Harman Kardon AVR 2600 7 x 65W 7.1-Channel A/V Receiver with HDMI 1.3a, Full Audio/Video Processing and Upscaling to 1080p (Black)

Other products by Harman Kardon

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 18.3 x 10.5 inches ; 29 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 30 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B002IKKFU0
• Item model number: AVR2600
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #16,123 in Electronics (See Bestsellers in Electronics)

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  Electronics > Home Audio & Theater > Receivers & Amplifiers > Component Receivers

• Date first available at Amazon.com: August 15, 2009

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

From the Manufacturer

Harman Kardon AVR 2600 High Performance 7.1-Channel, iPhone-Compatible Home Theater Receiver with Dolby Volume

Designed to Entertain
For more than 50 years, Harman Kardon products have been engineered to deliver the ultimate listening experience. In 1954, Harman Kardon produced the world’s very first high-fidelity receiver, and the company has introduced many of the technologies associated with the world’s best amplifiers. One example: high-current, ultrawide-bandwidth amplifier design, which is still in use. Today, Harman Kardon leads the industry in the pursuit of the finest audio and video quality, and its commitment to performance continues with advanced high-definition A/V receivers. Delivering a complete package of performance, design, flexibility and ease of use, Harman Kardon products are perfect for enjoying everything that today’s high-definition digital content has to offer. So treat yourself to the ultimate at-home listening experience – one that only a Harman Kardon system can provide.

The AVR 2600 incorporates the Harman Kardon's acclaimed, high-current, ultrawide-bandwidth amplifier design

Make Your Movie Library Look and Sound Its Best
Harman Kardon receivers have earned worldwide accolades for their uncompromising sound quality, and the AVR 2600 builds upon this renowned heritage. It incorporates the brand’s acclaimed, high-current, ultrawide-bandwidth amplifier sections, which generate 65 watts for each of the receiver’s seven channels. Whether it’s the exciting sound of explosions from the latest movie or the detailed nuances of your favorite musical artist, the AVR 2600’s amplifier delivers sound with uncompromised realism, dynamics and subtlety.

And what the AVR 2600 does for audio, it also does for video. You know that the latest Blu-ray Disc™ movie or high-definition broadcast is going to look great on your high-definition display, but what about everything else? The Harman Kardon AVR 2600 improves the look of standard-definition video with advanced Faroudja Torino processing, automatically upscaling lower-resolution sources to the 1080p HD standard. You can also independently configure your display settings and specify the optimal picture quality and aspect ratio for sources such as game consoles or your DVD collection.

When it comes to surround-sound decoding, the AVR 2600 has you covered. In addition to decoding the latest Blu-ray Disc™ and surround formats such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD™ Master Audio, the AVR 2600 also includes proprietary Logic 7 processing, which is capable of generating discrete 5.1-channel or 7.1-channel sound from traditional two-channel sources. There is even a MP3 Music Enhancer mode, which will bring new life to any compressed digital music.

Dolby Volume makes enjoying your system at the listening level you want easy

Set It and Forget It
Tired of constantly having to adjust the volume on your current A/V setup? Do loud commercials send you running for the remote control? Are you experiencing dramatic differences in system performance at lower volume levels? Harman Kardon and Dolby Laboratories have the solution. The Harman Kardon AVR 2600 is equipped with Dolby Volume, Dolby Laboratories’ latest sound-processing technology. Set your preferred listening volume once, and the AVR 2600 will use Dolby Volume to maintain that same volume level across all of your content, no matter what source produces it. In addition, Dolby Volume on the AVR 2600 improves surround-sound performance at low listening levels. The AVR 2600 even allows you to customize the performance of Dolby Volume to match your listening preference.

The included EzSet/EQ microphone automatically calibrates and equalizes your AVR 2600. View larger

Fine-Tune Your System Like a Pro
There’s an important difference between your home audio system and the systems that you hear in movie theaters and concert halls. Professional systems are precisely calibrated by audio technicians to deliver the best possible surround-sound experience. Harman Kardon’s powerful EzSet/EQ™ system gives you all the tools you need to achieve professional sound calibration at home. This proprietary, automated room-equalization and system-calibration feature simplifies system setup and achieves optimal audio quality in any listening room. It automatically measures the frequency-response dips and peaks in the listening room with an advanced, omni-directional microphone and applies a precise, compensating equalization curve to achieve extraordinary sonic accuracy. Speaker-output levels and delay times are calibrated as well. The system sounds complicated, but using it couldn’t be easier. Just connect the included microphone to your Harman Kardon AVR 2600 receiver and follow the on-screen instructions. With a few simple steps, the AVR 2600 will automatically adjust the sound to suit your exact room parameters.

The AVR 2600 makes enjoying high-quality sound in another part of the house easy

Listen to What You Want, Where You Want
As any family will tell you, a two-zone entertainment system can be a real crowd pleaser. While the kids watch their favorite movie on the theater system in the den, for example, you can be out listening to your favorite CD on the deck or in the back yard. The AVR 2600 makes setting up a basic multi-room system easy. First, build a high-performance, 5.1-channel home theater around your video display. Then assign the two remaining channels to a second zone, wire an extra pair of speakers to a nearby room or outdoors, and you’re done.

Playback audio and video from your iPod or iPhone with complete control by adding the optional Bridge III docking station. View larger

Spend More Quality Time With Your iPod or iPhone
Your iPod or iPhone isn’t just a great way to take your favorite music and videos with you. It’s also a great way to simplify the entertainment experience at home. Whether you have an iPod, or an iPhone, you’ll definitely want to add the optional Bridge III iPod dock to your Harman Kardon AVR 2600. The Bridge III is a universal dock that connects with a single cable and lets you navigate your music and video libraries with high-resolution on-screen menus using the AVR-2600’s remote control. Browse your iPod or iPhone the way you usually do, whether by artist, album or genre. Audio is played back in rich, room-filling detail that only a Harman Kardon audio system can deliver. The Bridge III can even play back the video from your device. HD videos from iTunes are played back in full high definition, while the AVR 2600 automatically upscales non-HD videos to the HD standard of 1080p by for the best picture possible. The Bridge III keeps your iPod or iPhone fully charged even when the receiver is powered off.

The AVR 2600 features advanced connectivity, simplified set-up and even future upgradibility. View larger

Taking the Complexity out of a Cineplex-Quality Home Theater
There’s no denying that a typical home-theater system can be challenging to set up and use, but Harman Kardon receivers are far from typical. The AVR 2600 comes with the Quick-Start Guide, which that walks you through the color-coded connections that you’ll need for even the most elaborate multichannel systems.

High definition on-screen displays makes setup and use easy.

With four HDMI™ connections for the latest high-definition sources and a host of additional possibilities, connecting the AVR 2600 to nearly any device is easy and straightforward. Once connected, you’ll discover a Harman Kardon exclusive: a newly developed, high-definition, full-color on-screen menu system that utilizes both pictures and text to guide you in setting up a home-theater system and verifying that its components are connected and configured properly. The HD-resolution graphical interface uses alpha blending, a technique that allows the menus to be partially transparent and the video image to remain visible while you use the menus. The menu system also enables you to customize the name of each source as it appears on the AVR 2600’s on-screen and front-panel displays. Complementing the interface’s unmatched ease of use, the AVR 2600 includes a newly designed, backlit remote control with an intuitive, ergonomic design.

Adding to its appeal, the AVR 2600 features Harman Kardon’s strikingly new, minimalist design. It is elegant and distinctive, with gracefully rounded corners, a gloss-black and dark-graphite lower panel, and soft-white illumination.

And if that isn’t enough, the back-panel USB input for potential future software upgrades will enable you to enjoy the look and sound of your AVR 2600 for years to come.

What's in the Box
One high-performance AVR 2600 Audio/Video receiver, one remote control, one AM loop antenna, one FM co-axial antenna.

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 2600 home theater receiver. 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 2600 and it will play back the high-resolution Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks with stunning detail. The AVR 2600 can even 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. This includes an iPod or iPhone with the optional Bridge III dock for iPod.The AVR 2600 adds the latest sound processing technology from Dolby laboratories called Dolby Volume processing. Set your preferred volume once and Dolby Volume maintains that level across all your content no matter what source you happen to be listening. When it comes to video, the AVR 2600 sets the same performance standard that it does for audio. Using advanced Faroudja processing, video is upscaled to stunning 1080p resolution while display settings can be indpendently optimized by source for the best picture possible. Setting up and using the AVR 2600 couldn't be easier. A newly developed high-definition full-color on-screen menu system utilizes both pictures and text to 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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE AVR-2600 is friggen awesome!, October 19, 2009

By	Eric Stephenson "Professional Geek" (Las Vegas, NV USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

THE AVR-2600 is friggen awesome!

...how's that?

Like any receiver, you can spend a good amount of time setting this one up, and getting everything right. Harman/Kardon has done a lot to help with the graphical user interface and a very clean and easy to use OSD which is digitally converted and upscale by the receiver so that you do not need to run an analog cable to see the OSD...you can see it right through your HDMI if you want. The easy EQ Setup is okay -- it was very good at gauging speaker distances (and therefore delays), but terrible at determining levels/volumes for each speaker. I have 2 speakers (front left and front right) that are equadistant from the listening point...the HK system set one to +2db and the other to -7db...no idea how that happened... Anyway, I can overlook this as I am fully capable of setting these levels myself and the GUI makes the manual adjustment simple.

I have read on forums that some people have had trouble with the video, and even with HDMI bypass. I did not see this at all, and I tested the HK rigorously in this regard. My experience was that the HDMI Pass-Through worked flawlessly as tested from my HDTV Tuner, my Xbox 360, my Wii, and my standard def TiVo. All of them passed through as expected if I set the HK to do so. Similarly, if I allowed the HK to upscale or downscale, it did that too! I did not have a PS3 available to test at this time...but I soon will and will edit this review if necessary!

Audio Lag: There is a moment of audio lag upon switching sources...but my HK AVR-435 had this also and have many other receivers I have toyed with. I take it as expected. So I lose the first 1 second of audio...if it is really important I can usually pause the video feed and wait for the HK to make adjustments before playing (so I don't lose the sound)...but seriously, how often are the first 1-3 seconds of audio that important when starting any game/video? Once the audio has begun, I get no audio drop-outs whatsoever.

Dolby Volume is awesome! I hated the fact that with my old receiver I always had to remember to crank the volume way down before switching from my Xbox 360 (connected via component) to my TiVo (connected via RCA) because the TiVo volume was SO MUCH LOUDER naturally. Now, not only does Dolby Volume control loud commercials...but it keeps a constant volume from one input to the next...so if I switch from my TiVo to my Xbox and back to my HDTV, then over to my Wii...the volume is always consistent without me having to fight it!

In conclusion, for me -- everything works PERFECTLY, sounds terrific, and looks brilliant! I am very happy!

0 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Monetarily, Not Competitive..., November 13, 2009

By	Larry F. Rogers (Aplace, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In the world of digital video and audio, it matters less and less the difference between components. Receivers can have great amplifiers and some extra features. The upscaling for example, in this model, can save you some bucks on a DVD player that does the same thing. But most Blu-Ray players do this to begin with and the price point indicates you are already in the blu-ray group.

Any good amp will do. You don't need to pay $500 for it.