Great Sound
Written: May 18 '02
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Pros: Excellent sound for price
Cons: Control takes some getting used to.
The Bottom Line: For the money this is an excellent unit with impressive looks and performance. Good Bang for bucks.
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| grekal's Full Review: harman/kardon AVR 510 5.1 Channels Receiver |
Admittedly, as a comparison, I came from a much lower priced receiver, but the sound on this unit is excellent... so much richer. When hooked up to the Harmon Kardon DVD5 optically, the DTS kicks in, and the sound comes into it's own. The power output is rated lower than my old unit (70W compared to 100W per channel) but doesn't seem to suffer from it. I have the home cinema situated in my family room, which is fairly large with 14' vaulted ceilings, and when you crank up the volume it doesn't leave you wanting for more.
I have the front and center channels hooked up to three mid-price ranged 10-100 watt 8ohm powered speaker units, each with an 8in woofer, two 4in mid-range, and 1in tweeter. The rears are hooked up to a couple of cheap speakers, for now, and the sub-woofer channel is hooked up to a powered 130W 8in sub-woofer. From a cinema perspective this gives excellent results.
The controls on the front on the receiver give limited control (no mute button). The remote, especially when when used in conjunction with the on-screen menus, gives the user the most control. It is possible to set a whole range of options: from the type of speakers (large or small) to the volume levels for each speaker for each of the different surround modes; from the display brightness to the on-screen menu’s time-out; and from the amount of on-screen display information to the default volume settings.
There are optical, co-axial, s-video, and RCA hook-ups for most, if not all, of the external devices. At first I thought I would be able to hook-up s-video to my TV and have the picture for every video device coming through. Alas my VCR only had RCA connections, which meant that I had to switch the source on the TV from the receiver to the video to get the picture. I now have a s-video VCR and it works the way I originally expected it to.
The multi-room capability is handy for pumping the sound to another receiver. In my case I have this hooked up to a central sound system which plays throughout the house, the garage, and the backyard. It will allow you to watching a DVD, say, in the family room and have sound from a CD, say, playing in another area.
The remote sits nicely in my hand without it cramping up after extended periods. Operating the remote is awkward to begin with, but once mastered it has some neat features. You can teach it commands from other remotes as well as pre-programmed setup codes for each device but it doesn't seem to work too well with Sony devices... I can set it to switch my TV on and off and that's about it. I have had no success with it controlling my other receiver, or my old VCR, which are also Sony. It works with my JVC VCR and my Scientific Atlanta cable box. I have a Marantz RC 2000X learning remote that I normally use to control everything from and it won't control either of the Harmon Kardon products... so I have to use two remotes. The EzSet feature allows you set the volume levels of the speakers automatically which is really cool.
The receiver remembers the setting for each source... so if you like to have stereo for your CD and Pro-logic analog for cable it takes care of that for you.
Most irritating feature is the flashing on screen mute sign when muting the receiver.
Other than that a big thumbs up.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 500
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Epinions.com ID:
grekal
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Reviews written: 2
Trusted by: 0 members
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