Great sound, easy to use

Poor quality, flimsy disk drawers

I bought this unit refurbished on UBID and was a little dissapointed when I first received it because it had a few scratches on the top cover. I overlooked this slight issue because I knew it was refurbished and I figured the scratches would be hidden in my audio cabinet. My impressions on sound quality were very good. Bass was extended and tight with that classic Harman Kardon "warm" feel to it. I dubbed several CD's and had no problems and was beginning to think I got the steal of the century with this thing. Then one day when I turned the unit on, it started making this "machine gun" clicking sound from the left drawer and it would not stop no matter what buttons I pressed. I tried turning the unit on and off several times and the sound still persisted. I popped the top cover off to examine where the sound was coming from and noticed that the clamp which lifts and grabs the CD from the tray was oscillating up and down and the only way to stop it was to give the machine a good wack on the side. The refurbished unit was beyond the measly 30 day "refurbished" warranty offered by UBID so I took the unit to a local repair shop. They called me and said the unit would need a new left side disk assembly and that the repair bill would be about $200 which was almost what I paid for the unit altogether. At this point, I did not trust this thing one bit and decided the hell with it and chalk it up as a learning experience. I will never buy a refurbished unit of any kind again. And reading about all of the problems with HK, I may not ever buy Harman Kardon again. Now the thing sits in my basement collecting dust.
I purchased a new Denon CDR-1000 on UBID to replace it.
It's only a single tray model as opposed to a dual tray but I just dub from my DVD player via digital optical cable. I have only had it now for a couple of weeks but it is working without any problems and the sound is as good as the HK.
If I were to rate the HK on how it sounds, I would give it a 5 star rating but because of the quality issues and the problems I had, I'll have to rate it 2 stars.

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Denon CDR1000

Update of Last Post

Update of Last Post

Hi there fellow audiophiles. Well I am happy to tell you that the replacement CDR20 is working perfectly. I have burned 3 discs using the programme function and all songs have been copied in theie entirety.

The moral of the story - don't settle for a product that does not do what it is supposed to do. You may have to push and fight to get what you want, but in the end the Consumer Is King!!.

Regards,

Mark

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Update of Last Post

This unit has performed for me exactly as described in the manual. My copies have been clean and true to source. I am finding the CDR2 very easy to use. The controls are laid out in an efficient use pattern and not at all confusing. Their have been a lot of negative comments about the manual, but I found it to the point and concise.

The remote has more functions then the front panel. I am not a big fan of remotes. I prefer to control equipment through the front panel. A minor inconvenience.

I was a little hesitant to buy this unit after reading the reviews. I have an extensive LP and cassette library I wanted to get onto CD for listening in my car. I am about halfway through recording my collection and have been satisfied with the results. Now that I have some experience with the CDR2 I think some of the criticisms are based on a misunderstanding of how the unit works. The CDR2 stopped recording at times when recording from cassette. The unit would also fail to put track index between songs if I was recording in Auto index. Always though it was the source material that was at fault. Improper spacing between tracks (too short or too long). In fact until I started recording my analog collection to cd I had not realized how much variability there was in the spacing between tracks. Where the track spacing was consistent and about 5 seconds the auto indexing worked fine. Where the track spacing varied under 3 seconds the CD recorder in Auto would fail to add track indexes between songs. And hard to believe some albums have more than 10 seconds between tracks, in this instance the CDR would stop recording. But all of this is exactly as the manual states.
All of my recordings from a digital source have been perfect. I have recorded both from the dual player and my Sony carousel and the copies sound no different than the source.

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none

There are none

This unit is a piece of crap. It has caused me a lot of trouble. The first unit I bought was a complete lemon and after 6 weeks of fighting with HK customer service I got a replacement unit, which also has failed miserably. The unit simply cannot record at 4X! It has never been able to record on a CDR-80min disc either. Apparently, they know it sucked and discontinued the unit and call the new one a CDR-20 because they got so many back. I'm about to try and exchange mine with HK for the improved model. Last exchange was extremely difficult, their customer service absolutely sucks.

Buy anything but this.

looks good

poor quality

OK, I read the bad reviews but ordered the CDR2 from the Harmon outlet online. Delivery was very good but that is the only positive. Right out of the box it looked more like something you would get at a garage sale on Saturday. There were scratches on the face of the unit and the power cord had obivious paint on the end. This looked like some one had painted the wall it was pluged into and painted over the power cord. I hooked it up and it played ok but when I
tried to make a recording it failed. Called Harmon on the phone and they confirmed the unit was defective. They offered a full refund or exchange. So the obivious thing to do is get the refund and spend a few more dollars for a better made unit such as Denon or Yamaha. Harmon online people were responsive and helpful but based on previous reviews this is obiviously a bad unit. The other down side to online purchases is be perpared to wait several weeks to get your money back with shipping time and processing by who you make the purchase with.

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Digital In

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I bought this CDR to move my live DAT library to CD in the name of preservation. The digital-in enables me to create digital copies straight from my DAT machine. The digital replication has been perfect through 100+ recording to date.

The ease of use has enabled my seven year old son to make his own personal "Totally Hits" best-of discs.

The CD player offers a big sound improvement over my old CD player, which I purchased in 1985.

With blanks priced at a $1.50 I am raiding every friends library I know. This is the best money I've spent on my system to date.

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High quality dual deck burner for the money. Ease of operation.
Superior reproduction.

Given the weak instruction manual navigation takes a while to figure out how to use its many features and combinations.

My opinion is that this is a superior engineered product. Once you understand how to move between different source materials and learn the finalize procedure to complete the CD burn everything falls into place for fast, easy high quality CD recordings. I found that using TDK recordable CDs' the sound quality is indistinguishable from the original source. The dual deck (CD player and CD record trays) allow you to set up new CD's using multiple sources. After replacing my multiple program recorded cassettes with CD's and loading my truck's 10 CD changer the results are absolutely terrific.

2 draw design, whole compliment of digital $ analogue ins+outs

CD Recognition, Hispeed dubbing, programmed dubbing, no digital level control

Did my research, looked around, settled on what I thought was a great piece of kit - how easy it is to be taken!!!

First Cd I burned had the start of some tracks cut off. Seems that when you record a programmed selection, the two discs don't synch up perfectly all the time. The playback disc starts playing before the record disc starts recording - a ruined CDR straight away. This is happening so much that I now record each track one by one - what a pain!!!

Also the player would just stop in the middle of recording - more ruined CDR's.

The high speed dubbing is a joke!! The copy has digital clicks all through it, the soundstage is unstable, and low level detail is lost. A total waste of time and money.

The lack of a digital level control means that fade ins or out are not possible.

The only reliable way this player functions is when dubbing a whole CD in its entirety at normal speed.

I returned the unit a couple of days after purchase, but the replacement is no better. I have emailed HK in the USA and their Distributor in AUST, and do you think I got a reply from either one - OF COURSE NOT. I'm just a customer who if he's ignored enough will go away. Well I got news for them, if they don't replace this one with a new reliable one I'll be taking the matter further.

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Excellent recording quality and first-rate playback quality at a reasonable price

Nothing significant, see review

This machine is a sensible choice for those who want both a top-quality player (in the mid-priced range) combined with an excellent recorder.

PLAYBACK SOUND QUALITY:
The HK CDR 2 does everything I expect a good player to do: Focussed sonic image; good three dimensionality; Tight, fast bass; wide dynamic range and outstanding detail and resolution. I listen to all types of music and the CDR 2 handles all music styles with equal agility.

As far as comparisons with other players goes, I think this is a difficult, if not impossible task. First of all, in the name of fairness, you would have to audition all the players being compared in exactly the same conditions (ie with the same set-up, in the same room, etc) which simply was impossible for me (and for most people I would imagine). Given this obvious snag, I can still say a few things about the CDR 2 in comparison with other players. While I have nothing but praise for this machine's playback sound, I don't expect it to play as well as the best dedicated CD players in this price class (though I am sure that there are plenty of more expensive players than do not do as good a job as the CDR 2). I can say, however, that it definitely sounds as good or better than any of the mid-priced players I previewed (see above) and I think that says a lot because the competition in this area is enormous and the best players here still give you excellent value for money. Those players are around $100 to $200 less expensive than the CDR 2 (I paid around $650 for my CDR 2), but obviously they only play CDs and do not record. In addition, the players mentioned above only have a single play deck, whereas the CDR 2 has two separate decks, which means that it can also function as a (albeit limited) CD changer.

RECORDING QUALITY:
Absolutely excellent. Supposedly there is a difference in the dynamic range of recorded discs (about 10db lower I think), but neither I nor my friends can hear it (in 'blind' tests, we could not tell the difference the originals and the coppies). This recorder transfers all the information on the original to the copy, and that includes HDCD and DTS info. I have made over 40 discs without a single problem. I should mention though that I do not use the higher speeds (2x and 4x) for recording (I very rarely record entire discs) so I cannot say anything about that. I have also made several analog recordings from cassettes and radio broadcasts and these too were of extremely high-quality.

WEAKNESSES:
No HDCD processing in playback - this seems like more of a problem than it actually is. None of the players I mentioned above have HDCD processing, but they all still sound fantastic. And, as far as I can tell from reviews, HDCD processing is not a guarantee that a player will sound better. Consider also that the majority of CDs are, and will be for some time, normal 16-bit discs. The CDR 2 has 24/96 AKM DACs, which give it more than enough resolution for the vast majority of CDs.

The CD trays are slightly more flimsy than one might expect from a machine of this caliber.

No CD-text (which really doesn't matter to me at all).

Disc recognition is slow (somewhat slower in the record deck than in the play deck), but no slower than the average CD recorder.

The manual could have been more reader-friendly

CONCLUSION:

Satisfying playback sound and excellent recording quality. Good value for money. I warmly recommend the CDR 2 to anyone who has a rather mid-priced but good quality system like mine.

My system consists of:

HK CDR 2 player/recorder
HK 3270 RDS receiver/integrated amplifier
Monitor Audio Silver 5i Loudspeakers
Tara Labs Prism 22 Interconnects
Tara Labs Klara Loundspeaker Cables

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Didn't test any other CD recorders, tested following players: NAD C540, MARANTZ CD6000 OSE, ARCAM ALPHA 7SE

Makes real nice recordings

Lots of them;hard to follow manual,will not record in 2X or 4X unless recording entire cd

Purchased Philips CDR 200 from Crutchfield and returned it for refund because I felt it was complicated and not "complete".This unit is worse.I might add to it's weaknesses
that it defaults to manual numbering in analog recording
mode,which makes a 1 selection track if you do this (WHY?).
I've been purchasing audio equiptment for about 30 years, and maybe I expect to much.Why would a reputible company like HK release a piece of equiptment with so many shortcomings?You can only live on your name for so long....

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Philips CDR200