Harman Kardon DVD5 5-Disc DVD Player

Rating:
Summary: Great Design--Poor Follow-Thru
Review: After purchasing this unit, I was put through the trauma of having to exchange it 3 times, before finally giving up. I think if someone was lucky enough to get one that actually was not defective in some way, it would be an outstanding player, but I have to believe that the good ones are few and far between, if I got 3 defective units in a row. Buyer beware!

Rating:
Summary: first review
Review: harmon produces a great product that is quality assured. You do pay a little more for the name but it is worth the money.

Rating:
Summary: Defect right out of the box from 6ave.com
Review: High expectations on the unit when it comes right out of the box and is being attached to an HK110 AVR. Plop the Shrek disk in, and hoping for nothing but net but alas nothing but disk error, incompatable disk and skipping - unfortunately not the disk. At times the reader would try to scan "forever" but alas the error reappears. Seems HK should provide much better out of the box quality - perhaps this is just an isolated defect but being the first one we have purchased who knows. Apparently there were reader problems when moving from a one to a two disk set. It does not play cd-r format although advertised that it did. Lots of features and fun along with the fun I go through doing an exchange.

Rating:
Summary: Defect right out of the box from 6ave.com
Review: High expectations on the unit when it comes right out of the box and is being attached to an HK110 AVR. Plop the Shrek disk in, and hoping for nothing but net but alas nothing but disk error, incompatable disk and skipping - unfortunately not the disk. At times the reader would try to scan "forever" but alas the error reappears. Seems HK should provide much better out of the box quality - perhaps this is just an isolated defect but being the first one we have purchased who knows. Apparently there were reader problems when moving from a one to a two disk set. It does not play cd-r format although advertised that it did. Lots of features and fun along with the fun I go through doing an exchange.

Rating:
Summary: Over rated
Review: I bought this machine with the highest of hopes. It worked well, not great for two months. Then it stopped working. There is only one place in the US that is qualified by Harmon Kardon to repair it. They are in California and not cheap. After repair costs and shipping I could have bought another DVD player. I bought my Mother a [less expensive] DVD player for X-mas. It had equal quality and more features. Plus if it breaks after two months I'm only out [$$].

Rating:
Summary: Just a "ok" product
Review: I have always recieved great reviews on HK, But I'm disapointed in this product. Sure Mine works, but its flaky sometimes. No CD shuffle for music cd's, I'm finding a Purple smudge in the screen when playing dvd's ( center, right hand side ). I have not narrowed it down to be the DVD player just yet. It's only visible when light shades of color go over that area. ( Persons Face ). I was hoping to find some answers on the net, Thats why I'm here. I wouldn't purchase this model again.

Rating:
Summary: A second to none unit
Review: I have replaced a Sony DVP-9000-ES unit for the HK DVD5. I have been using DVD players in my system since day 1 and I have had most of the Hi End units. The HK DVD5 does exactly what it's meant to. I use a Pionear Plasma TV & the DVD quality is outstanding, even better than Pionears own units. I am running a Denon AVR5800 amp. This will be replaced in November with the HK AVR8000, which quite frankly blew the Denon away. This system is dedicated to the movie enthusiast that will only settle for the best: I have had Cyrus, Arcam, Krell, Linn, etc. The HK won hands down for me. However you will need to spend @ liest £5000 on speekers and wire. I recomend B&W Nautalis 804x2 805x2 HTMx1 & Signature SCMx2 mainly because thay R ausome and work well for music as well. Hope that this helps someone.

Rating:
Summary: WHEN it works, it's great.
Review: I never thought I would have made such a bad purchase when I bought my HK DVD 5. The unit is in for repairs more than it is playing DVDs. The worse part is that practically no one in America is qualified to repair these things so you have to ship your unit half way across the US to get it fixed (at your expense). Mine just stopped working for no reason at all. I eventually found out that the power supply went bad, after owning it for 14 months (the warranty was over). Strictly from a warranty / repair viewpoint I will never buy HK again. I purchased a Panasonic DVD player while my HK DVD was in for repairs and I swear the picture is just as good if not better.

Rating:
Summary: Piece of [garbage]
Review: I won this DVD player off of a sweepstakes and the day it was sent to me, it worked great... for 5 minutes. It began having troubles reading discs and would continously try to read them unsuccessfully. The tray then jammed and would not open, holding hostage 5 of my best DVDs. I brought it in for repair under warranty, and they couldn't even diagnose and fix the problem and said that they found it worked great. It worked when I brought it home, this time for about an hour. I am in the process of sending it back for repair.

Rating:
Summary: For the discriminating listener and watcher
Review: I've had my DVD5 for a couple weeks, and it's true, the picture has gorgeous blacks and shadings, fab colour, red appears acceptable without being too glowing or neon-like. The sound quality is fundamentally crisp and clear with good bass response. This machine will play tough double-layered discs with no problem. No more freeze-ups! I was a bit worried when I saw that the remote is made in Korea, but, so far I've had no problem. Let's face it folks, if you don't have a lot of time to spare, when you watch and listen to dvds and cds, you want it to a great experience, don't you? Mine works and sounds fine.