Harman Kardon Receivers (WARNING)

[Guest]

Well, I've had the HK AVR320 unit for just a few weeks over 3 years and guess what? The dang thing started acting up right after the warranty expired. I tried the reset thing, the unplug thing, everything in the manual and the HK support told me to do but nothing fixed the problem The problem is that the 5CH, 7CH, and Surr. OFF lights flicker rapidly. This is indicitative of a processor failure. I've been told that the whole unit will go into shut down within a matter of months. I am really disappointed because I have owned many units over the years and all have lasted well over a decade except this one. I have a 30+ year old Pioneer that still runs for crying out loud. So I would say that HK still has Quality Control Issues and would not recommend buying any products from this company. What do they think? That we throw these things away like disposable BIC butane lighters? If I wanted a disposable AVR I would have bought a $200 Sony not a $600+ HK. As you can tell from my post I am a little upset but I feel better letting everyone know what my experience has been.

[SRX04]

I had an HK avr 7000 that 'lost' the FR channel in all modes after owning it for over 5 years. I suggest you contact customer service via e-mail. I stated in my e-mail that my 1st reciever was an HK over 20 years ago. And that I've been a long standing customer blah blah blah. (all of which is true).

I then suggested that they 'fix' my reciever at no charge because of my long term loyalty. They agreed!

Plead your case. 1-2 weeks..months past the warranty period PLEASE!!! They should and will fix this for you..heck they did for me and my unit was over 2 years out of warranty.

Say.."In this day and age of competing companies with similiar products its the customer service that will make all the difference." or something to that effect.

Good luck......Joe :T

[bigburner]

I have a 30+ year old Pioneer that still runs for crying out loud.

So do I, an SA-8500 bought in 1975.

[dan87951]

I have a Harman AVR520 that I bought new from an Authorized dealer back in early 2003 so far so good. I bet the thing has a ton of hours on it cause everyone uses it. Its practically on 24/7 it seems like. When I was shopping for preamps I brought the AVR520 in to my dealer to compare it to the Rotel I was looking at and couldn't hear a difference so i decieded to keep it. Out of all the upgrades I have made the only thing I have kept from my original system has been my receiver (HK520) which connects to a Rotel RMB-1075 amp. Glad to hear Harman is taking care of the issue. I had a problem prone FL-8380 cd player that was in the shop than at my house and Harman authroized a full refund.

[Azeke]

Indeed, I would contact HK customer support, they seem to provide excellent Quality Service from what I've heard.

Good Luck,

Azeke

[cadolfan]

Well, I've had the HK AVR320 unit for just a few weeks over 3 years and guess what? The dang thing started acting up right after the warranty expired. I tried the reset thing, the unplug thing, everything in the manual and the HK support told me to do but nothing fixed the problem The problem is that the 5CH, 7CH, and Surr. OFF lights flicker rapidly. This is indicitative of a processor failure. I've been told that the whole unit will go into shut down within a matter of months. I am really disappointed because I have owned many units over the years and all have lasted well over a decade except this one. I have a 30+ year old Pioneer that still runs for crying out loud. So I would say that HK still has Quality Control Issues and would not recommend buying any products from this company. What do they think? That we throw these things away like disposable BIC butane lighters? If I wanted a disposable AVR I would have bought a $200 Sony not a $600+ HK. As you can tell from my post I am a little upset but I feel better letting everyone know what my experience has been.

Hi I'm new here. I came here to ask a question about an unrelated topic and I found this. I just noticed that my 7CH light flickers. Poneal did you get your issue resovled even though it was out of warrant? What is the warranty? I better check mine soon.

[whoaru99]

I had an HK avr 7000 that 'lost' the FR channel in all modes after owning it for over 5 years. I suggest you contact customer service via e-mail. I stated in my e-mail that my 1st reciever was an HK over 20 years ago. And that I've been a long standing customer blah blah blah. (all of which is true).

I then suggested that they 'fix' my reciever at no charge because of my long term loyalty. They agreed!

Plead your case. 1-2 weeks..months past the warranty period PLEASE!!! They should and will fix this for you..heck they did for me and my unit was over 2 years out of warranty.

Say.."In this day and age of competing companies with similiar products its the customer service that will make all the difference." or something to that effect.

Good luck......Joe :T

I have a question for you and it's not intended to make any point - it's a question at face value...

When you buy a receiver (or anything else for that matter) I assume you know the warranty that is provided with that product.

So, why do you expect that the company should cover your failure whether it's one month, one week, or even one day past the warranty period?

The point of the question is not why you think they should, or why you want them to. The information I'm wanting to know is why you EXPECT them to.

[sirbogey]

whoaru99, I believe you are asking that 'cause nothing ever broke in your household, right after the warranty expired or you simply don't care 'cause you got enough cash to blow... I've had so much bad experiences with items breaking right after the warranty expired that I'm thinking of shooting another X-files episode...

[Andrew M Ward]

I have a question for you and it's not intended to make any point - it's a question at face value...

When you buy a receiver (or anything else for that matter) I assume you know the warranty that is provided with that product.

So, why do you expect that the company should cover your failure whether it's one month, one week, or even one day past the warranty period?

The point of the question is not why you think they should, or why you want them to. The information I'm wanting to know is why you EXPECT them to.

I agree 99...

if an item has a 90 warranty, one should expect it to work for about 90 days, the manufacturer does, why should your expectations be any different?

if it has a 5 year warranty, then you know about what to expect (Right?) :twisted:

if you have no faith in the product don't buy it... (Anti-Consumerism) I like it
.................................................. .................................................

This is an interesting line of thinking... which 1/2-way makes sense....

[Brandon B]

So, why do you expect that the company should cover your failure whether it's one month, one week, or even one day past the warranty period?

I didn't see anything in his post that implied expectation. It sounded very much to me like he was saying it is worth the effort to to get some "extended" customer service by pointing out that you have some "extended" brand loyalty. And some companies would probably agree to extend the service for these cases.

For the general public, the warranty is as stated as generally, brand loyalty does not extend past a single purchase. So from any legal or financial standpoint, it doesn't make sense for the mfr to offer service past the warranty period, nor does it make sense for the customer to expect it.

But for someone who is a faithful returning customer, who gets a unit which turns out to be, to some degree or another, a lemon, it makes complete sense for him to ask, and complete sense for the company to try and keep him happy.

Now if every customer with a defect starts claiming to be one of the long term brand loyal types, with no real means of verifying that, then you run into an issue.

BB

[whoaru99]

whoaru99, I believe you are asking that 'cause nothing ever broke in your household, right after the warranty expired or you simply don't care 'cause you got enough cash to blow... I've had so much bad experiences with items breaking right after the warranty expired that I'm thinking of shooting another X-files episode...

Things have broken just after warranty, and I also have things 20+ years old that have never given any problems.

I'm not a wealthy guy by any standards, but I am single and have no children to support (besides myself) so a fair part of my slightly better than middle-of-the-road income is play money.

I'm sorry to hear about your bad experiences with just beyond warranty failures. All I can say is that where I work, we offer a 1 or 2 year warranty on the products we make. However, our design goals typically reflect a 10-year service life of major components at at an average annual use of about 500 hours. I can positively state there is nothing we design to fail just beyond the warranty period.

In the big picture, my experiences are mostly that electronics usually fail early in life (days, weeks, months) or else last for many years without issues. I've not had much experience between those extremes with electronics failures.

[whoaru99]

I agree 99...

if an item has a 90 warranty, one should expect it to work for about 90 days, the manufacturer does, why should your expectations be any different?

if it has a 5 year warranty, then you know about what to expect (Right?) :twisted:

Not my intent to say at all. And, I don't believe that's the case at all.

The point I was trying to understand is if you buy a product with a 90-day warranty and it fails at day 91, or day 101, or day 201, where does the EXPECTATION stop that the manufacturer should help you or if not, gets a bad rap?

[whoaru99]

I didn't see anything in his post that implied expectation. It sounded very much to me like he was saying it is worth the effort to to get some "extended" customer service by pointing out that you have some "extended" brand loyalty. And some companies would probably agree to extend the service for these cases.

For the general public, the warranty is as stated as generally, brand loyalty does not extend past a single purchase. So from any legal or financial standpoint, it doesn't make sense for the mfr to offer service past the warranty period, nor does it make sense for the customer to expect it.

But for someone who is a faithful returning customer, who gets a unit which turns out to be, to some degree or another, a lemon, it makes complete sense for him to ask, and complete sense for the company to try and keep him happy.

Now if every customer with a defect starts claiming to be one of the long term brand loyal types, with no real means of verifying that, then you run into an issue.

BB

It was this part

..."Plead your case. 1-2 weeks..months past the warranty period PLEASE!!! They should and will fix this for you"...

that led me to the conclusion that a "would be nice if they help me" changed to an exectation/entitlement.

[Alaric]

Things have broken just after warranty, and I also have things 20+ years old that have never given any problems.

I'm not a wealthy guy by any standards, but I am single and have no children to support (besides myself) so a fair part of my slightly better than middle-of-the-road income is play money.

I'm sorry to hear about your bad experiences with just beyond warranty failures. All I can say is that where I work, we offer a 1 or 2 year warranty on the products we make. However, our design goals typically reflect a 10-year service life of major components at at an average annual use of about 500 hours. I can positively state there is nothing we design to fail just beyond the warranty period.

In the big picture, my experiences are mostly that electronics usually fail early in life (days, weeks, months) or else last for many years without issues. I've not had much experience between those extremes with electronics failures.

Perhaps you would be kind enough to tell us what you manufacture , so I don't accidentally EVER buy ANYTHING from your company?

[Brandon B]

Ah, missed that little "should and will". I swear my reading comprehension has just gone to hell lately.

BB

[whoaru99]

Perhaps you would be kind enough to tell us what you manufacture , so I don't accidentally EVER buy ANYTHING from your company?

IMO, that would be your mistake, but people should always buy what they think is best for their business.

Maybe you don't like the color, or the way the controls are arranged, etc. but
we offer the best warranty for this type of product and our research shows that it is highly probable we have the best MTBF amongst all competition for this type of equipment. Sales are tracked by an industry organization so I can also tell you that we are in great shape with SOM. We have an increasing number of new customers and a solid base of repeat business.

Guess we (as in the company) must be doing something right.

One of our main competitors likes to try to buy the market (and has some success) because more often than not, once our equipment is in the hands of the operator, it's lights out for them (the competition).

Also, I might add, the operator is almost never the owner of this equipment. The operators are typically paid by what is in effect a production bonus so the incentive is to run as hard and fast as possible at all times.

We have been down the road of "indestructable", but when rubber meets the road, the machines become too big or too heavy or too expensive when designed that way.

I'm not going to say what the product or industry is - there are probably enough clues anyway. That usually turns into cannon fodder and I'm not high enough up the food chain to take that abuse for the company. I don't design it, nor do I work in assembly. I just happen to be in a position to know these sorts of things...

Oh, if you want that extra peace of mind (although you probably won't need it), we offer extended warranties too. :T

[Arneson]

Components that make up an electronic instrument are failable.
Generally silicon devices will last indefinetely if designed properly and not subjected to spikes,lightning etc.
The same goes for carbon devices, tantalum, and most others except for one.
One part is actually rated for a life span of 2000hrs and that is the one that fails.
Everyone knows it's the Electrolytic Caps.
When they dry up, leak or burst the resulting ripple, humming, buzz can take out other parts.
Every one of us to some degree is guilty of stacking or racking receivers, amps and players and the venting of heat may may not be ideal which will exasterbate the cap failure.
The problem here is will the caps last 10 to 30 years, as I'd hope, or 1 to 3 years as the warrenty goes.
We may not all be electronic techs her but I personally enjoy bringing old and new units back to life by replacing the caps.

[royceb]

Well, I've had the HK AVR320 unit for just a few weeks over 3 years and guess what? The dang thing started acting up right after the warranty expired

The samething happened to me with my 3 yr old HK 525 last night. I can't get any sound out of my left front speaker. I did some troubleshooting and found the problem was the receiver not the speaker. I have owned it since July 2003 - just barely over the warranty :M Has anyone else had this type of problem? I am hoping that picking up a two-channel amp might solve this problem. I think now is the worst time to buy a new receiver with all of the new sound formats coming out.

[whoaru99]

The samething happened to me with my 3 yr old HK 525 last night. I can't get any sound out of my left front speaker. I did some troubleshooting and found the problem was the receiver not the speaker. I have owned it since July 2003 - just barely over the warranty :M Has anyone else had this type of problem? I am hoping that picking up a two-channel amp might solve this problem. I think now is the worst time to buy a new receiver with all of the new sound formats coming out.

IMO, you should check for output on the front left pre-out jack before buying an amplifier. The amp won't do you much good if there is no signal to amplify.

[royceb]

IMO, you should check for output on the front left pre-out jack before buying an amplifier. The amp won't do you much good if there is no signal to amplify.

Thanks. There is sound coming out of the left-channel, it is a lot more faint -like I would have to really jack up the volume on the left side so it is on par with the right side. That is why I am thinking it might have to do with the amp.