Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Find of the year for me!

So I've been looking around for receivers forever(it seems) and just couldn't find one that I really wanted in my price range. I was looking at something that could do HDMI switch and upconversion, along with having good support for matrixing to 7.1. Well I'm walking around Fry's earlier this week and I see a Harman Kardon 745, open box for $500!!! It had NO accessories, no remote, no mic, nothing but I couldn't pass it up.

I already have a Harmony remote, and for about $30 I can get the HK mic for the auto calibration. I'm so pumped about this amplifier. My remote was able to do all of the OSD commands for the receiver so I am good to go there. I've heard great things about the Logic 7 processing on the HKs, can't wait to get the rest of the speakers up!

Got to test it a little bit with my new setup, at least the fronts(M22s) and center(VP100). What a great sound, listened to some old Pearl Jam songs and heard things in the music I've never heard before. I'm in heaven right now!

Installing the QS8's and rear M2's this weekend. I even got the wife to volunteer to get in the attic and run the cables. Maybe I should pick up some lottery tickets on my way home tonight!

And some flowers!

Nice buy, don't forget the pics!

Wow! Cool. Don't tell this to poor kzx87, he might want to trade wives!

I must have did something right, because it's working out with me. Just today she said she missed me playing Pearl Jam. Flowers it is!

Now it isn't just flowers, you are up to her favorite sweet treat as well!

Very good, PG. Yes, I think that you'll find that Logic 7 adds significantly to your enjoyment of both two-channel and 5.1 source material by extracting natural ambience from the front or side surround channels and placing it in the surrounds where it belongs. My receivers don't have Logic 7, although I've heard it in operation elsewhere, and I always use DPLII(x) for somewhat similar benefits.

Personally i find Logic 7 and DPLII sound like echoes in a hall. I don't find the effect flattering or useful at all.
Surround in dvda or sacd is far more realistic.

Chess, that's the whole idea: the majority of the sound in a hall reaches the listeners by way of reflected reverberations from various directions rather than direct sound from the front. Extracting this ambience material from the front channels in 2-channel sources, where it necessarily had to be mixed(there was no place else to put it, of course)and sending it to the surrounds where it belongs makes the listening experience resemble the original a little more closely. This is supposed to be a relatively subtle effect, and the surrounds shouldn't be played so loudly as to draw attention to themselves.

Unfortunately John it sounds only slightly better to me than the cheesy DSPs they load into virtually every receiver that has been built in the past decade or two (Sports, Theatre, Orchestra mode or my all time favorite, the Karoake function). I know this is not the first time i've relayed this opinion.
The 'echo' effect of DLPII does not sound realistic in presenting 'surround information' and is certainly nothing like a presentation in an auditorium, at least none i've been in. Some say that DPLII approaches Dolby Digital quality but it sounds nothing like a true 5.1 recorded or mixed Dolby Digital disc (or dvd-audio version).
I have compared one or two discs that i own in both formats some time ago and a dead person could hear how different a DPLII disc is from its DD5.1 counterpart.

A good, simple stereo playback in direct mode produces natural reflections off my room walls and creates a better surround effect than DLPII. Jordan and i experienced this most strongly with a song he had played during his auditioning time here. Both of us turned our heads to see if the QS8s were on; they were not.
Now THAT is effective surround sound reality.

To this day, no one who has come to audition the Axioms or heard our audio systems has preferred DPLII over direct mode, stereo sound (that would equate to about 15-20 people in the past 4 years or so). In addition, every person has preferred DD5.1 or dvd-a over both. I can also add that most did not have a preference when comparing dvd-a and DD and typically comment how both sound very clear, detailed and 'clean'.

DPLII is really not that exciting and it gets the thumbs down by the listeners in this household.