I was going to buy an HK reciever, back when they were black, I liked the styling then, but too many bad memories from back when I bought my first ever reciever, the "classic" 330a. I think it was that amazingly bright power switch that got me. It was the problems that repelled me.
Soon after I got it, it began sounding "deader" and "deader", like the treble was being cut. Soon, I had the treble boosted all the way up, and it sounded dead even then. Off to HK it went, after the local warranty place scratched their heads. In the meantime, since I was told it would be a long time before I got it back, I bought a replacement receiver I thought would be temporary, but turned out to be light years ahead of the HK, a Panasonic SA-6500, for the whopping price of $212, shipped from the wholesaler I had contacts with.
These were going for $499 normally locally then, and $399 on sale.
That receiver is still running the rear surrounds on my friend's system, 34 years later! The volume, balance, and tone sliders are shot, but the power amp works fine, and the FM blows his other reciever out of the water.
I sold a dozen of them to kids at school almost as fast as I got them, and none ever had any problems I'm aware of and at least 2 are still working.
My HK returned, and I sold it to a friend. It had it's treble back, but it still sounded "wrong". He liked it though, and I sold it really cheap, so he was happy. I sold HK for a while, but the amount of duds, even worse then Sansui, bugged me to the point I only special ordered one, and of course, the last one I did, I think it was a 930, was DOA on one channel. That was it for me.
I have a Yamaha RX-V659 now, and it's great.
Hmm, why are the pics not showing correctly?
