Price Paid:  $160.00 from Ubid.com

Summary:
Just wanted to offer advice to those who complain of lack of power for this unit. Choose the "test tone" option on the remote; the output of each channel, one by one, will be audible and acknowledged on the LED of the receiver. The listener can adjust the output of each channel with the arrow keys and "set"(up to 9 dB), which is a very cool way to customize the sound (e.g. the center speaker). My initial impression of the unit was "much too weak output" before discovering this feature (by simply reading the complete instructions); you may perhaps find a significant improvement. I just bought a progressive scan DVD player, and the audio (via the Optical jack) is very nice indeed. Am curious to discover the improvement with DTS decoding, so may upgrade from this unit. No problems with it to date. Good price.

Strengths:
Reliable. Pretty strong output, especially with DVD's, and also music CD's.

Weaknesses:
DTS. Without familiarity with this feature, don't know how much of a shortcoming this is.

Similar Products Used:
Older Sony A/V receiver

Price Paid:  $250.00 from dont matter

Summary:
Review Of the HK AVR-65 (Dig this in audioland) I have a review for ya I have been a hk user since back in the day. and I think they have the right idea minus a few quarks 1# is reliability. i have a 97 yamaha RX-V870 that has an edge on this beast i think current is a very important factor, but dont you think reliability plays a important factor as well ? yes the finger is pointing at you HK tell me why is it that i do a comparison ? why does the big manufactures always try to impress up with numbers when the ears tell the whole truth i cant stress enuff about this factor ! I beleve that the ear is the most important thing not the box.I want at serious usable sound all the way around .not a bunch of mine is better than yours crap do your self a favor listen !!!!!!! and this is not a slam on hk it goes for all of em.the only problen with Harman kardon is quality control.if they conquor that they the can be on top once again! hope you are listening .

Strengths:
Good current 35 amps,sound is above average.remote is quite useable once you get threw the book, great product.

Weaknesses:
stability,i can find a few more but let the masters figure it out.

Similar Products Used:
yamaha,denon,,nad,threshold

Price Paid:  $0.00 from gift

Summary:
This receiver sounds extremely nice. I really dont care what anyone else thinks.

Price Paid:  $150.00 from EBAY

Summary:
This is my first harman Kardon reciever.
This is a nice reciever, except for the lack of power.
i always read these forums before buying a product, and I had heard that the AVR100 was under-rated for power. Thats not true, power is rated just as stated. When I first got it I had to turn it up to see what it could do. I connected it to a cheesy pair of speakers before going to my electrostatics that I built, I have a website on them at:
***** electrostaticloudspeakers.com ******.
I noticed that the sound would disort when i turned it up while playing bass. At first i thought "sweet, im gonna blow these cheesy speakers" but then i realized that it was the amp that was clipping. I hooked up my Oscilloscope and saw the amp peak out and push the 40Hz sine wave into a square wave. (Sarah Mclaughlin-- Unchained Melody)
That sucks. I've had cheap TEAC amplifiers that push more power than this. But now I can say I have a Harman Kardon right?!!

Strengths:
Good Name Brand

Weaknesses:
Lack of power all around

Price Paid:  $250.00 from Sound Advice

Summary:
I've had this unit for a year and I've been very happy with it. The sound is great, and it goes plenty loud without any distortion. It sounds incredible using it with a dvd player in Dolby Digital mode.

People who are complaining about not enough volume must have something wrong with their setup. I find that with the volume at -20 it is as loud as the loudest movie theater, and mine is set up in a huge room. I've only had the volume in the + territory once to test it out and it was scary loud. You would be deaf after 5 minutes.

The only problem I had with it was that after a few months the remote control and most of the buttons on the unit stopped working. I brought it in to the store where I bought it (Sound Advice), and somehow they had it shipped off to a Harmon Kardon repair shop where it was fixed and returned to me in only 2 days! I was very impressed with the customer service at Sound Advice, and also how HK honored the warranty. There were no questions asked, and it didn't cost me anything. (It turned out that they had to replace the front panel of the receiver).

It would be cool to have DTS decoding, but I haven't seen a dvd that didn't include Dolby Digital and that's just fine with me.

Strengths:
Great Sound. Everything you need without any frills or gimicks.

Weaknesses:
No DTS decoding