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H/K "x30" receiver owners, past or present, fess up!


HDBRbuilder

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Lately, I have noticed a number of folks on this forum have mentioned present or past ownership of old H/K 430, 630, 730, or 930 receivers. Time for you all to fess up in one thread!

Here's the deal, if you have owned one of these or currently own one of these in good working order, and have used it with Klipsch speakers, then give the model, the Klipsch speakers you have listened to with it, and your opinion of its performance.

Me first, H/K 430, H/K 730, used with Heresy I models. Opinion, best current bang for the buck for Heritage speakers around...one OF if not THE best S/S receiver I have ever heard with my Heresys.

Next?

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I have owned a 430, have a 630 and a 730, and have recently fostered a 430 and 930 until good homes could be found. I have owned an x30 continuously for 27 years, and have used them on Ohm C2s, Khorns, Dahlquist DQ10s, DCM time windows, JBL pro, Heresys, La Scalas, Belles, and Khorns again. The 730 is now serving hazardous duty in a war zone in Samarrahh, Iraq, and the 630 is in the living room with one set of Heresys, dealing with our 11 month old every day.

They are wonderful warriors, brutishly reliable, and you have done good work promoting them as a dirt cheap way to get great sounds out of Klipsch speakers, Andy!9.gif

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Currently own a 430. I've compared it with my Cornwalls against an NAD 3240 and Scott 299. I'd say it isn't nearly as good as the Scott and it comes very close to the NAD (the 430 sounds a teensy more grainy). But considering the 430 goes for around $50 on eBay vs. $200 or so for the NAD the 430 is the much better bargain, plus it has a tuner (which the NAD doesn't).

All in all, my 430 does good duty with my Boston Acoustics T930's as a second system.

Thanks to Andy (did I mention Andy built my Corns?) and this forum for the good tip on the H/K 430.

Happy New Year to All!

Mace

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Hi,

I have had two HK 430's . Power wise -they delivered everything to drive my Heresys or my RF 3.

Sound wise , even after cleaning them and trying three differnt types of speaker wires, both units sounded (to me), muffled or maybe too warm sounding?

Price wise- the best bang for your buck, if your just getting into music, an excellent work horse system .

Thanks to their popularity I was able to recover my investments (read break even ) on both transactions

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I own two HK 430's,though one is on semi-permanent loan to my brother-in-law with a pair of Heresy's. The other HK430 is in a second system driving Heresy's.

On a refurb project had a friend with a good idea on replacing the lamps in the HK-430. Don't know if any actual replacements can be found anywhere as these lamps are the same size and appearance of metal cap on glass tube fuses.

What my buddy did was take a little RS lamp and solder the leads across the ends of the metal caps and place back in the receiver. The original lamp just serves to hold the new lamp in place and conduct current from the contacts to the new lamp.

The result was a cleaned up HK430 and newly relit backlight on the slide rule tuner.

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I have a H/K 630 that was only briefly (an hour or 2) hooked up to my Cornwalls. It sounded surprisingly good and has what appears to be excellent build quality. Now, it's in my garage system with a pair of Dynaco A-25's, Sony Walkman cdp and an APS whip antenna. For less than $200 total, quite a bit of good sound for the money.

Thanks for the recommendation Andy,

Chris

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----------------

On 1/1/2004 6:22:30 PM sheltie dave wrote:

I have ...recently fostered a 430 and 930 until good homes could be found.

----------------

I must admit, I had to give my "430" up for adoption. I just couldn't take care of the little bugger. I tried. I seeked help. I asked questions, I cried myself to sleep some nights asking, "Why, fini, why?" In the end, I sent him off to live with Uncle Dave, who brought her up right. I look back on those days now, and I realize the system was not really set up to handle these kinds of cases, maybe it was me, I don't know. I was younger then, that's part of it.

I was younger when I wrote that last paragraph, too. That's part of it.

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My harmon/kardon 330B is a vintage low-power Stereo amplifier rated at 18watts RMS @ 8ohms. It has <0.5% THD at the crucial first watt from 20Hz to 20kHz. Mine was yard sale ($5) gift. Using the Main In connections for the amplifier section of the HK330B only, I was very impressed with the extra punch it provides with big ole horns. It did as good as job as my hefty Class A Pioneer M-22. Using the tube Dynaco Pass pre-amplifier with the harmon/kardon amplifier section seems to be a very sweet combination. I did not notice much difference with conventional loudspeakers. Sounds fairly typical there.

The 330B receiver seems to hold a charge, like tube amplifiers do. In other words, when you turn off the power on a solid-state receiver, that is it, the signal is gone immediately. Instead, when you turn off the power on the vintage harmon/kardon 330B, it is more like a tube amplifier. It slowly fades out. The capacitors seem to be holding a charge.

I would NOT say that they are tube like, for even at 20-watts rating, they clearly have more control and authority than my flea-powered tube Bottlehead 2A3 Paramour amplifiers, but they are surprisingly good compared to the few low cost modern solid-state receivers I have seriously auditioned, in my own home, with the same music and equipment.

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I have three HK...two HK430,one HK730....430 hooked to LaScalas with home built ALKs and 730 hooked to sons Heresys.The LaScalas kick butt and sound is great.You can get the fuse type bulbs from parts express and the other bulbs can be ordered from there to,,,i have replaced all of them one time or another.The fuse type bulbs are cheaper from parts express,i bought one here locally from repair shop he charged me like 4.50 for it..lol...live and learn...i called parts express and they said they didnt carry them,,,but one day i was looking through the catalog,,,duh...and guess what i found,,,boy i felt stupid.Anyway Andy recomended HK430 for my son for x-mas gift last year and i got one and we both looked at each other and said wow...Andy wanted me to hook it to LaScalas for months i didnt do it,,,to hard to hook up in my stereo closet,,,,butwhen i did,,,i got me an HK430 as soon as i could,,,,never looked back,,lol,,,Rick9.gif

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I've had my H/K 430 for a little over a year now.

The 430 was a good match with my heresy 1's and I do not think that my ears should feel any great sense of dispair if I had to use it as my main amplifier.

Currently however the 430 is attached to my computer powering a pair of JBL L46's and I am back to my yamaha htr-5540 with the heresy's.

To my ear's the sound of the 430 with the heresey's was rather warm with a roundness to the bass that gave the impression of the heresey having a deeper frequency response than I had previously thought.

I switched back and forth and forth and back between the yamaha and the H/K on my heresey's.

Quite frankly I was torn,

The yamaha seems a might bit sterile compared to the h/k yet the wamrth of the little dual powered 430 begins to sound more like a lack of control leading towards a looseness of the sound at higher volumes.

The tuner section on the 430 is a wonderful thing indeed.

Many a late night I have spent winding down with a splash of scotch keeping company with a couple of icecubes while my ears are treated to some great jazz via fm radio served up by the 430 and the local jazz station(WUCF).

The H/K 430 is not without faults but then again what isn't?

The peccadillos inherent in the 430 are something I could live with.

As Andy has said again and again, the h/k 430 is certainly one of the biggest bangs you can get for your modern day buck.

Peace, Josh

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While waiting for mine to arrive I found the numbers on the HK430 for any who are interesed 1.gif

HARMON KARDON

430

STEREO RECEIVER

Circa 1976-77

Features include

- A & B speaker selector

- Hi & Lo cut filters

- Mono selector

- Loudness (Contour)

- Adjustable FM muting

- Separate Bass and Treble

- Weighted flywheel tuning design

- Fm signal strength meter

- Phono input

- AUX (CD / DVD) Input

- Tape monitor with Dual record outputs

- Dual AC convenience outlets (1 switched 1 un-switched)

Back panel also features external fuses for not only main power, but also for each output channel (speaker protection). Receiver has built-in ferrite loop. Outputs measured at 15.5 volts per channel @ 8 ohms for 30 watts and 13 volts per channel @ 4 ohms for 42 watts 1.gif

Regards

Dana

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Currently I am running a 430 in my bedroom system, paired with HH Scott speakers (2-way sealed direct radiators). Not exactly reference quality, but very good. Just recently I've had a problem with the left channel being intermittent. If I engage the mono switch, both channels put out fine. Could just be a bit dirty inside somewhere.

Back a ways when my 299C was being restored, I ran the 430 with my Khorns, when they were still in the basement recording studio. They were respectable, but not too inspiring on revealing speakers such as those.

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