Andrea R.

Aug 8, 2013

I had owned a nice amount of receivers in the last 5 years, Pioneer, Onkyo, Yamaha, Marantz and lastly a high end Denon model, the AVR-4520ci. For some reasons I always had overlooked Harman Kardon, perhaps because there is much less discussion on AVSforum than the rest. A friend of mine recently re-did his all hi-fi setup to match his new very large loft o of over 1200 sf . He is a design junkie working in the fashion industry and ended up buying this Harman Kardon 3700. Quite to my surprise the sound matched with a Martin Logan set I found to be unbelievable. Crisp, warm, non-fatiguing sound, with a touch of vintage (in striking contrast with the absolutely modern, uncluttered look). During his vacations I asked if I could borrow his HK 3700 to try it in my home and that is where the real astonishment came into place. This feather-light thing has a better sound than my high end Denon 4520, at least to my well-trained ears. The signature sound remains also with my set of Energy Veritas speakers. Non-fatiguing, smooth sound delivery. I think only Marantz comes somehow close in sound, but it is not exactly there. In all fairness to the Denon it should be said that this receiver is much, much less powerful: I do find myself listening music at 50-60% of the absolute volume, while with the Denon 40% was already enough. I think it can take most workloads but it is fair to mention that for the most challenging speakers (4 ohm and low efficiency) it may not be enough and a supplement of power may be needed with a separate amp. I now have sold my Denon to purchase this one and the good news is that there is more than one grand left in my pocket after that. Highly recommended for music lovers, especially if you are not too young (or else you might like a more "aggressive" sound delivery such as Onkyo and Pioneer). If you have your eyes on a Marantz, give also this a try. You might be mightly surprised.