Step Up in League
Written: Jun 13 '03
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Sound: |
 |
|
| Ease of Use: |
|
|
| Durability: |
|
|
|
Pros: Setup allows for a variety of options, sound is wonderful
Cons: It's big. Rear channel setup is limited.
The Bottom Line: There are better receivers. There are receivers that do more things. But one would be hard pressed to find a receiver that does what it does better than this.
|
|
|
| hroeder's Full Review: harman/kardon AVR 325 7.1 Channels Receiver |
Consider this. You're sitting in your easy chair and you've got 7 speakers connected to your receiver and a really really good DTS movie in the DVD player. Are you sure your speaker setup is tuned properly?
Harman Kardon added one of the simplest little devices. In the end of your remote you've got a microphone. Push the button on the remote and the receiver starts generating a test tone that it cycles through the speakers. It adjusts each speaker to the "normal" for that setup. You can still adjust them manually, but probably won't want to.
For the normal 5.1 setup this receiver is a marvel. Center, front, and surround speakers are wonderful. You do need to have a powered subwoofer, but that's fine too. The only slight shortcoming is for rear speaker setup. If you want 6.1 or 7.1 sound you need a separate amp to power those rear speakers. They are allowed, but this receiver was also designed to provide sound to more than one room. And that required a separate amp. So you can use that output for either rear surround speakers, or a separate room.
One of the nicer features is something they dubbed Logic7.1 sound. This takes a PCM stream or stereo input and divides the sound for your speakers. It's really great when picking up sound from cable TV, for example.
There are 2 toslink and 2 coaxial inputs for digital sound. There are 4 SVideo and 2 component video inputs for video switching through the receiver. (Video setup must be done through either Svideo or composite video output to your monitor/TV.) Appropriate hook up is also provided for either 6 channel or 8 channel direct audio (ie. DVD Audio disc) sound. There is a third toslink connection that can be either in or out depending on how you set it up. Same for an S-Video and composite video setup on the front of the receiver.
Everything is controllable. Component video passes through in its native format. So if you put progressive video in, it will output progressive video.
Too much impedence can shut the unit off, so if you live in storm territory make sure you hook up your power to a UPS.
Even at low volume sound is great. Music is wonderful. Film sound is finely separated.
This is about an $800 unit, retail. As it is last year's model it can be had for closer to $500. There are very few differences.
If you really want home theater, you want one of these.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 450
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
hroeder
|
|
Member: Harry Roedersheimer
Location: Ft. Thomas, KY USA
Reviews written: 109
Trusted by: 8 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.