Got my HK AVR8000 from OneCall (1 Viewer)

[alan_dana]

Count me in with those who just picked up the 8000 from OneCall and who got a Jan 2002 model with the center channel buzz.

Bummer!

I read on AVSforum that a lot of people are getting these. And have been getting them since OneCall started running promotions on them a couple of months ago.

I really thought OneCall could be trusted more than to be shipping defective units for 2 months now.

Alan

PS And the little Mannheim Steamroller bonus package was not included either.

 

[Wes King]

No bonus Mannheim Steamroller package in mine either.

 

[alan_dana]

I'm sitting 8' from the center speaker, reading a book. The 8000 is on, but nothing is playing. I can hear the slight buzz and it is annoying. I'm not going to be able to leave the unit on when not in use.

Alan

 

[Russell _T]

Mike Up,
The reason people are still going with them is that anytime someone sees a product advertised for over 60% less than MSRP, they perceive it as incredible bargain and can't resist even if the original price was absurdly high. The H/K 8000 has an MSRP of $2800.00, but at $1200.00, you can bet they are still making a profit, so the real worth of a unit like this is probably right around the $1200.00 mark. You generally get what you pay for. In Econmics this is called the TANSTAFL Principle or "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch."

 

[Gianni]

For those of you debating whether to keep those new HK's consider this:

Just got back from shopping, happened to run across some HK
receivers. This store had most of the lineup, the out going x20's and the new x25's and the 8000. One thing really struck me. All of the units were badly chipped around the cut outs for the jacks and along the line of selector buttons on the face. None of the others, Onkyo, Sony, Yamaha showed any evidence of this.

These units looked like hell, miss the jack,lightly scrape the edge of the cut out and you have a nice nick (gouge).
Everyone of these units looked awful. I'm sorry but the front face plates and buttons on the HK's are JUNK! Period.

Too bad. They are good products. Why in the world didn't HK do at least an average job with the face plate. Can you say EL Cheapo? These face plates are not worthy of these products. Or is this a sign of things to come?

 

[Dodie]

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I am a little frusturated about this whole thing but it sure is a good deal even with the humming. I was just ready to sit down and tinker and test for about 8 hours!
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It will never be a good deal unless you are really 100% satisfied. Even if you paid a product less 90% but deep inside you are not satisfied, still you are not happy with it. Is there any way that we can have Onecall or Harman Kardon be liable of selling those defective receivers? Since both Onecall and Harmon already knew about this problem and STILL dump all this receivers out in the market. Can we report this kind of problems to the Better Business Bureau or any other gov't office? Anyway goodluck to all of you who bought those defective receivers and I hope they can fix it.

 

[alan_dana]

Russ,

You are overstating your case. The HK 8000's list price was a bit artificial as HK never intended for it to be sold at $2799. However the intended store price for it was $2499 and they sold thousands of them at between $2200-$2500. The only reason it is $1200 now is because it is being closed out and new technology is rushing in.

Up to a few months ago, the dealer wholesale price on the 8000 was well over $1200.

With the continued advancements in the processing stage of AVR receivers, all receivers discount heavily as they age and roll off the edge of the table. The same for preamp/processors.

One need only take a glance at the power amp in the 8000 to see that it was far better built than the typical $1200 receiver in 2001 & early 2002.

HK is handled in my town by a high-end audio shop that also sells Martin-Logan, Thiel, Krell, Sonic Frontiers, and B&K to name a few of their lines. The store owner conducted a "shoot-out" a few months ago between the B&K AVR307 vs the HK AVR8000, using $15,000 of M-L speakers, and concluded that the 307 was just a hair better. Both of them drove the difficult load M-L speakers much better than typical HT receivers.

I do agree with Gianni that the brushed metal faceplates found on many other receivers look nicer & hold up better. Not that one is likely to beat up their own receiver at home.

For another opinion on the 8000, people can look up the October 2002 Sound & Vision review.

Alan

 

[jeff_coil]

Hmmm I just noticed that onecall dropped thier price to 1229 from 1439 this afternoon!

 

[Rick_FL]

For those of you debating whether to keep those new HK's consider this:

Just got back from shopping, happened to run across some HK
receivers. This store had most of the lineup, the out going x20's and the new x25's and the 8000. One thing really struck me. All of the units were badly chipped around the cut outs for the jacks and along the line of selector buttons on the face. None of the others, Onkyo, Sony, Yamaha showed any evidence of this.

These units looked like hell, miss the jack,lightly scrape the edge of the cut out and you have a nice nick (gouge).
Everyone of these units looked awful. I'm sorry but the front face plates and buttons on the HK's are JUNK! Period.

Too bad. They are good products. Why in the world didn't HK do at least an average job with the face plate. Can you say EL Cheapo? These face plates are not worthy of these products. Or is this a sign of things to come?

I'd rather take a cheaper faceplate is that means getting better internals. I mean once I put the thing in my rack I hardly ever touch it again. I think HK receivers are classic looking from the front, although the big gold buttons in the front are kind of gaudy looking with a junky tactile feedback to them. HK really skimped on the heatsinks they use in many of their models as well. They are paper thin. They are mass produced, I'd expect some cost cutting.

 

[DanielStephens]

I actually thought my faceplate was beat up when I got it until I removed the plastic protector cover and then it was nice and pretty after that - so this may be what you were seeing. Still in the shop though .......

 

[David Proud]

I was going to upgrade to the HK8000 but Looks like I will keep my Denon AVR-4800 and upgrade to monoblocks in the front soundstage and reassign the amps to the rear and side channels.

honestly can the Harmon Kardon even compete with the Denon THX 4800 on the side and rear channels? I doubt it has the amplification power and quality put in the Denons.

 

[AntonS]

Just want to add my $.02. I have a Jan 2002 built receiver(never new it until I read the thread), which I bought around July. There is no hum from center channel whatsoever, but the difference is that I'm running a separate amp. Maybe one day when I have time I'll connect the internal center channel amp and see if it hums.

 

[Bill Toth]

I guess I have the "dreaded" hiss in my 8000 center channel. So I guess I will be cursed by not being able to sit less that 6" from my center channel with no signal and enjoy the quiet!

Seriously, if somebody passes on this excellent receiver because of this non-problem, you're missing out on a great piece of machinery at an amazing price. The "Hiss" is TOTALLY unhearable at more than one foot, and with essentially any live signal level at all. Truely falls into "ni-picking".

 

[Brett DiMichele]

I don't own an H/K and I am not planning on buying one
either or any other Receiver "right now" for that matter.

So my opinion is in general..

If I bought a flagship receiver from a company and it
hissed from the center channel from 6 to 12" away with no
source running yes I would be pissed to the 9th degree.

In this day and age there is NO excuse for a "well known"
electronics company to release a faulty piece of electronics
and this problem is a true electronics problem reguardless
if you can hear it from 8' away or not...

When my Onk 787 is in any mode without any source playing
I get NO sound no hiss no nothing, Even on the Phono In
with the Needle sitting exposed at REF I get nadda!

I would probably never buy another H/K Product if this
happened to me.. Just like after the fiasco with the Sony
DVP S-360 and S-560 DVD Players dying practically the day
the warranty ran out.. I had one, I pawned it off before it
died and I won't give Sony another chance.

The only way a consumer can force a manufacturer to make a
better product is to simply stop giving them your hard earned
money.

Deal or no deal a grand is a grand and you could spend that
money on other well known quality Receivers.

That is my $0.02

 

[Russell _T]

Brett,
All receivers will produce some noise. If you have NO noise from your receiver or preamp, it most likely employs a muting circuit, and many do. I think H/K is one of them. However if it doesn't, noise shouldn't be audible unless you have your ear to the tweeter, or have the volume cranked to the max with no source playing. If you can plainly hear it, then either the unit is defective, or it has a poor noise floor, neither or which is acceptable acceptable. Even cheap SS electronics should be able to manage a decent noise floor these days.

 

[alan_dana]

The "hiss" or "buzz" is low level. And it is inaudible with any music being played. I'm sure many people have it and don't even know it. With any noise in the room, I can't hear it from more than a couple of feet away. But in a quiet room, like my house was late last night. I easily heard it from 8' away.

This may be dependent upon one's center channel. The more efficient the speaker, the louder the buzz will be.

It is annoying to hear a new piece of equipment emitting higher than acceptable levels of noise. The other four channels are much quieter. And this channel should be quieter, and is from other production runs. This is a defect and many people don't like receiving defective equipment.

Another forum posted the Harman Kardon technical support number 1-800-422-8027. If anyone is annoyed by the noise, they should call and report it. This could lead to a fix being sent out to their authorized repair centers. Then stomping out the noise could be done with a quick trip to the repair shop. This would be much better than each shop trying to isolate the problem.

Alan

 

[Gabriel_Lam]

I'd definitely call Harman if you got one that had a problem and was bothered by the buzz.

As a side note, OneCall gets these directly from H/K, and this latest shipment JUST got there recently. They sell them too fast to have loads of stock on hand, they just keep going out the door. Their last shipment from H/K was received 2-3 days after they ran out of stock on 11/20, and before that, 10/8.

 

[Bruce.sb]

Though im sure Gabrial is right-- that onecall goes through shipment after shipment--2 about this bothers me

1. Onecall had this problem with batches going out as far back as early summer-- read the avsforum-- then a few sales ago-- and now-- they know there is this problem yet they just let the units go-- if it was my company i would tell HK-- sure we will sell your stuff but nothing from batch "X"(jan-02) cause we know they have problems and we dont want to mess up our good name with your bad products.

and 2.
It would seem to be the only place i hear having these troubles with the avr8000 is Onecall-- i dont hear it about j&r and other places--- it would be easy for me to conclude that Onecall is the place that HK has decided-- we can DUMP these units and not care.They know that its much more of a hassle for us(the consumer) to return these units from the net,having to send them back and all involved--instead of the units from a local retailer where we could just walk back in and say -- here-- this is not working right-- please give me a new one..

With both of these thoughts-- it all stinks-- im very sorry i bought my unit from these Onecall.com-- and to be honest i do web work as a living--it might be time to do a onecall-sucks.com site-- it will come up in the search engines right after the onecall site and can let others know to the scam going on along with have onecall loose some sales-- they want to F#$k with me--i can bite back...whew got that off my chest--lol-- now with that said-=happy holidays to you guys

 

[Ahmose]

Bruce,
Right-on... I like the onecall-sucks.com idea

Is there anything else that we can do other than the call the 800 number, ship it back etc....
Is the better business bureau or anything like that going to do anything worthwhile.
At least we can prevent other innocent people from falling in that H/K 8000 Onecall trap...

 

[AntonS]

It would seem to be the only place i hear having these troubles with the avr8000 is Onecall-- i dont hear it about j&r and other places--- it would be easy for me to conclude that Onecall is the place that HK has decided

That's an interesting thought. As I wrote earlier, my receiver is also dated Jan 2002, but I bought it earlier and not from OneCall. It does not have any buzz.

Can anybody who bought H/K 8000 not from OneCall confirm if they have or don't have the buzz?

Disclaimer: Although I said my unit does not buzz, I still have to check if with the internal center channel amp. Maybe I'll do it this weekend.

Btw, maybe I missed something and it's been done already, but can those of you who do have the buzz reassign the amps and see what's the source of the buzz - preamps or the center amp?