ramvem

Overall Rating
 4 of 5

Value Rating
 3 of 5

Used product for
3 Months to 1 year

Price Paid:  $0.00 from Harman Audio (factor

Summary:
Like a lot of us, I have a bunch of music collected during high school & college, all in tapes. Instead of going on a CD buying spree to replace them I opted for a deck to hook up to my receiver. I considered Yamaha, Denon, Sony, Onkyo & HK. Sony was eliminated quickly. Among the others it was a close call. The Harman Kardon DC520 edged out the others at least partly due to its good looks. If not this it would have been the Denon DRM-555. I couldn't make out difference in sound quality between HK, Denon & Onkyo. I've had it for a few months and listen to it every day. I made some recordings too. Frequency response is very good. Bass response is very good. This deck loves high bias tapes. Some of my old recordings on normal bias tapes had flat bass response but I would have to blame it on the tape, since others are good. As for the whiz-bang features like dual deck, auto-reverse, high-speed dubbing etc. - I never use them. Some reviewers have complained about recording with dolby C. Its true that the results are terrible. In general I use only dolby B for compatibility, and when recording I switch dolby off. I wouldn't advise recording with *any* dolby on. If you have a good quality deck it should be able to do faithful reproduction.

Strengths:
High quality deck with excellent audio reproduction.

Weaknesses:
1. Solenoid switches are noisy, but thats not limited to this brand/model. I yearn for Nakamichi's cam-driven silent mechanism. 2. No output level control (nitpicking - headphone level is high and there's no way to adjust it down). 3. Not in stores anymore as of early 2005. Had to buy it from the company.

Similar Products Used:
Nakamichi 482, Nakamichi Cassette Deck 2

Summary:
I bought the DC520 for aesthetic reasons. Harman Kardon has great looking equipment.

I hooked the unit up and was amazed by how solidly it performs. Tapes play with very little hiss, and dubs from CD come out virtually noise free even when I dont enable dolby nr.

When copying from one tape to a blank, the dc 520 will automatically fill excess tape on the recording side with silence, then it flips the tape and starts recording the other side. That way your new tape will never have long silent periods at the beginning.

Unfortunately, there is no remote even though it has a remote sensor. I just bought a Harman Kardon AVR35 receiver w/universal remote so I'm hoping that the remote will also control the DC520. If it does, then I give this deck 5 stars.

Also, the deck costs more than other decks, but I've had nothing but good results using it. It is worth every penny.

Strengths:
dual tape deck.

Automatically flips tapes when copying even when copying to longer lengthed blank tape. CD dubs sound like a CD on good tape.

Weaknesses:
no remote

Summary:
I got the H/K DC520 for 50 bucks at Best Buy (combination of instore credit from my JVC TD354 which sucked, and scratch and dent). It sounds good, but doesn't have dolby S, something I think HK should look into. Still, I have my deck playing though a vintage (but classic) set of Pioneer three way towers, and people have asked me where I put my cd player. Hah. This has happened on several occaisons. The 520 makes a very good dub from a cd, but dolby c nr has adverse effects on high frequency response, and can be rather annoying. Still, if you can get it for cheap, like me, its a good deck. Plus, its got good looks and decent build quality.

Summary:
harmon kardon dc 520

Summary:
Harman/Kardon DC 520