Pretty good, some flaws | Harman Kardon AVR 247 Home Theater Receiver w/ HDMI connectivity

Superb Quality in a 7.1 Surround Sound Receiver | Harman Kardon AVR 247 Home Theater Receiver w/ HDMI connectivity

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	• Harman Kardon AVR 247 Home Theater Receiver w/ HDMI connectivity Harman Kardon Harman Kardon average customer review:based on 34 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

RECIEVER

EXCELLENT RECIEVER, WITH HDMI. UPGRADED MY OLDER H.K. RECIEVER FOR HDMI AND MORE POWER, BIG DIFFERENCE. GREAT SOUND WITH 7.1 CHANNELS . VERY HAPPY . PICTURE EXCELLENT-1080P WITH HDMI, AND SOUND IS REALLY BETTER WITH HDMI.........

Pretty good, some flaws

First, let me note that I am perhaps not your ordinary reviewer. I am not an audiophile or a videophile. I have a tin ear, and am not *that* picky about video quality. I have no high-end gear - aside from the fact that my old receiver was failing, my short-term goal was to upgrade to a receiver that would switch S-video. Of course I was interested in providing for the future, but as yet I have no component or HDMI-capable gear. Therefore, this review will not touch on those areas.

I am basically happy with this receiver. This review focusses on those things that I'm *not* happy with; everything else that I've used is fine.

Others have complained about the difficulty of setting up this receiver. I did not personally find it very difficult, but then again wiring AV components and navigating software setup has always come naturally to me. I did have a few complaints.

On traditional receivers, the "inputs" that are selectable from the front panel are directly tied to groups of connectors on the back panel. Selecting the "Video 1" input selects the L, R, and video connectors in the "Video 1" box drawn on the back, period, end of report.

This receiver (and, I believe, most modern receivers) is a bit more complex than that. It does not have as many component connectors, for instance, as would be required to offer a component connection for each selectable "input". (That would be a very large number of connectors.) Instead, they have a few (three) sets of component connectors, and the ability to bind a particular selectable "input" to any of several physical connectors: the composite or S-video connectors that are reserved for that input or any of the three component inputs. The same is true for the audio inputs, allowing you to select the reserved analog connectors or one of the shared digital connectors.

This "soft wiring" capability is quite flexible, but could be confusing to somebody who was not aware of it. Particularly confusing is that the defaults for some of the "inputs" are unobvious - for instance, the default for DVD video input is the "Component 1" connectors, rather than the composite or S-video connectors reserved for the DVD input. (This is shown in the documentation, but I still think it's unobvious.) Better documentation could help here, perhaps with diagrams or tables illustrating the possible selections for each input. (Note that even here I am having trouble with terminology - what do I call the things that you select from the front panel, when they don't really relate to any particular connectors on the back?) Another possibility is to completely abandon the concept of named inputs: have some number of selections available from the front panel, some number of connectors available on the back panel, and offer the ability to freely bind one to the other.

What is this fixation people have with surround sound modes? Do I *really* need to spend half of the available display space showing the current surround sound mode? Personally, I'd rather have a graphical indication of the volume. Do I really need *five* buttons on the remote dedicated to surround sound mode selection? (I'm not complaining here about the number of modes, but rather how they impact the user interface, using up valuable display space and making the remote more complex.)

Whoever came up with the idea of representing a typical listening volume as a negative number needs to have his head examined. Enough said.

The ability to give names to inputs was one of the key features I was looking for. (That, plus reviews indicating heat problems, was what shot down the Onkyo 605.) The limitation to uppercase only is a bit annoying.

The on-screen display is sometimes a bit sluggish and gives incorrect hints as to when it's ready for input. When I'm setting several parameters, I find that after I set a parameter the OSD appears ready to move to the next parameter, but is not actually ready for a second or so.

I have not really explored the remote. I use a Harmony 676 to control my system, so individual device remotes are of relatively little interest. Still: it looks awfully busy, with buttons dedicated unnecessarily to secondary functions like surround sound and test tones. For a device with an OSD, or even a device (like this one) with a good-sized built-in display, these functions should be handled through the display and a menu system, rather than through dedicated buttons on the remote. The remote should have only buttons that are used in normal operation of the system, not buttons used for setup.

I have done only the most basic setup of my Harmony remote to support this receiver, and that's worked OK for me. (I didn't try to do the setup of the receiver from the Harmony.) It has been maybe a tiny bit unreliable, occasionally failing to select the appropriate input when moving from activity to activity. It seems like maybe the receiver is a little bit more sensitive to IR signal quality than my old Sony receiver was.

The receiver takes *five* seconds from power-on until it is ready for the next command. That may not seem like much, but it's an eternity when you're waiting for the remote to finish setting up all of the components.

Indications are that at least some Nintendo Wii "Virtual Console" games are incompatible with this receiver. With my Wii connected using a composite input, I lose video when running a Virtual Console game. It works OK when the Wii is connected directly to the TV's composite input. Nintendo notes that Virtual Console games may not be compatible with newer equipment; it would not surprise me if this applied to a device like this one that must process the video in order to add an OSD. It might be better when using the Component inputs, but my TV isn't Component-capable.

All in all, I've been pretty happy with the device. Of course, now I've got the itch to upgrade the rest of the system...

[ I forwarded a previous revision of this review to H-K, and almost immediately got back some thoughtful responses. Kudos to their support staff! ]

[ Update 2008-07-31 ]

After about two months, the video section failed - black screen. It's been hot here in Los Angeles and we've been trying to minimize our use of air conditioning; that could be related. The unit is back at H-K for service or replacement. While it was out I bought an HDTV and a Blu-Ray player, so I should be able to update this review with compatibility information for them when it comes back.

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Superb Quality in a 7.1 Surround Sound Receiver

Extremely versatile unit that works well with my Digital cable, PS3 and Xbox 360.

Unit upscales images to 720p that are analog and the HDMI Passthru works extremely well.

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Product works, but has some annoyances

I purchased this receiver to replace my old Sony 625 receiver. The main reason for replacement was I purchased an HDTV and have 2 HDMI appliances that I wanted to attach to my TV and run 5.1 audio through. This product met those requirements and produces great sounding audio, with a couple of annoyances.

1. Switching between inputs can take up to 30 seconds at times
2. The two appliances I purchased this for can cause issues with the receiver. My cable box while switching between standard definition TV/audio to high definition TV/audio can sometimes send the receiver into a 'searching' mode trying to find what type of audio is being sent from the cable box. I have sometimes waited 5 minutes for it to determine whether it was dolby digital or dts and finally just shut it off in annoyance.
3. Sometimes it will corrupt the video output to my TV, and I've found if I disconnect the TV from the receiver and reconnect it after having totally powered off both appliances it will come back to normal (otherwise the built in menus on my Vizio TV go crazy), this may not be a reciever issue.

Overall the product works as advertised, but I don't think I would purchase another one if I had to do it over again.

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Harman Kardon's AVR-247 receiver incorporates a number of genuine engineering breakthroughs, including innovative iPod connectivity and HDTV and multi-room capabilities to take audio/video receiver design to never-before-available levels of performance and functionality. It features an exclusive iPod interface that, with a compatible iPod connected via The Bridge (Harmon Karmon's optional iPod docking station), displays menus on a connected TV or video display and the receiver's front panel display and the iPod can be operated via the receiver's remote control. Two Digital Outputs (One Coax One Optical on Rear Panel) Two HDMI inputs with 1080p compatability Dimensions - Height 6-5/8 x Width 17-5/16 x Depth 15 inches (168mm x 440mm x 381mm) Weight - 27.3 pounds (12.4 kg)

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