Harman Kardon Cinesystem HKTS

[KalyanVizag]

I am looking to buy the Cinesystem HKTS 11 that has Harman/Kardon AVR 155 A/V Receiver bundled with Harman/Kardon TS11 5.1 Speaker package.
Please advise if this is a right choice and any pros and cons of my choice. The price is higher I feel at Rs. 69,990. I live in a small city Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh and I dont have choice here at all.
The showroom guy showed me a brochure thats similar to the ones that are at India JBL
Because of the nature of the city I live in, it is not possible for me to audition multiple systems before I buy one.
There is a lower priced one called Cinesystem 133 priced at Rs. 25,000 but that sounded not as bold as the Cinesystem HKTS 11 - and this one was terrific.
Share thoughts and guide me please....

 

[adder]

well those speaker arent good while the AVR 155 is realy good same cannot be said for those speaker u can buy far better speaker for the price,and anyway for those speaker u dont need a avr 155 to power those speaker at a price of around 42k for the sub/sat speakers alone there are far better speaker packages for that price u can get a jamo s606 package for that price with floorstander.
also the prices of HK are insane costing nearly 3times higher then US street price.

 

[KalyanVizag]

Thank you but again like I said, I dont have options here and the ones that this only dealer in Vizag is offering me are these ones.
If you have a look at the JBL India website, there are 3 models with the AVR 133 bundled and the next 3 are bundled with AVR 155.
The AVR 133 is priced at 18K and AVR 155 at 30K. I thought the 155 is worth the price difference with the features that it has additionally.

I have just now been to that dealer and auditioned the Infinity Modulus II series speakers. If I take these speakers it costs and additional 15K. Plus I didnt like the Infinity satellites (for their look) and also the sound that it produced. I noticed that the Infinity Modulus II satellites have more bass and the HK satellites have 2 mid range and 1 tweeter in them and I liked the sound of HK as it was much crisp and sharp. The only thing that I noticed though is that the HK wall brackets allow it to be rotated only horizontally so they need to be placed at a closer height to the listening ear and not too high. The Infinity satellites have the swivel rotating option, but they are very heavy though.

The Sub also sounded cool with 200 Watts. I liked the whole system very much and I will be purchasing it today evening.

70000 - 5% discount is what he is offering = approx 66.5K

I hope I am not making a mistake by taking this system.

 

[adder]

well if i were u i wouldnt spend 60k on this,and like i said before there are far better speakers for the price u are paying.

 

[moserw]

HK/JBL combo is pretty overpriced from what I've seen. Also, since they belong to the same parent company Harman International the dealers generally want to push JBL speakers with HK AVRs and I've seen some bad ones.

Cannot say about the HK AVR as I've not seen/heard it, but you can do much better for the speakers as adder has been pointing out. I know Vizag has pretty limited options, but still not worth putting 70K down the drain. It's better you invest 10K and drive down to Hyderabad and spend a day or two here and pick up way better stuff. Even if you cut out 10K from your budget of 70K, for 60K you can get much better options in Hyderabad than the one you're looking at in Vizag. Please note, I'm not saying JBL are bad (I'm using JBL myself for music), but they are overpriced and you can do much better with say Wharfedale or something similar.

 

[vishanv]

IMHO, this cannot be classified as an awkward system. I have listened to them in hi fi stores and found them to be okay. Its a bit bright, which sometimes gives you a feeling that they are crisp. not a bad choice for a 5.1package, in my opinon.

But I too agree that the price is too off. Personally I think it's not worth more than 40 to 45K (some may find even this to be higher). Looks like AVR155 does not decode new Dolby and DTS formats, which makes it a potential dead stock for the dealer. try negotiating for good discount if you really like the stuff.

 

[KalyanVizag]

Thank you guys for your inputs - I couldnt go out to other cities and check out other better stuff and buy a better one - I was also skeptical about the delivery process, and then the warranty issues if I buy outside my town.

I have bought this package yesterday and am yet to wire it properly. But a temporary setup that is ample enough to kick the power out of the movies has been setup so its all great in just the 1 hour that I have experienced this system. The Sub is absolutely thumping in bass... The satellites have very crisp sound though. I loved this system.

Curse me for not taking the advise of the seniors and audiophiles out here... I learnt a lot from this forum.

My exercise to learn the AVR world begins now.

Will keep you posted once I get the speakers placed at the right places.
One sad thing is that this is for my new apartment and I had got the internal wiring done at the construction stage but the placement of the speaker points was absolutely a mess up as I wasnt there to practically supervise the concealed points. Now I have to catch hold of an electrician to do the wiring using some capped casings and stuff like that.

 

[anm]

Hi Kalyan,
Welcome to the club. I was introduced into hi-fi when I listened to a JBL+hk combo at a friend's house. He spent 1.5 lakhs 3-4 years back. I went looking and I liked all demos by hk+jbl. However, I too think that their speakers are over priced.
Hope you find a better system at cheaper price. But spending lot of hours in forums, demo and traveling can keep you away from enjoying music/ movies on hifi. It can add considerable delays - maybe months, or years from taking a final decision. So good that you have taken the decision.
Maybe you can retire it to another room, for now spend some time listening to this and to better/ best systems and buy again.
I did the same when I was very confused, could not find time for demos due to office and family pressures. Could not justify spending few lakhs on a system I would not be able to appreciate. The perfect system is elusive. Room treatments, bass traps - there is no end to getting a better system. Best system probably also includes a new house that can house the perfect system, and probably, at least in my case, you would also need to hire an audiophile to appreciate your system Though it seems now people are focusing on bettering ears than the systems. Roskhilde Releases Audiophile Ears Listening Accessory — Reviews and News from Audioholics

So I went ahead with a system that was the cheapest, and sounded ok for movies and music to my *crappy* ears. It was an onkyo 3100 for 20k.
For a better system, I am still hanging around this forum discussing why DAC is better than dedicated cdp, why USB may have less jitters than optical out when using computer as a transport

regards

 

[KalyanVizag]

Thank you anm and I feel a little better about my decision seeing your reply. I am going to pump up some movies tonight so it will be a tiring day for the entire apartment complex (the bass was kicking up 2 floors and down 2 floors )
BTW, I also bought a Pioneer DV 310 S DVD player along with this for 4K. Within 1 hour of usage I noticed something that I didnt expect - This player doesnt play VBR MP3s and I have loads of them - My Pioneer Car Player does play them great (and I bought this car stereo some 7 years back)

This was one disappointment for me - Any suggestions as to what my next step should be - Would you suggest me to return the player back - I am not sure if the next version 410 S plays VBR MP3 or not. This would cost me an additional 2.5K
Any suggestions...

 

[KalyanVizag]

Right now I am looking for getting hold of an Audio Rack for placing the AVR and the DVD player. Could find good places where I can buy this kind of a rack. I will manage with one soon.

The movies are sounding very high with this set and I am loving every bass sound and the crisp listening experience. I have managed to download a whole bunch of DVD demo stuff and have burnt them to one DVD at present. I have a lot more trailers that I can burn on the 7 or 8 more DVDs.

Will test the system once I calibrate it. I am searching for the EzSet/EQ microphone in the box package. I dont remember if I got one, but will still need to calibrate the 5.1 system. Got the wirings done and its all set to rock again with a little calibration.