Harman Kardon AVR 7000 Test Report

test report
AVR 7000 Digital Surround Receiver
H arman Kardon's new flagship A/V
receiver, the AVR 7000, is one
deep product — and I mean that
literally. It's no less than 20 inches
from front to back, which means
you'll need some serious shelving
for it to sit on. Otherwise, it's more or less
conventionally laid out, with a tall front
panel dominated by a multicolor display
and a single large volume knob. Its glossy
black-and-silver faceplate is handsome,
and its controls are conveniently arranged.
There are tone controls — something
you don't see on all receivers these days —
plus a headphone jack. But the 7000's
most interesting front-panel feature is one
you're unlikely to notice without carefully
reading the manual: the front A/V input,
typically used for a camcorder or game
console, can be configured as an A/V out-
put instead, for convenient dubbing of any
selected source to a portable A/V or audio
BY DANIEL KUMIN
Harman Kardon
recorder (like a MiniDisc or MP3 device).
You have to access a setup menu to make
this change (the receiver automatically
switches the connection back to input
mode when it's turned off), and an adjacent
LED turns from green to red to indicate
that the output mode is engaged. It's such a
handy idea, I can't imagine why nobody
thought of it before — at least I've never
encountered it.
Harman Kardon has endowed the AVR
7000 with the usual bazillion-jack rear
panel, including four digital audio inputs,
two component-video inputs, and one com-
ponent output, which lets you switch two
high-quality A/V sources like a DVD play-
er and a DTV tuner. Linked pre-out/line-in
jack pairs for all five channels plus a 5.1-
channel line input for an outboard decoder
or multichannel DVD-Audio or SACD
player earn the AVR 7000 an A grade in fu-
ture-proofing. It carries most of the other
usual flagship receiver features as well,
leading with the high-performance ampli-
fier section I've come to expect from Har-
man Kardon's top models.
The AVR 7000 has an unusual arrange-
ment of setup options. You can set certain
defaults independently for each input to be
recalled automatically every time the cor-
responding source is selected. The defaults
fast facts
RATED POWER 100 W x 5 into 8 ohms
from 20 Hz to 20 kHz with less than 0.07%
THD, channels driven individually
3
DIMENSIONS 17 ⁄ inches wide, 7
8
1
inches high, 20 ⁄ inches deep
2
49 pounds
WEIGHT
PRICE $1,799
MANUFACTURER Harman Kardon,
Dept. S&V, 250 Crossways Park Dr.,
Woodbury, NY 11797; phone, 800-422-8027;
Web, www.harmankardon.com
JULY/AUGUST 2000 47
5
⁄
8