Harman Kardon AVR1600 50W 7.1-Channel A/V Receiver (Black)

by Harman Kardon

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 18.3 x 10.5 inches ; 24 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 25 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• Shipping Advisory: This item must be shipped separately from other items in your order. Additional shipping charges will not apply.
• ASIN: B002IKKFTQ
• Item model number: AVR1600
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,822 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
  • #52 in Electronics > Televisions & Video > AV Receivers & Amplifiers
  • #81 in Electronics > Home Audio & Theater > Stereo Components > Receivers & Amplifiers > Component Receivers

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

For more than 50 years, Harman Kardon products have been engineered to deliver the ultimate listening experience. That tradition continues with Harman Kardon's new AVR 1600 home theater receiver, which offers an affordable way to enjoy the best sound experience possible. High performance starts with a high-current, ultra-wide amplifier design which delivers uncomprimised realism and dynamics from your all your music and movies, including today's latest high-definition sources like Blu-ray. Connect your Blu-ray player to the AVR 1600 and it will play back the high-resolution Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks with stunning detail.The AVR 1600 can deliver an exciting 5.1 can deliver an exciting 5.1 or 7.1 surround experience from sources that aren't in encoded in surround sound using proprietary Logic 7 processing. Have an iPod or MP3 player? The AVR 1600 even has a compressed music enhancer that will improve the sound quality of compressed music tracks. Setting up and using the AVR 1600 couldn't be easier. A simple on-screen menu system will guide you in setting up your home theater system while calibration and equalization is both easy and accurate with the included EzSet/EQ calibration system.

Product Description

For more than 50 years, Harman Kardon products have been engineered to deliver the ultimate listening experience. That tradition continues with Harman Kardon's new AVR 1600 home theater receiver, which offers an affordable way to enjoy the best sound experience possible. High performance starts with a high-current, ultra-wide amplifier design which delivers uncomprimised realism and dynamics from your all your music and movies, including today's latest high-definition sources like Blu-ray. Connect your Blu-ray player to the AVR 1600 and it will play back the high-resolution Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks with stunning detail.The AVR 1600 can deliver an exciting 5.1 can deliver an exciting 5.1 or 7.1 surround experience from sources that aren't in encoded in surround sound using proprietary Logic 7 processing. Have an iPod or MP3 player? The AVR 1600 even has a compressed music enhancer that will improve the sound quality of compressed music tracks. Setting up and using the AVR 1600 couldn't be easier. A simple on-screen menu system will guide you in setting up your home theater system while calibration and equalization is both easy and accurate with the included EzSet/EQ calibration system.

See all Product Description

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars FYI - Updated!!, November 30, 2009

By 

Boyd Cotton "If it sucks, don't do it." (WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Harman Kardon AVR1600 50W 7.1-Channel A/V Receiver (Black) (Electronics)

Got this in the mail a couple of weeks ago. It is a very attractive unit, couple of things I don't care for.

1. Can't ever turn off the bright power on light. Apparently some people couldn't remember to turn off the unit when they killed the display, so now I have this bright white light that won't turn off.

2. HDMI passthrough only kinda works. The main reason I bought this thing was to pass HDMI from my various devices through the single source (and for its audio sync capabilities). Unfortunately for me, while my HTPC straight to the tv works like a champ, I only get a black screen for video (audio works fine though...) when passing through this device. From what I can tell this is a common problem with the 1600 (go check out the forum for owners).

3. HK support kinda sucks. Sent an email last week. No reply. Called them during business hours, had to leave a message. So far no help from them.

I have worked around this by just not using the HDMI, buttt...was kinda the whole reason I bought this, now its just like the one i replaced it with, bummer. In the end it looks pretty good and works pretty good, just not as good as they would want you to believe.

**** UPDATE ****
Short update, about one year after purchase I stopped by the Harman Kardon site to see if they were ever going to update this thing to fix my HDMI issues, and lo and behold... they did! There is a product update link on the 1600's support page:

[...]

Support Tab --> Product Updates --> Download the update.

This update is supposed to update a few bugs, and most importantly the HDMI issue of not passing video from random devices (media pc's, game consoles, etc..). I downloaded and installed (you'll need a 400Mb or larger thumb drive ((not sure why cause it was tiny, but that's what it says)) to do the update). The update was straightforward and took less than 5 minutes once you have the thumb in there (front panel usb port).

Anyway....the video now flows through, my media pc can now pass 5.1 (or 7.1) and the video actually looks nicer than when it went straight to my tv (deeper blacks or something, looks good). Harman support is still pretty poor, but the product performs so dang good for what it cost, and looks great doing it. Took this thing from 3 to 5 stars, light is still annoying but I'll let it slide.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Attractive Design and Reasonable Sound, but Unmitigated HDMI disaster and lacking basic features, August 5, 2010

By 

WDH - See all my reviews

This review is from: Harman Kardon AVR1600 50W 7.1-Channel A/V Receiver (Black) (Electronics)

A few months ago, I compared roughly $500 receivers from Pioneer, Onkyo, and Denon at winstonsreviews. At first glance, the Onkyo TX SR608 edged out the Pioneer VSX-1020, but longer term testing revealed that the Onkyo had a few persistent gremlins affecting video quality unless the volume/source onscreen display was disabled.



This comparison remains one of the more popular posted on the website, so I thought I would add the entry-level Harman Kardon receiver to the fray. The AVR 1600 retails for $499 and shares the same two-tone black and gray look of its bigger brothers the AVR2600 and AVR3600. In respects of connectivity, it only has three hdmi inputs, only a single zone of audio and no multichannel pre-outs. Its remote is a bit less attractive as the 2600 and 3600 and is neither back lit or learning. While it does have preset codes, I did find them to be lacking a number of manufacturers. One interesting note is the inputs are not as intuitive as most other receivers in this price mark - they are labeled as DVD, video 1, video 2, video 3, HDMI 1, HDMI 2, HDMI 3 and digital inputs seem to hard-wired. The inputs can be-renamed in the black and white text gui.

The GUI of the 1600 is very basic and similar to the Denon AVR791's basic black and white menu. The Harman Kardon lacks some of the tweaking sub menus in part because it lacks some of the corresponding features such as video upconversion, height and wide processing, internet or usb connectivity, and second zone or B speaker configurations. Candidly, the Harman Kardon AVR1600 is a pretty basic unit without a lot of the features one would expect in a $500 receiver, but also in a $300 receiver.

Harman Kardon uses a proprietary auto-calibration software with a slick-looking transparent, conical microphone. In some ways, it is similar to Pioneer's MCACC in that while it uses a single position, it measures a wide variety of very loud noises from each speaker. Like Onkyo, Harman Kardon allows for crossovers to be set according to individual speaker, unlike Pioneer or Denon that use a global crossover.

In use, the AVR1600 was very pleasant in respects of both two channel listening and multichannel film soundtracks. From a tonal perspective, I think most folks would find it very similar to the other three - it is difficult to distinguish differences amongst receivers in this price range. It seemed to have adequate power at moderate to upper volume levels, but possibly with a little less clarity than the Pioneer VSX-1020. It is important to reiterate that the AVR 1600 only offers a very vanilla 5.1 or 7.1 setup and has no height or wide presence configurations.

The AVR1600 relies on cooling via a fan whose noise was quiet but not silent. It ran coolly over time, but the fan's quiet purr was omnipresent.

Unfortunately, there is a catch - HDMI handshake issues. Without a doubt, the AVR1600 was haunted by the most HDMI gremlins I have ever encountered in a receiver going back to early HDMI V1.1 receivers using HDMI to DVI splitters. To give you an example, I had to turn on and off my television (Samsung PN-50B860) numerous times to simply get the setup menu to appear. Things only went further sideways when I was bold enough to connect three components via HDMI: the venerable Oppo BDP-83, LG BD550, and a Scientific Atlanta HD box. Of the three connections, I could receive only the following:

1.Audio from the Cable Box with consistent drop-outs by unsuccessful video handshakes. Repeated resets of both the AVR and the TV provided video about 66% of the time, but with the occasional audio dropout.
2.No video or audio from the LG BD550 in HDMI 2 and 3, but audio and video through HDMI 1, but the colors were completely inverted or wrong.
3.Perfect video and audio from the Oppo BDP-83 from all inputs.
Yes, the firmware was up to date on the display, the sources, and the receiver (even called Harman Kardon to confirm). Yes, HDMI control was turned off on all the sources and display. Yes, I tried turning HDMI audio to display to know grand effect. Yes, I even tried various HDMI cables (insten, monoprice, and the variety Oppo provides) with no repeatable impact.

Years of amateur reviews and installation for friends and family has provided me a pretty good ability to troubleshoot HDMI issues, but the AVR-1600 proved to beyond my ability. I don't believe my receiver was outright defective as I could receive both audio and video from the Oppo without issue. For me, the inexplicable irregularity of the HDMI issues are a strong enough reason to compel me to not recommend this receiver unless you're within quick and flexible access of a B&M store that will take it back in the event of similar HDMI issue. Moreover, its value is hard to argue - it lacks so many of the features that not only its similarly priced peers offer, but also less expensive models. I really don't know what to say about this unit other than try a Pioneer VSX-1020 or Onkyo TX-S608.

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Does not work well with some components, December 29, 2009

By 

Pipsi - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Harman Kardon AVR1600 50W 7.1-Channel A/V Receiver (Black) (Electronics)

I am not an audiophile but I know what I like in a sound system. Been a fan of Harman Kardon for many years.I recently decided to retire an aging HK receiver and decided on the AVR 1600. I was not all that interested in video upscaling, purchased a very nice ipod dock with a universal remote and did not require the additional power - so I had no need for the higher end models.

After hooking up the HK AVR1600 to my TV (Samsung LED), xbox 360 and cable box/dvr all via HDMI, everything worked except the xbox. I tried downscaling the xbox to 1080i and various settings but the result was always audio but no video. Called technical support and after trying a reset of the 1600 I was bumped down to second level support which instructed me to exchange the unit.

I received the second unit a few days later. And even though I knew it would not matter, I purchased a couple of high end HDMI cables. Connected the second unit and had the same result - audio but no video when connecting to my xbox 360. Technical support said they were aware of an issue. Even mentioned that there were similar problems connecting with a few satellite receivers. Did some research and found that the issue was being discussed on the avs forums. The problem does not appear to occur with the 2600 and above models.

I really wanted this receiver to work because it sounds great. So I hooked up my xbox to my TV directly (HDMI) then I took the sound from the TV back to the 1600 via optical. I did not like the sound and after checking the manual, I confirmed that my TV does not pass 5.1 via it's optical port which is perfectly understandable because it is not the TV's job to play with audio. So I scrapped that plan.

An audio video receiver is supposed to play nicely with my home components which includes game consoles. And the more I thought about it, who knows if I won't run into some other issue hooking up something else a few years down the road so the AVR 1600 is going back. I picked up the Denon AVR-790 today. It was much more complicated to set up but has so far worked flawlessly with all of my components.

Note that Amazon's customer service as usual has been exceptional.