Harman/Kardon DVD 22 and AVR 330

Pimp my ride

By Jamie Gemming

January 2005

Harman Kardon DVD 22 and AVR 330. $699 and $1999.

The start of 2 Fast 2 Furious is set at night and features a pimped-out Nissan Skyline GTR speeding through Miami. Attached to the GTR’s chassis are blue neon lights which radiate from underneath the metallic silver car. This is exactly what the Harmon/Kardon AVR 330 receiver looks like - staunch and bling. The bottom half is silver with the top half being dark tinted glass. Switched off it looks good enough to win over even the most hi-fi unreceptive partner. Switch it on and she will be asking you why you didn't buy the matching DVD player as well!

When switched on, a cool blue display illuminates showing the usual input and surround mode details, but it's the hollow volume knob that steals the show. I can’t think of a better way to describe it other than the volume knob looks like a giant silver wedding band stuck onto the top right hand side of the receiver allowing the same dark tinted glass to show through the centre. I’ve been turning the power on, just to see the inner circumference glowing blue.

Watts aren’t everything

Harman/Kardon rates the receiver at only 7x55 watts which on the face of it seems very limp-wristed for a receiver costing $1,999. But the amplifier is of a high current nature and weighs in at 14kg, which is very similar to 100 watt receivers in the same price bracket. The AVR 330 comes stacked with plenty of input and output options to play with. Around the back it has two component video inputs and an output, four s-video and composite inputs, and two outputs of each. Annoyingly, the receiver does not up-convert signals from the lower two types to component.

Audio-wise it sports the usual red and white inputs to go with each of the video inputs plus it has two optical and two coaxial inputs as well as an output of each. Multi-channel audio is catered for with 7.1 inputs for all you SACD and DVD-A converts. The amp also sports seven pairs of colour-coded banana plug binding posts which make installation a breeze.

Back around to the pretty side, if you remove the little silver covers you’ll see the most comprehensive set of front inputs I have ever had the privilege sticking my bits into. The usual AV inputs are present, plus an s-video input. On top of that both digital audio options are accommodated.

The receiver features a very handy automated set up mode called EzSet. The remote control has a microphone built into it and which measures and adjusts the speaker output. This is an excellent feature but I found the automated set up a little more cumbersome to use than the Yamaha RX750 I reviewed previously.

While the automated set up may have been overshadowed by the Yamaha, its audio performance definitely wasn’t. I was impressed with the definition and intensity in my favourite action scenes. Be it gun battles and car chases of Bad Boys II, the Omaha landing in Saving Private Ryan or X-Wings mixing it with TIE fighters in Return of the Jedi, the AVR 330 was unfazed and simply brilliant. The Harman/Kardon was equally talented with music as it was with movies. While it had quality bass performance, the powerful upper end and mid range really impressed me. Voices and different instruments had good separation producing warm, relaxed music.

Partner in crime

As mentioned earlier, the DVD 22 has the same great looking silver and black appearance as the receiver. The player boasts component, s-video, composite and even scart outputs, plus the usual digital and analogue audio outs.

In the name of domestic harmony, the DVD 22 spent most of its time feeding images via a composite lead into my TV, which surprisingly gave a noticeably better picture than my similarly priced Phillips player. But given any small window of opportunity the DVD player would soon find itself feeding my Panasonic AE-500 projector using component leads. This is where the DVD 22 really impressed. Colours were natural and images were very smooth. It is easily the best picture that I have seen out of my projector to date. The only real negative I found was the lack of digital output but this shouldn't faze those without a monitor that accepts those inputs anyway.

The AVR 330 and DVD 22 make a pretty sweet combination. They not only score points for great audio/visual performance and top features - but even more importantly, domestic acceptance will not be a problem due to their stunning good looks.

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