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Harman Kardon AVR 247 review: Harman Kardon AVR 247

The Harman Kardon AVR 247 is an authoritative piece of equipment with a smattering of usable features. It's a challenger for best receiver in its price range.

Ty Pendlebury Editor
Ty Pendlebury is a journalism graduate of RMIT Melbourne, and has worked at CNET since 2006. He lives in New York City where he writes about streaming and home audio.
Expertise Ty has worked for radio, print, and online publications, and has been writing about home entertainment since 2004. He majored in Cinema Studies when studying at RMIT. He is an avid record collector and streaming music enthusiast. Credentials
  • Ty was nominated for Best New Journalist at the Australian IT Journalism awards, but he has only ever won one thing. As a youth, he was awarded a free session for the photography studio at a local supermarket.
Ty Pendlebury
4 min read

Harman Kardon, while probably better known for its computer speakers, has been making stereo receivers for 50 years. The knowledge the company has gained from this experience has been poured into their latest -- the AVR 247. This receiver is a step up from the company's budget model -- the AVR 147 -- and may be one of their best yet.

8.0

Harman Kardon AVR 247

The Good

Excellent home theatre sound. Strong musical ability. Easy to use and setup. Video upscaling.

The Bad

Annoying remote. Lacks Blu-ray decoding. iPod dock not included.

The Bottom Line

The Harman Kardon AVR 247 is an authoritative piece of equipment with a smattering of usable features. It's a challenger for best receiver in its price range.

Design
The familiar, two-tone Harman Kardon colour scheme returns with the AVR 247. The volume knob -- a carry-on from their Jubilee model several years ago -- also makes a comeback and is less plasticky than before.

Having toted it in and out of taxis, we can attest that this receiver is a weighty beast -- it tips the scales at a hefty 13.4 kgs. There's plenty of copper peering up through the vents at you, and the quality of construction is so high that the overwhelming sense is one of reassurance. This looks, feels, and -- as we'll soon cover -- sounds like a serious piece of kit.

Our first impressions aren't all positive, though. The remote is not one of the better models the company has produced -- it has a mind-boggling 66 buttons with most huddled together in the bottom half. It's simply not very user-friendly.

One annoying remote quirk was that as soon as you press the Source buttons to change from CD to DVD, say, you'll find you can no longer control the volume. You have to change the input back to AVR if you want to change the volume or even mute. Without a display, it's difficult to tell which mode you're in until something doesn't work -- a little maddening.

Features
The receiver is getting quite old now -- it's been available for almost 12 months in some parts of the world -- and so some of the features you'll find in models like the Onkyo TX-SR605 are missing. The main one is support for the next-gen formats Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio which are starting to creep into receivers in this price range.

The HK does, however, offer Faroudja upscaling of analog sources -- though only up to 720p -- but given that many upscale solutions peter out at 1080i anyway, this isn't such a big negative.

Inputs are fairly limited given the price, but audio appears to have been designed to survive cataclysmic floods, with two of everything: two HDMI inputs, two optical inputs and two coaxial inputs.

The AVR 247 boasts a conservative 7 x 50W output with the company's own High Instantaneous Current Capability (HCC) feature. This means that the receiver has a lot of power on tap and can go terribly, terribly loud without failing and sending your neighbourhood into a nuclear winter.

The receiver is compatible with HK's "The Bridge" iPod dock, which is also one of the cheapest iPod receiver docks around at AU$99.

Another boon for home theatre enthusiast is the EzySet function, which does a pretty good job of automatically setting up your system. However, the microphone also shares the headphone port -- and once you're done you'll need to unplug it or you won't hear anything.

One thing that stands out if you're a heavy music listener, though, is the lack of a 'Source Direct' mode, which means that the receiver could potentially be prone to interference from the video circuits.

Performance
One of the first things we did when we unpacked the AVR 247 was to plug in the luxurious-looking microphone and set the calibration process in motion. After a minute or two of loud static, it seemed to be ready. However, the trusty foyer scene from the The Matrix was a little too sibilant on first calibration and the bass a little too indistinct. After placing the microphone closer to the listening position and calibrating again, we found surround effects such as falling bullet casings and footsteps were precisely placed. Bass was also tight and synchronised. Microphone placement is key -- put it as close to where your ears will be as possible.

We then ran a procession of TV and movies through the receiver -- The Fellowship of the Ring's Bridge of Khazadum sequence, for example -- it exhibited the appropriate degree of menace and rumbling bass. Dialogue in particular was very good regardless of the source. Whether it was Foxtel or DVD, it sounded clear and intelligible.

Though the receiver is only rated at 50W per channel, we were able to go very loud with only a trace of harshness, while the bass remained tight. Harman Kardon are justifiably proud of their high-current design and we didn't experience any problems running B&W's difficult DM602.5 speakers.

Being music fans and given HK's reputation, we were eager to see how the receiver performed with some of our favourite tunes. We tested it using both the onboard DAC of the machine, as well as the analog output of an older Pioneer player which offers very good CD playback. On average we found the Pioneer had better detail overall, while the HK had a lot more warmth and better stereo imaging.

The amp's performance really impressed us with that old chestnut, Nick Cave and the Bad Seed's Red Right Hand. It definitely sounded larger than the speakers. The HK generated an amazing sense of space that filled the entire listening area. When a system gets this song right, it ensnares you in its grip and the menace was so intense that we felt more than a little short of breath afterwards. On the other hand, however, straight-up rock wasn't as convincing -- the Hives seemed sapped of some of their usual vigour.

The HK AVR 247 also offers upsampling of music and when engaged it seemed to physically shift the sound upwards in the listening plane. It offers a fatter midrange overall and a tighter bass. Music listeners may want to leave this on all the time as the effect is very pleasant.