Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Denon Vs. Harman Kardon

ok, i will eventually be getting a new receiver, so im starting the research now...so far i am looking at the Harman Kardon AVR-635 and the Denon 2805, they both seem relativly the same, for aorund the same cost, which is better? anyone have some pro's and con's to each? thanks alot for any help

darren
I have the 2805 and I like it very much, but if I had to do all over again I would go for the H/K 635 for two reasons.
1. The H/K has more crossover options than the Denon.
2. From what I've read, the new H/K auto eq works much better than the Denons auto eq.

The only thing I find useful on the Denons auto setup is that it sets the distance and db levels for each speaker well.

Hope that helps.

Darren, I'll again ditto Brady on the two features that he describes. Basically these two receivers(and others with similar specs)will both give you audibly transparent amplification, so choose the features that you want.

Denons are elegant, feature-rich, relatively friendly and have a more traditional range of bass management options (better than HK in some ways). The 3805 has a really slick remote, far better than anything from HK.

HKs are sort of basic, brute-force powerful, and don't have a lot of features except for the multiple-crossover bass management. Oh yeah, and the styling is kind of industrial cool with a spiffy blue LED inside the volume control.

I bought the HK and would probably do so again if it were stolen, but I expect I would be real happy with the Denon as well.

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I bought the HK and would probably do so again if it were stolen.....

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Did I miss something? Do you live in a bad part of Canada/is that why you have guns pictured on the speakers? Or is that just to protect the Axioms?

I can't speak for the Denon 2805 but I own the HK 635 and I find it to be a fine receiver. Clear clean power, high current, sounds detailed and natural to my ears, and great crossover options. Very solid for under $800.

Well, I live in what now seems to be the most left wing part of Canada (Toronto / Ontario), where we believe in the essential goodness of people rather than rules and enforcement. Guns are evil, criminals are misunderstood...

Burglary and home invasions are becoming much more common, predictably. The guns are kept in a big honkin' vault but speakers and receiver have to stay outside where I can hear them.

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Burglary and home invasions are becoming much more common, predictably.

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John, the property crimes were at a 20 year low as of 2002. An increase of 4% doesn't say much when studying a long term trend.
For one i'm glad guns need to be stored in 10 inches of steel with child proof locks.

As for the other subject, i like H/K but they are expensive. I recently went looking for a very inexpensive receiver and H/K had nothing under $700 Cdn new. I think the choice for $400 will be a Pioneer. Yamaha receivers in the same price range do not have preouts for the addition of future amps.

Look at how much the HK630 weighs and how much the Denon 2805 weighs.

There's no competetion as to which puts out more power(denon usually overrates slightly, while HK is conservative). I'd say the 630 beats the 3805 in power output quite a bit, much less the 2805.

Multi channel bass management is cool, too.

While power ratings aren't all there is to it, that's all I can really point out here. If it means anything, my parents had a(for the time) "cheap" stereo system made by Denon in the early 70s. It still works.

Go for the one with more power.

kk, thnx much all for the suggestions, i think i might go hk, i like that cool industrial look as well, the grey will go well with my entertainment unit and desk (beech mdf, with galvanized fencepost legs)

>>John, the property crimes were at a 20 year low as of 2002. An increase of 4% doesn't say much when studying a long term trend.

Canada-wide the numbers have been trending down as you say. Toronto has been trending up in the last few years, however. I'll try to find some links.

>>For one i'm glad guns need to be stored in 10 inches of steel with child proof locks.

No argument there. I'm a big believer in safety, just not a big believer in pretending that more gun controls on the law-abiding will somehow reduce violent crime...

The trick with HK seems to be shopping the sales. Normal price on HK in Canada is painfully high, but Futureshop was selling 130s for under 300 when the new HK models came out.

ya, ill probably either wait till a huge sale (like $700 off) or make a quick trip accross the border and pick one up in detroit

Take the gun discussion to the water cooler, guys.

Well, it was a "guns and receivers" discussion if you look closely. Not a single post about *just* guns

I am not looking at the same models...but I picked the HK AVR7300 remanufactured for about 1050 US. Reason being...not only does it do 110/channel for 7.1 it also has up conversion via Faroujda on all video channels going out via component video out. Check it out at Harmans site.

Good Luck.

My 2 cents...which are worth exactly 2 cents... Canadian or American.

ya that thing is a beast, i dunno if i want to spend that much though... it goes for like $3000 cdn at futureshop lol...

Check HarmanAudio on Ebay. You can get it for 1k US....may be easier then you think. Half the price....from Harman direct. Factory remanufactured, full warranty.. They may work with you to get it to Canada...

BRIDGE. Major agreement on that! I'll leave the politics at that... to rest!! And for what it's worth, I love that H&K equipment, plenty of power-nice design, smooth action ... if you know what I mean! OK what the "Heck" I like Harmon Kardon eqipment also. The great thing is we love, listen, and enjoy our equipment, and the FREEDOM, to listen, and PROTECT it is why we are all very LUCKY to be in the US and/or Canada, and a LIMITED number of places on this universe, with that I am going to listen to some re-mastered Steeley Dan.

my sister got a used H/K 130, and i was extremely impressed with its performance. although this is the 'entry' model for H/K, it had a fair amount of options, and plenty of power. i am sure the 635 would be very impressive.

bigjohn

When I was looking it came down to Denon and HK as well... I went with the AVR630 cause I found a HK Offical Refurb on ebay for ~500$. There is no doubt the power ratings on HKs are done differently than every other mainstream manufacturer out there, ie extremely conservative.

wasnt there a link in this tread where you could get the referbished harmons? if not what is the link please.

www.harmanaudio.com

Also try the Harman Audio Ebay Store

I just bought a Denon 2105 with the auto setup. I was wondering if it really worked and could be trusted to set distances, levels, etc. What doesn't work well? Other than the distance and level settings, what else is it supposed to do/ Thanks for any input.. I'm a huge ebay fan so if this doesn't work out, I'll just sell it and buy a 2805 or something comparable.

The Denons also have what they call auto-EQ, where the built in equalizer is used to adjust frequency response, not just the levels and delays you mentioned. Not 100% sure if the 2105 has that feature though.

The nice thing about the auto-EQ seems to be that it can control the EQ center frequencies (which you can't do manually) and therefore has a better chance of matching your room response -- the bad thing is that any auto EQ is still a crapshoot w.r.t. whether or not it improves things.

Charles, your 2105 should work very well with calibrating the basic distance and level settings, which it does besides checking speaker connections. This calibration is likely to be at least as accurate as any manual calibration that you could do with the RS meter, etc. Some reports on other boards have been along the line that their manual calibration showed that the auto-cal was "only 1 dB off"; perhaps an unrealistic belief that their manual calibration was the more accurate one. Note in particular that the sub distance may be shown as several feet longer than that shown by tape measure. Tape measures lie!!...Just kidding, but the longer than physical distance may be correct if the sub crossover is in the circuit and is causing a delay of a few milliseconds, equivalent to a few feet. Just as an experiment you could try the distance calibration on the sub with your STF-2's crossover switched both in and out to see if the distance shown is different.

What is more controversial than auto-calibration is auto-room equalization(which the 2105 doesn't have)which some have found to be effective and others not. The 2805 and 3805 include it and the 4806 and 5805 include the more advanced Audyssey MultEq. HK 435s and 635s include another advanced eq system developed by Dr. Toole's group at Harman, which concentrates on bass frequencies, including the sub.

Great. Thanks for the info. Helps to know this before I hook it up and adjust it. I had to go out of town for work and just got back so maybe tomorrow night I can tackle it.

I have the HK 630. I bought right before the 635 came out. I think the only difference between the two is the addition of the auto setup feature. Either way, I love the HK 630. It powers my M80's just fine and sounds great.