Customer Reviews

Harman Kardon AVR 635 7.1 Channel Surround Sound Audio/Video Receiver

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Forget the Watts... this baby delivers more punch (at a greater clarity) at 75 watts than any 100 watt receiver you find from dennon, sony, or kenwood (especially since it is high current). Where the AVR 635 really shines is in the combination of ease of setup and flexibility of configuration.

Usually a receiver is either easy to setup, but ties you into a fairly ridgid configuration, or it is very flexible, but terribly difficult to get setup correctly.

Setting up your AV channels is a breeze, you simply select what video source goes with what audio source and give it a name, and you're done. That said you have the ability to fine tune any of this configuration, as you see fit.

Balancing audio for the room is even easier, you plug the microphone in (ships with the unit), hit setup, and you're done. Instant room EQ.

I've had the unit for a month or two now, and haven't had time to dive into the finer features, because it does everything I really need it to right out of the box.

Plan on spending an hour, read the instructions, go to the setup, and you will be enjoying the best sound money can buy.

(P.S. if you're thinking about the 7300, go with the 635, it's a better value, and you're never miss those other 25 watts.)

This is a beautiful sounding and powerful AVR receiver/Amp. The sound is clear, strong, and has great depth. It is not a harsh (overly revealing) amp like the Denon can be when matched with bright speakers. This amp has a very deep spatial clean sound which is warmly revealing, strong, and quality all of the way. It seems to make the instruments sort of float and stand out in the musical space. It is more of a warmer analog sound without having to go to tubes (less bussy like some of the solid state digital amps which often induce listener fatigue). I auditioned this amp in my house with a Denon 2805 and an Arcam Amp and liked this one the best with my B&W speakers. Because of the high current level of this amp, it sounded with 75 watts per channel much more powerful than me Denon 2805 or the Arcam with more listed wattage.

Note: total output is equal to roughly watts X current - a good analogy is a hose. The watts is the speed of the water out the end of the hose and the amps is the size of the hoze. Obviously a garden hose (small diameter = low amps) with a spray nozzle high velocity end (high watts) will not equal the overall power (total water output) of a fire hose (wide hose = high amps) with less velocity of water out the end (lower watts).

This amp will also put out 90 watts per channel in 2 speaker mode. Forget about rating the HK amplifiers by the watts. Because of its high current, I would pit this amps ability against a 150 watt Sony any day (no contest).

By the way, if you aren't into dolby and want to just listen to your movies and music with only two speakers, Harman Kardan has a wonderful amp/receiver with even more power at about 1/3 the price. The HK 3480 puts out 125 pure clean powerful high current amps. It is also attractive. The long row of small round option buttons that look a tacky silver in the demo picture are actually an attractive black and the silver seen is simply from flash reflection.

This amplifier is my amp of choice over two highly touted high end ampifiers (Denon & Arcam).

I recently bought a plasma tv which I was powering with an older model JVC surround receiver and inexpensive Panasonic DVD palyer through fairly nice Infinity speakers and an Infinity powered sub. After some research, and soul searching, I decided to upgrade to the AVR-635 and DVD-22. I have to say that I never expected the increase in both video and audio performance that I got from these units. While I'm not an audiophile, my eyes and ears work just fine. Any benefit that I thought I got for just upgrading my tv was far outweighed by the subsequent a/v upgrade. I'm watching each movie I have as if it's the first time I've seen it.

I have owned this reciever for about two weeks now and so far I am very impressed. I was replacing a JVC receiver because the dialog in movies was always choppy and hard to hear so you would turn up the volume and then the sound effects would be to loud. I was sceptical and the 75 watts per channel because my JVC was putting out 110 watts per channel but I was dead wrong. 75 watts per channel is easily enough for you average size room. If you have an extremely large room I can't say whether it would be enough because I simply don't have a larger room to test it out in. The EZsetup is a breeze. Just simply plug the mic in into the jack in the front and hold the mike in some different locations while it makes a bunch of noise to setup your speakers. After that everything is set up, speaker distance, crossover, speaker size, and equalization. Popped in a movie and watched the whole thing without adjusting my volume (something I couldn't do with my JVC). It also has an onscreen menu for setup which is really nice but can be tricky to get it to show at times. Pro Logic 7 is great. I prefer it to PLII when I am watching analog sources. Dolby Digital and DTS is where this thing really shines. DVD's or any source encoded with dolby digital 5.1 or greater is amazing. Truley breathtaking, you actually feel the action instead of just hearing it. The price tag is a little steep but you know your getting solid power. Just consider this, this thing weighs in at 41 pounds. Most receivers that I looked at that put out 100 watts or 110 watts weighed half, sometimes a little more than half than this one. That means one thing. You are getting extremely solid consistant power. To top things off it converts all signal to component to make things easier when you want to switch from tv to dvd to game to whatever else. I't doesn't actually upconvert the signal but its still nice to do everything through component. I would definantly recommend this reciever to anyone looking for a great surround sound receiver who is looking for quality over power. I was skeptical at first to but now that I've owned it I know how wrong I was to doubt this receiver in the first place. You can definantly get more power for less money but I seriously doubt the sound quality is going to be any better than this receiver and isn't sound quality more important than power. I might of disagreed with that before I heard this receiver, but this receiver has changed my mind about thingss. Trust me, sounds effects still shake my house at 75 watts a channel.

This is my 2nd HK HT receiver and let me say, don't be fooled by any other manufactures claims on wattage. HK amps just have alot more torque pushing the speakers than anyone else out there. Highs are crystal clear, dialogue is clean and crisp, midrange is warm. What more do you want? Well, lets see, this amp basically sets itself up. With the EZSet/EQ feature, this amp sets itself apart from all others on the market. Not that others don't have a similar EQ feature, its that the others don't have the EQ feature plus the real power behind it pushing the speakers. After using the auto EQ, I was able to compare my speakers by turning the setting on or off and boy, was there a huge difference. My NHTs sounded much more crisp and clear without being harsh. My rear surrounds just filled in much more smoothly and blended in way better. Don't waste your time comparing all the junk that comes out of Onkyo, Denon, Sony (especially Sony), JVC, Yamaha, etc, etc...these guys just don't compare to the HK.

The 635 has all the bells and whistles that are useful for the audiophile. Yes there is a little better this or that, its usually just semantics or so over priced its not worth the money. This box reproduces high quality sound at a pricepoint you can live with. I have coupled mine with some awesome components and have never looked back for the past year. Its still the box to beat for under $1000.00 in my book.

Before you panic at the high retail price tag, relax. When you add it to your shopping cart you will see that AMAZON.com cuts the price signifigantly, to say the least. You get an H/K receiver at a Sony (chuckle) price.

Next, let me tell you the difference between 5.1 and 7.1 sound. 5.1 sound has six speakers: Front Left, Center, and Right; Rear Left and Right; and a Subwoofer*. 7.1 has the same Front Left, Center and Right; Subwoofer*; but FOUR rear speakers- Left Side and Left Rear; Right Side and Right Rear. (*The .1 is a bass track, and the reason that this, and all other Digital receivers, REQUIRE a subwoofer. Regardless of how large your main speakers are, deep bass is only transmitted to the .1 track). Very up-scale brands (like Marantz) have 9.1, and an upcoming 12.1 setup, but they are 12k-30k for 9.1s and 30k-60k for the 12.1 receivers ALONE. Then you buy 10 or 13 speakers!

Now, let me explain wattage. Most brands have basically no scale to measure wattage. They just say "100 Watts" because it makes people happy. But JVC, harmon/kordan, and Marantz actually measure wattage on a universally accurate scale. A Sony, KLH, or other manufacturer may SAY 100W, but they may only really be 25W or so.

Finally, before you even go out to see if this sells for $1299-1499 in retail stores, let me assure you, IT DOES! At the very least! I don't want to void my review by saying where, but if you keep those 'Circuits' going, you'll figure it out!

After more than 2 years of use, like to add the following. Looks like I got unit from a bad batch which had a small hardware bug in it. If you are watching a Satellite Dolby digital signal and if the signal becomes garbled for some reason, the receiver would lock up. Had to manually re-boot it to make it work again. I thought HK would have some kind of patch to fix it, but they left us high and dry and moved to newer models :-(

-------------
Love the quality of this receiver. Researched for more than 6 months and picked this one. There is one short coming where there is not digitial video output source like DVI or HDMI. If you have a latest Digital TV, then you have to route the audio through this receiver and the video straight from the source (like your DVD or Cable box).

Has extensive setup options so reading through the manual is a must. A good receiver like this can be made to push the envelope only when you read through the manual to understand and customize it to your own setup (like speakers and room dynamics).

Size appears to be deceiving in the picture but its fairly large, so its better you get the measuremetns and see if it would fit in your entertainment center. Ane expensive receiver worth the price !

This receiver is much better than similar products I've owned from Sony ES, Pioneer Elite, etc. I think the sound is better than some of the most famous audiophile gear, such as a hybrid tube/solid Counterpoint gear I tested it against. I'm fairly demanding of audio gear (my reference rig was a single-ended triode setup with no preamp or anything else to muddy the sound, to give you an idea). This isn't quite the ultimate audiophile rig, but it comes surprisingly close and it does have a really exceptional combination of quality, features, and convenience. I'm very happy with the sound quality. The manual could be better, but it is usable. The ability to configure the receiver to drive another room was a key feature for me; my better half wanted to be able to hear music or TV in the study, and this does it nicely. The audio quality from the tuner is surprisingly good; it makes me think there's far less market opportunity for the new HD tuners than I'd thought previously, but I'll keep an open mind! Still, with a strong signal the FM quality is quite surprisingly good. One drawback: there is noticable delay and a flicker in the video switching as it tries to lock onto a video signal when I change channels in my vcr tuner, and I haven't noticed it doing anything (positive or otherwise) for the video signal, but I'm just using composite so it's not a fair test. I like the extensive back panel connectivity, too; it enables a lot of flexibility in how one uses this product. I also found the EZ set self equalization easy to use. At first I wasn't impressed with the auto equalization, but after a lot more testing and experimentation it can really make a significant improvement. It's really pretty impressive, and it succeeds in compensating for a lot of speaker placement challenges and room accoustics issues that can be very hard (and very expensive & inconvenient) to address otherwise. The end result is a very significant improvement in system performance, but it took some "fiddling" with the settings. Overall, I have to say I'm extremely happy with this item, and I honestly don't know of a better integrated receiver solution.

I teamed this reciever with HKTS-14 and the door to the house rattles in the jamb when things in my movies blow up. The children outside get quiet. The clarity and thump are beautiful, both with the door and the AVR. My old man has the best Bose system you can buy and while it is no doubt great, I've had his system up all the way and this HK is more crisp and I swear louder. And let's not forget afterwords I had enough money left over for a nice steak dinner.
I researched HT systems for weeks and like the other reviews state, I don't think you'll see a better AVR for the price.
One caveat, if you're going to try running high-end HDTV exclusively with this you may want to look at a newer reciever. The highest quality video in is composite video and there was some uneven wash with the color when the video goes through the AVR. It comes and goes, but I don't think it was made for the 1024 x 768 generation of resolution. This is the only issue that would keep a person from wiring every house they live in for the next 10 years with this AVR. But then, you're not supposed to be able to keep up with technology. That's the point.
But back to the fun stuff: the thing weighs 50 lbs. That's magnet muscle to move sound. HK's Logic 7 beats all the rest of the various Dolby, et al., settings for movies, of which there are probably close to 40. Since not much comes made for 7.1 surround sound this is a wonderful feature as it in theory breaks 5.1 into believable 7.1. I don't doubt it with this reciever, but I haven't tried it. The more useful feature in my mind is the Zone 2 setting for the two extra 7.1 speakers which allow you to play source independent music in another room or the rest of the house. HK has some system (see the website) to put the Zone 2 AVR controls in the wall next to your light switch to run speakers outside, your bedroom, the kitchen, it's amazing. This is the kind of set up the rich kids have at their houses.
All in all I have had Sony and JVC (which was great for what it was), been very well acquainted with Yamaha, Denon, and Bose, and HK is the clear choice if you are beyond your piecemeal college system but haven't convinced your wife or yourself that $5,000+ is a reasonable amount to invest in a HT system.

Update: Returned it to Amazon for a new one soon after I got it because it froze up out of the box. Out of the box, gentle reader, out of the damned box. Should have guessed. Well, it's been a year and a half, and I'm now taking it in for repairs for a second time, making this the 3rd time this exact issue has been a problem for those of you still keeping score. HK won't replace it. Some fancy techie thing blew and froze the whole thing, killed the sound, but the picture still filtered through. And it doesn't just go slow, it shorts and pops and snaps over the course of weeks until it finally will not be revived. Looked around on the internets a little and, golly, wouldn't you know, this is an almost universal problem with a lot of HK products. Buyer beware, there's a reason HK isn't in more living rooms.