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- Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 15 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
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2 out of 3 people found this review helpful
3.5 stars
"Great Entry Level Harman"
Pros: Plenty of inputs / outputs for most applications
Clear sound
Sharp looksCons: Serial Port for firmware upgrade (who has a serial cable anymore anyway?)
Summary: I do like this unit, it sounds great with my 5.1 CVHD speaker system from Cerwin Vega, but it's easier to write about what I don't like. For a receiver that was released in 2008 it should really have an iPod dock that both holds your iPod and charges it (even as an optional accesory (I don't believe that the AVR 254 is compatible with The Bridge II like the AVR 354), I don't need to have on screen display, I don't care if the remote controls the basic iPod functions, but the single stereo input is wholly inadequate, you should see how bad it looks to have my iPod laying on my TV stand with a USB cable coming from my PS3 and then the 1/8" wire going to the AVR254, aweful). I had this feature on a $400 DVD receiver / 5.1 speaker combo from Panasonic so I would have expected more from HK especially given the ubiquity of the iPod and the release date of the unit.
Limited Ipod connectivity
Now the firmware updates, you need to have an RS232 serial cable (which I don't), luckily I do have a computer next to my system but I can't update the firmware because HK decided to use an outdated method, they should have used the Ethernet cable for upgrades, which I still have no idea what purpose it serves.
I have not experienced the other problems with my PS3 that others have stated, it seems to work perfectly for both Bluray & PS3 games and the sound is awesome. Sometime the color appears a little dark which I did not experience when my PS3 was direct to the TV, but a few adjustments to the brightness fixed that issue.
Personally, I feel that for $600 I purchased an outdated receiver, although it has several pluses like the 3 HDMI inputs, it probably should have come with 4 (I only use 2 at the moment), also I have no way to hook my conputer up through the AVR254, and hence I have to go direct to the TV which makes my mp3s sound aweful on the 2 10 watt speakers that the TV came with, I could run audio out from the TV to one of the analog inputs I guess.
Bottom Line, if you use an iPod you should probably get the AVR 354 which come with The Bridge II (it still baffles me why HK would make an iPod adapter that is only compatible with one of their units) or if that is out of your price range you could find a slew of other brands that offer similar options for far less, unfortunately I prefer HK in general, so I got this unit.
Harman/Kardon AVR 254:
