Power, sound, features, looks, conectivity

Remote, Lacks EX, Size & weight(?!)

This is nothing less then a monster!
The size and weight make this a heavyweight champ.

The story so far....
Up til now I have owned a 2-ch. Yamaha reciver from the late 80's. I've been very satisfied with it along with the rest of my system, also from Yamaha. So when the reciever started to fade from me I decided to spend my money on a new Yamaha, and this time a home-theatre-kind of reciever was the idea. So I reserched the productline and decieded on a RX-V795a RDS. I was set on the titan-color and that proved to be the one thing preventing me from getting it, and Yamaha from getting my money.Plus that I auditioned a 595 that sounded worse than my previous reciever. It must have been a bad setup in the store but I was very disappointed. After five months I gave up and started looking elsewere for happiness. I auditioned the H/K AVR300 and I was leaving the store with a big smile on my face! I then checked it up on this site and was shocked. Many problems occured that made me sceptical to the H/K-brand in general. But my ears could not forget the live experience. The big brother AVR500 was on my mind until I read the spec of the 7000. Boy I could not resist this temptation. It has everything that I had on my wishlist for the new reciever and more.
When i ordered this from the internet menu I had not auditioned it. That was quite freightening, since it carved a pretty big hole in my budget. But so far I have not been regretting it for a tiny peace of a second.

To the reiew...
When I hooked it up and the CD started to spinn I was truly thrilled. But at first I thought the sound was a litle muddy in the midrange. The bass was tighter and cleaner and the top was clear but not as crisp as the previous system. After some time with my new friend I could not hear this phenomenon any more. Now the old Yamaha sounded boomy and lazy in the lows, and hard, almost hissing in the high freq. I probibly did not notice this after so many years of listening to it. Over just one day the mid range of the H/K cleared up as a summer sky after a nasty storm. Even today I can not say how this was possible! Now I am totaly satisfied with the preformance of the reciever. And the difference in class from my earlier Yamha is easy to spot for anyone. Both looks and sound is nothing short of amazing. It preforms as well as anything I've auditioned at any volume, it never loses control of the music. In the H/T-section I can not say more than that I like what I have seen so far. It does not have a lot of surround DSP-environments as others but that fits me like a glove. The built-in decoders, filters and shabaz covers just about everything on the market, except surround EX, wich is a pitty but I think I will manage without it for now. I have read different oppinions on the design and it took me a while to decide but now I just love it. If we should talk about weaknesses, I have just found one, the remote. I had a hard time "learning" it to control the rest of my system and the design is not in line with the unit itself. Perhaps a weak IR-signal is the answer because Sometimes i refuses to do the job. I have seen the description "choclate-bar" wich I find kind of right on. But there are more C-bars out there and it still have it strengths. It is in my oppinion a minor flaw and since I waited for this baby for a couple of months I am leaving it at that. The OSD is easy to work and I think the setup was easy to preform. But you have to be a little interested to operate this thing it does not automaticly fit in the group of wife-friendly units. So the manual, wich I think is good but I have seen better, should not be recycled.

On the reliability issue: I am truly sorry that so many have problems with this unit, and therefor rates it at one star. Mine is workin just fine (so far) and i think that everybody that gets a unit that works will never rate it lower than 4 or 5 stars.

Summary:
This is the brain, heart and soul of my future entertainmentsystem at home. I feel confident that I will not need to transplant any of those parts for a long time. Overall rating: For conectivity, sound, looks and preformance I can not give it less then five. With a little reservation for the HT section that I have not yet explored too much. The value of this thing is way past the five stars that can be given here. This box competes with separates and recievers that cost twice as much.

Similar Products Used:

Yamaha, Technics, H/K

Strong amplifier

Died after 5 months

I was hoping that I would be lucky,but mine died after 5 months of use. I originally evaluated it back in May and gave it a favorable review. It worked flawlessly until about a month ago when the center channel badly distorted and the unit shut down but not until the front left amp module got hot enough to release a smoked component smell.Surprisingly the unit powered back up and worked O.K. for about 3 weeks.Yesterday however I turned on the unit to play a cd but the sound was horribly distorted.My Adcom 575 cd player has a digital out along with the analog out.When I switched to the analog out with surround modes off it played fine but my optical out from my satellite was distorted also.The unit won't work with a digital input or with any of the dsp modes enabled.I also have experienced the low bass output problem in Logic 7 from day 1(see my review from May).It is a shame that this unit has the reliability problems which have been exposed because it really sounds great and can play very innefficient speakers with ease.I ,however, would have to recommend that people look for a different unit as I wish I would have now.Oh well, I,ll give an update when I get it back from repair.

looks

too damn big, quality sucks

this reciever was nice for the first few days until the poor craftsmanship began to come through

Similar Products Used:

sony db series, es series

Excellent sound in both home theater and music.

None,(depth of unit almost was a problem)

This is an excellent receiver that has performed well since I bought it in April. I listened to many receivers before deciding on this one. The denon's, onkyo's and yamaha's were all great units, but the sound of the 7000 in both music and home theater is what sold me. In music the HK has a clean, warm and transparent sound. In home theater it decodes Dolby Digital and powers my speakers with the greatest of ease. I could not be happier.

Similar Products Used:

Denon, Onkyo, Yamaha

Excellent sound in both home theater and music.

None,(depth of unit almost was a problem)

This is an excellent receiver that has performed well since I bought it in April. I listened to many receivers before deciding on this one. The denon's, onkyo's and yamaha's were all great units, but the sound of the 7000 in both music and home theater is what sold me. In music the HK has a clean, warm and transparent sound. In home theater it decodes Dolby Digital and powers my speakers with the greatest of ease. I could not be happier.

Similar Products Used:

Denon, Onkyo, Yamaha

This is my followup to my 9/30/00 entry.

H/K finally sent me a new receiver.Had to wait two months as they were out and waiting on a new shipment from overseas.Hooked up the new AVR-7000 and its volume control acted up.I could lower volume but couldn't raise it.I performed a processor reset and everything began to work properly.This receiver is a great piece,I just hope this one will stay running.H/K rep was very helpful and immediately said he would replace the unit as there were no service manuals at the repair centers yet.I still will give it a high rating as long as it will continue to operate.