high current AV receivers

krabby5 · February 2006

WHat is the actual difference between a receiver that uses high current vs others...?

for example....A HK AVR 435 has 65 watts x 7

My Kenwood uses 100 watts x 6

I'm trying to figure out if it would be worth it to get the HK for $549 (msrp of $999)

or just keep my Kenwood VR-6070 that is only a couple years old

ND13 · February 2006

The HK will blow away that KW and is a REAL 65x7 if not a little more. That's with all channels driven at full range, where the KW is most likely only putting out about 40% of it's rated power with all channels driven at full range.

Check out J&R for the HK prices and also consider getting one of the refurbs. They come with a warranty and usually are steals. Several of the guys have gotten refurbs direct from Harman and have been more than pleased. I'm sure one of them will chime in soon.

kingsqueak · February 2006

I just upgraded from an older Kenwood that was a Pro Logic rated at 100Wx5 according to the manual specs. I went to a Harman Kardon 435 rated at 65Wx7 on good faith, between reviews and the fact that years ago I always liked their high end receivers.

The difference was night and day, as though I got a new set of speakers in the deal. The Kenwood had to be run at 73 out of a max of 78 for volume, for a similar level with the Harman, I run it at -24db. The Harman has headroom miles beyond the Kenwood and the clarity and overall quality to the sound isn't even worth comparing, the HK blows the Kenwood away.

I did the ebay/Harmanaudio.com refurb route, waited patiently and got a decent deal. The shipper is sloow, took six business days but the product was in perfect condition.

If you want the on-screen display to show over component output and you want scaling in your video sources, go with the 635. If you don't mind running a second input for composite for the on-screen display to the TV and don't need the AVR to do any scaling of signals, the 435 is great. I'm very happy with mine, having all the digital inputs is great.

krabby5 · February 2006

I'm thinking you were blown away more from the fact that you went from pro logic to Dolby digital...

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the HK is better than my Kenwood, but when I replaced my JVC, that was also pro logic, with the Kenwood, the Kenwood blew that JVC away as well..

Mike Sedai · February 2006

I just purchased an AVR 630 from Harman Audio, and, despite the fact that I had to send it back for a faulty right front channel, it still totally blew away by Sony 100W receiver it is replacing.

the amp section quality alone should make all the difference for anyone looking for quality output, and even though the H/K was rated 25W per channel lower, it had a ton of headroom left when I brough **** up to listening levels.

As for the right front issue, harmanAudio dispatched paid shipping labels pretty quickly and it's already on it's way back, and they have a different unit ready to ship as soon as my return arrives.

So, my opinion of H/K? Clearly the stuff is quality, and seeing as how everyone else seems to not have any problems with their H/K stuff, I would think I just probably got a lemon. Add the fact that I got a receiver that lists at 1199 for 498 bucks, I guess I can't complain.... that is unless the next one has a blown channel as well...

Again, though, the quality of the amp sections and the DACs make the H/K stuff a wise choice if you can get one for a good price.

speakergeek · February 2006

H/K's claim of +/- 50 amps of instantaneous current is a bunch of hooey though. And their stuff is buggy.

2+2 · February 2006

speakergeek wrote:

H/K's claim of +/- 50 amps of instantaneous current is a bunch of hooey though. And their stuff is buggy.

Mind if I ask for clarification?

heiney9 · February 2006

speakergeek wrote:

H/K's claim of +/- 50 amps of instantaneous current is a bunch of hooey though. And their stuff is buggy.

This is probably true. Current is generated by the power supply and the voltage on the suppy rails and the related load (I= V/R). I somehow doubt 50A of instantaneous current is available (perhaps across all channels). But we all have different definitions of instantaneous. I suspect some type of current limiting device would severly clip the wave long before 50A of current is generated (in each channel). Again this may be plausable if the 50A is the sum of all 5 channels. It's certainly possible to have 10A peak per channel as that's not unreasonable, but probably not all at once. Again the load is the BIG variable here.

H9

heiney9 · February 2006

^not debating about H/K being the better choice over some others like Kenwood, Sony, Yamaha, etc. Just doubting the claim. They are solid performers and probably have more head room just because they rate their output section more realistically than some of the others.

2+2 · February 2006

Speakergeek and H9, I believe the operative word is "instantaneous"..I am thinking reserves and capacitors.

I am not saying I know for a fact that HK is accurate in their ampere ratings. However, they have been proven to be accurate in their wattage ratings. Why would they lie about something that is not even measured or published by the competitors? That would be strange. If anything, they should lie about the watt output...just like everyone else...

drew spelts · February 2006

Ahhh screw it, I have the HK avr 635and could not be happier with the quality and tweek factor.

heiney9 · February 2006

2+2 wrote:

Speakergeek and H9, I believe the operative word is "instantaneous"..I am thinking reserves and capacitors.

I am not saying I know for a fact that HK is accurate in their ampere ratings. However, they have been proven to be accurate in their wattage ratings. Why would they lie about something that is not even measured or published by the competitors? That would be strange. If anything, they should lie about the watt output...just like everyone else...

And like I said...it depends on how you view instantaneous. 50A is alot of current and whlie mathematically it's possible, I just don't see any benefit to printing that. It would be next to impossible to duplicate it a real world setting. So theoretically yes, realistically no. Then again how does one define the word instantaneous? 1ms, .5ms, .05ms and if it is defined, what's its relation to the signal it's trying to reproduce?

If the signal it's trying to reproduce needs to sustain the peak for 1ms to accurately represent the signal and the unit is only capable of .5ms of peak power....then what? Without defineing the parameters it means nothing. So then we use our common sense and knowledge of audio and decide 50A is a lot of current and if it can in fact produce that peak it's probably not long enough to be of any benefit in real world use.

That's where my logic is coming from.

H9

kingsqueak · February 2006

krabby5 wrote:

I'm thinking you were blown away more from the fact that you went from pro logic to Dolby digital...

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the HK is better than my Kenwood, but when I replaced my JVC, that was also pro logic, with the Kenwood, the Kenwood blew that JVC away as well..

Nope, it's completely obvious in good old two-channel playing CD's. The digital audio connects with Logic7 is just another bonus layer.

What I don't have offhand is the exact Kenwood model I owned, but it was consumer level crap for sure. The HK quality is much closer to receivers like NAD where the Sony (consumer, not ES) and Kenwood receivers I've owned were nowhere close.

speakergeek · February 2006

speakergeek wrote:

H/K's claim of +/- 50 amps of instantaneous current is a bunch of hooey though.

Please read in support of my statement.

http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/audioprinciples/amplifiers/HighCurrentAmps.php

2+2 · February 2006

Interesting read...not sure I follow everything but essentially, they are saying that current does not matter since modern speakers do not operate in those low impedence levels...but I didn't think that was the point about wattage and ampere ratings as not much power is really needed for normal listening...after all, who listens at full 200watts? I thought it was about reserves and capacity...I also found it interesting that his conclusion is that watts is the only way to measure performance of an amp...strange...

speakergeek · February 2006

2+2 wrote:

they are saying that current does not matter since modern speakers do not operate in those low impedence levels...

Not really. Just that the high INSTANTANEOUS measurement is meaningless.

aaharvel · February 2006

2+2 wrote:

Speakergeek and H9, I believe the operative word is "instantaneous"..I am thinking reserves and capacitors.

I am not saying I know for a fact that HK is accurate in their ampere ratings. However, they have been proven to be accurate in their wattage ratings. Why would they lie about something that is not even measured or published by the competitors? That would be strange. If anything, they should lie about the watt output...just like everyone else...

exactly

aaharvel · February 2006

speakergeek wrote:

Please read in support of my statement.

http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/audioprinciples/amplifiers/HighCurrentAmps.php

according to this guy having higher amounts of current in the amp stages does nothing in the way of performance. That is his thesis statement revisted in the last paragraph:

"From the math and what we know about the basics of how amplifier and loudspeakers perform we can now conclude that High Instantaneous Current is a non-issue and it has no application to driving contemporary and even most of the not so contemporary loudspeakers."

Whatever... :rolleyes:
he's right on about wattage ratings though. :cool:

heiney9 · February 2006

2+2 wrote:

Interesting read...not sure I follow everything but essentially, they are saying that current does not matter since modern speakers do not operate in those low impedence levels...but I didn't think that was the point about wattage and ampere ratings as not much power is really needed for normal listening...after all, who listens at full 200watts? I thought it was about reserves and capacity...I also found it interesting that his conclusion is that watts is the only way to measure performance of an amp...strange...

I'm really not meaning to be arguementative here, but you missed the point of the article. Nowhere did he say current doesn't matter

While there were many other things they didn't touch on, the article was specifically about high instantaneous current measurements. What the article tried to show is the mathematics involved and how theoretically high instantaneous current can be measured but based on principles of electricity and an AVR with limited capabilities and design compromises it's not a rating/spec that can be used in the real world. Which is what I mentioned in an earlier post, so this just reiterates that. He's also talking about HT which is multi channel and only so much current can be generated using a small transfomer and very modest caps considering everything else the rec has to do.

Point is, 50A instantaneous is a bit ambitious for a run of the mill AVR receiver. H/K's are very well built, sound nice, and are probably the better of the receivers mentioned in this thread.

H9

heiney9 · February 2006

It's not so much that H/K is LYING they are just using a specification that is meaningless in real world applications.

speakergeek · February 2006

heiney9 wrote:

It's not so much that H/K is LYING they are just using a specification that is meaningless in real world applications.

Not a lie, just extreme EXAGERATION.

aaharvel · February 2006

I go by the less is more approach. If a receiver from a respected audio company offers less wattage than it's competitors yet meets/exceeds those specs with ALL channels driven (20hz-20khz simult.), has a larger power supply, and weighs more than the others.. then that tells me that this company knows wtf they're doing, and that's good enough for me. The 'current' spec is just icing on the cake.

And i'm tired of having cake with no icing.
Go Harman.

2+2 · February 2006

Heiney, not trying to be argumentative either and I agree with your statement as to what the article says but I guess I just dont follow the reasoning. If current does matter (instantaneous or continuous), then to me, it would seem having high instantaneous current capacity is probably a better indicator of the robustness of the entire system than something with little to no current capacity (once again, instantaneous or not).

BTW, what you are saying (that instantaneous current is not relevant) is something different than speaker geek appears to be saying (that the measurements are misrepresentative)...my inquiry to speaker geek was regarding his belief on misrepresentation by HK...
peace out

Lowell_M · February 2006

Krabby5...get all that?....Buy an HK, you won't be dissappointed. I'm getting one soon I hope...

high current AV receivers

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