# AVR 8000 Died last night



## davesspeed (Aug 8, 2013)

I woke up on the couch in the early morning and smelled burnt electrical. I went around the room and tried to locate its source to no avail. When I turned on my Hardon Kardon AVR 8000 today it just flashes the display then turns itself back off, then I smell that burnt electrical odor again. :hissyfit:

You know electricity runs on smoke, the insulation is there to hold it in. When the smoke comes out everything quits working. And so it is with my old friend the AVR 8000.

So, is it worth having someone look at it, or is it time for an upgrade? It is a monster of an amp, it also drives a zone 2 through an Adcom amp to my backyard/pond area. It drives my Paradym Studio 80's to produce deep tones even at low volumes. I use Mini Monitors for the rear stage and even at lower volumes you get great deep effects. On the top end it is more than I need, I live in a modular home. You can't turn it up enough to create distortion, it just gets too loud to stand. Which is good, as my wife tends to not notice things like distortion and will turn things up to the point where it sounds real bad to me. She also hates the HK remote with all its buttons. And I have to change the HDMI signal at the TV. Which does not bother me, but she still can't seem to master.

So maybe it is time for an upgrade, maybe I should have it looked at, what do you think? I am sure there is a lot better technology out there to deal with the newer signal formats. Sometimes when watching the satelite TV, they will change the format, and then the amp will not recognize the change and so will stop playing until you either turn it on/off, or scroll through the formats to make it look at the signal coming in. I don't want to go backwards with sound quality or having enough power to drive my speakers adequately. What would be a good replacement for around a grand?


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## Philm63 (Jan 1, 2015)

I picked up a new Denon AVR 4520CI for a grand on Accessories4Less. Might be a good place to start your search if you plan to replace the ol' HK. That unit had a lot of nice features, but there are also a lot of nice (and newer) features on the 4520 - it's a workhorse. Looks like it's coming in at $1099 right now - NEW.

Unless you're also looking at Atmos or other newer technologies...


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## davesspeed (Aug 8, 2013)

I have been looking at all the new technology available today and think it is time for an upgrade. I think I do want Atmos and DTS, I told the wife " all we need is more speakers". She thinks the system is too big already. My problem is the ceiling is not flat but slightly angled. However, If I can get her to let me reverse the seating arrangement in the living room I could put the couch under the peak of the ceiling and put the ceilling speakers on either side of the peak firing towards the listening position. This position is also an area of increased bass intensity which could be good or bad. Unfortunately, I have a nasty 34 Hz response peak at that area I have to tame with the parametric on my SVS sub. 

I asked her what she thought about reversing the room the other day and she did not think it is fung schwey enough. She moves the room around to make it look nicer, I make decisions based on acoustics. I will come home and find the living room moved around, she will ask me how it looks, It looks great honey, but sonically it's a disaster. At least she does not move my speakers around anymore. 

I have been looking at all the new AVR's available and have determined that I might have to double my budget. Since there are new HDMI standards as well as DT X coming out I should really wait. I hate to be the one purchasing new technology before it is proven out. Onkyo has some impressive Hardware and features, but their room correction software is not that great and it is only 7 channels. HK looks to have gone down the drain. Marantz has XT 32 but not DTS yet. The only receiver that has everything including a Phono input is the Yamaha 3050 which is not quite out yet. This is going to take some time. I guess I will have to hook up my old 5.1 Yamaha AVR for the time being. It does not have the gusto to drive my Paradym Studio 80's properly though it would be better than the TV speakers. I guess I could route the front stage through my adcom amp, though the studio CC might need more. 

At least I get to look forward to tweaking on my HT system.


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## Philm63 (Jan 1, 2015)

davesspeed said:


> ...She moves the room around to make it look nicer, I make decisions based on acoustics. I will come home and find the living room moved around, she will ask me how it looks, It looks great honey, but sonically it's a disaster. At least she does not move my speakers around anymore.


You could always teach her how to use whatever room correction your AVR has and run some scans in REW each time she decides to "rearrange" the living room... Imagine coming home one day and she says "Look honey; the living room looks so much better, and look at these graphs!"

No?


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## davesspeed (Aug 8, 2013)

That would make my day! But she hates the noises I make when I run REW. I have to run it when she is not home. It took years to get her to quit moving my speakers. It is not easy to move Studio 80's with carpet spikes on the bottom, but she did. Finally she bought some furniture from a lady in town and together they moved them. The lady came back a few days later and I told her that I could not believe they moved my speakers and that it takes a lot of time for me to get them right. So she told my wife that she should have told her to not mess with my speakers, and that guys have their things and girls theirs and so she should not be messing with them. Ever since she has not moved them. She complains about it, but she does not move them, thank god!


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