Customer Reviews

Harman Kardon AVR8000 Audio/Video Receiver

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

 

 

This was the last of HKs truly high quality recievers. It just takes a quick look to see the amazing quality put into this powerhouse. ALL GOLD plated connections, torodial transformer the size of your head, almost 70 lbs!! THX ultra certification. Ultra clean power: 0.07% THD at full rated power 110w/ch with an inaudble distortion rate of 3% at over 270watts/ch all five channels driven...hard - due to its high current design. Basically, your speakers will either blow up or you will damage them severely before you hear distrotion from this reciever.

All I can say is this amp sounds better than every other amp I have owned. It is powerfull, it can be turned way up and still sounds good. It is heavy and that means one thing, transformer. If you have an amp that is advertised at 120 watts per channel, like my old Pioneer, and it weighs about 16 pounds, it is no matter what going to produce clean power. The transformer in this HK is 35 pounds of its weight alone. If you can find on of these old gems, grab it.

I can't believe I'm writing a review on a receiver that's been out for almost 10 years now, is out of production, and probably hard to find. But it's such a classic, powerhouse of a receiver, I guess my advice is...if you can find one, get it! Even after being out for 10 years, it still has a plethora of features that still rivals anything made today. The only exception as the previous reviewer stated, is the lack of HDMI outputs. This isn't a major deal, imo. I have the audio portion hooked up to the TV via optical cable. Dolby Digital still sounds powerful and full. Not sure if you'd even notice the difference with HDMI with this beast, and it is a beast at 53 lbs. To be fair, many of today's receivers are loaded with features, at reasonable prices and can put out some serious sound. However, if you're one of those individuals looking for a classic, audiophile quality piece of equipment that was ahead of it's time when it came out, still has tons of features, a 35 lb transformer, well, look no further thank the 8000. This baby listed for over $2,500 when it came out, and a good friend of mine who just upgraded with an $8,000 Anthem processor/power amp system, gave to me as a gift. It's so classy looking, with the black, smoked mirror front. It has 7.1 capability, multi-room option, 6/8 channel configuration. Convinced yet? Go for it.

Warm powerful dynamic clean! Still haven't heard anything much better other than separates. Just wish it had HDMI jacks for video. Next comparison will be to the Pioneer SC series (D class amps).