560, rxv 530/730 Kenwood vr 506, 507, 6050 Technics sadx950, 750 Panasonic Sahe70 Pioneer