Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater HK digital receivers?

Just wondering if anyone here has any experience or opinions on the HK digital receivers. I received my HK 635 today and am really excited to get this baby going. It is quite a beast though at 41lbs. My tv stand has a glass shelf that is supposed to support 65lbs on a shelf. The glass is about 1/4" thick. Now I figure the numbers usually lean towards the conservative side with the weight limit, but you never know for certain. With my receiver and DVD players, I am looking at roughly 55lbs on that shelf. The two digital receivers HK makes are almost half the weight of the 630/635. Is there really anything else gained aside from the digital receivers being much lighter? The specs are actually a little less impressive in certain aspects (mainly signal-to-noise ratio and THD but not a huge difference) on the two digital receivers. The 2005 though does have a bit more power than the 630s or 635s. It is rated at 120w/ch in both stereo and with all channels driven. Just curious if anyone has heard them or just wants to chime in.

On a side note, I think my brain has been conditioned to think a high powered/high current receiver has to weigh at least 30lbs. It seems weird to me to be looking at a high current receiver that only weighs 22-24lbs.

I purchased a HK digitial receiver about 6 months ago. I can't remember the number on it, maybe a 100 series? It was a couple of years old but had been floating around for a great price. It was new out of the box though. The wattage was not 120 like yours. I think it was in the 60-80 watt range. I know this is all sketchy, but the bottom line was, I thought at the higher listening levels on my M60's it was very shrill and harsh to my ears. I posted about it when I had gotten it. I sent it back. I purchased a NAD 352 at 80 wpc for two channel music instead.
I'm just trying to give you one man's opinion, not rain on your new purchase. By the way, the weight of the one I had was no where near regular recievers.

Thanks for your input Todd. The HK 635 that I have is not a digital receiver. I was just thinking about getting a digital one instead. The two digital receivers HK is currently selling are the 1005 and the 2005. Perhaps yours was the 1005? Although I don't know how long the 1005/2005 have been on the market. The 1005 is supposed to be 70w/ch in both stereo and all channels driven. There is so little info around concerning them. I would be curious how many of them HK sells vs. their standard non-digital receivers and if there is a particular reason they don't sell as much.

I tend to always like more power. I've fried tweeters in speakers before by underpowering them and clipping. The Sony receiver was rated at 100wpc(yeah right) and would shut down if I turned the volume past 40% on the dial. The one time it didn't shut down the tweeters in both speakers went and the volume wasn't even that loud, so I guess Sony over rated the specs.

While too little power can kill a tweeter, to much power can kill a woofer, but I would bet a weeks pay you won't blow the woofers on the s8 with 120 watts.

To me it's always better to have too much power in an amp than to little.

TNT, Alan had some comments on digital receivers some time ago.
If you try searching for the terms then look for his post you might come across his thoughts.

Thanks guys.

For those interested in a follow up, Alan talks about the subject here:
www.axiomaudio.com/boards/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=tech&Number=33196&page=40&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&fpart=

and Alan has another comment on the second page. A couple of things I noticed. "That's all well and good if you start with a digital signal from a CD player or DVD player, but if you plug in an analog source, the audio signal goes through the A/D conversion. And in the final output stage, the digital signal is converted to an analog form, which must occur because current speakers only handle analog input signals."

Alan also mentions digital receivers generating as much heat as conventional receivers, that is also mentioned in a review on the HK 1005 here:
www.hometheatermag.com/receivers/405hk/