I purchased this, my first HK 3 weeks ago, being the DVD49. The internal Audio D/A of the DVD49 (analogue output) is the best I heard in any commercial playback device - but here the complements end.
Mechanical - Apart from HK's non-conformance to the industry standard 19" wide design, the ... Read review
Advantages: Best of industry digital-to-analog conversion, especially DVD-A and SACD Disadvantages: The audio interface is sub-standard for Harman Kardon
I purchased this, my first HK 3 weeks ago, being the DVD49. The internal Audio D/A of the DVD49 (analogue output) is the best I heard in any commercial playback device - but here the complements end.
Mechanical - Apart from HK's non-conformance to the industry standard 19" wide design, the design of the CD drawer is the worst I have ever seen. There is no damping whatsoever and the drawer runs into the stops at full speed on open ... ...to fail.
Audio Digital - All three of the HDMI, Optical and Coax digital outputs render a 1 second dropout within 5 - 45 second of starting a new track on skip forward on every 3rd or 4th track. This is totally unacceptable.
All Audio outputs - a very annoying click happen every time a track is skipped or fast forwarded - this is indicative of sloppy design practice on the audio output stages, both analogue and digital more
I purchased this, my first HK 3 weeks ago, being the DVD49. The internal Audio D/A of the DVD49 (analogue output) is the best I heard in any commercial playback device - but here the complements end.
Mechanical - Apart from HK's non-conformance to the industry standard 19" wide design, the design of the CD drawer is the worst I have ever seen. There is no damping whatsoever and the drawer runs into the stops at full speed on open and close - this will most definitely cause the device to fail.
Audio Digital - All three of the HDMI, Optical and Coax digital outputs render a 1 second dropout within 5 - 45 second of starting a new track on skip forward on every 3rd or 4th track. This is totally unacceptable.
All Audio outputs - a very annoying click happen every time a track is skipped or fast forwarded - this is indicative of sloppy design practice on the audio output stages, both analogue and digital
There is non-existent fade-in / fade out or at least some form of ramping on the audio signal on track movement. This is most irritating.
