Harman Kardon HK500 Tuner

[Ian Greenhalgh]

A US friend told me how great his HK Citation tuner was so when I spotted this HK500 for 10ukp, I decided to grab it and am glad I did as it sounds bloody lovely, far better than my Marantz ST-55 I bought back in 1994, in fact I didn't know FM could sound so nice.

It's a very pretty thing and built like a tank, very heavy with very thick aluminium faceplate, sadly mine has a few dents in the front.

I don't know anything about this tuner and can't find any info other than this from the audioasylum forum:

Interesting no info on this site on the HK500 tuner. Nothing on fmtunerinfo either. Little info exists anywhere. The HK500 peaked my interest due to owning a HK Citation 18. My previous tuners was a Pioneer TX-9500II that lost to a Kenwood KT-990D. The Citation 18 unseated the Kenwood, however the KT-990D is an excellent tuner. I have owned many tuners before the group listed above in both tube & SS design.

I am guessing the HK500 was built from 1977 to 1980. These tuners are inexpensive from about $30-$100. I was kind of hoping, but knew better that the HK500 was a different construction than the Citation 18. And, it is very different. The Citation 18 price was $595 and guess the KH500 was about $239.

The HK500 tuner has a standard FET front-end, four gains, Hitachi HA11211 stereo receiver IC, pair of BA401 three stage differential I.F. amplifiers with peak detector, three Mirata E107A (left dot) 280kHz ceramic I.F. filters and a Toko 4437 stereo decoder. Audio amplifier is decrete transistor (no op-amps). Nothing special here.

Front controls are power off/on, weighted tuning dial, AM/FM mono or FM stereo, variable mute, high frequency filter and 25 uS with 75/50uS default switch on the interior pc board. Rear panel includes fixed or variable output with potentiometer, antenna connections for FM 75 ohm coax input, FM 300 ohm input and aux AM antenna. A built-in AM antenna is standard.

Considering the less than stellar KH500 design vs high-end tuners, the KH500 is sensitive, reasonably selective and produces very good sonics. It has the HK 'house' sound that is different than the Kenwood 'house' sound. I found the Kenwood KT-990D sonics very clear, but laid back lacking dynamics IMO. No doubt the Kenwood is a better receiver, but I am not requiring a DX machine. The Citation 18 & HK500 are simular. Both tuners are dynamic sounding, detailed and produces quality sonics with black space in-between instruments & singers. Every sonic detail stands out vs mixed together. The two tuners sounds simular with the Citation 18 having slightly stronger bass, but not that the KH500 is deficient.

I consider the HK500 a poor mans Citation 18. Actually, I do not detect much difference in-between the two tuners. I saw an add selling the HK500 due to an upgrade to a Rotel RT-940AX. I owned the superior RT-950BX with mods and prefer the HK500 by a fair amount. I also like analog dials, but if a digital synethized tuner outperforms an analog dial tuner, I would go the digital.

So, I consider the HK500 a sleeper tuner. A super deal for the money.

Does anyone know this model? It has two mysterious button - mpx fm noise filter and 25 microsec, the former doesn't appear to do anything, the latter seems to make the sound a little clearer, perhaps more treble.

Everything appears to work great apart from the little red LED to indicate stereo reception and the signal strength dial doesn't budge.

 

[ralphfcooke]

You will need to register, but all the info is here :-
https://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/harman-kardon/hk500.shtml

 

[Ian Greenhalgh]

Aah, cheers!

 

[PRR]

MPX noise blends the highs to mono, reducing hiss on *weak* signals.

25uS was for an old plan to use Dolby on FM. A compromise so you could get best result with 25uS and Dolby, and have acceptable results with standard 75uS and no Dolby.

 

[Ian Greenhalgh]

Thanks for that explanation, the manual isn't too clear on those features.

I expected to have to recap this beast, being 40 years old, but I can detect nothing amiss at all with the sound, so I'm happy to leave it be.

 

[PRR]

HiFiEngine is being slow; here's the snippet.

Dolby FM started in 1971 and was fading by 1974. I am sure you can not find a commercial Dolby FM signal (I did find a discussion about micro-transmitters).

75uS to 25uS is about 2 notches up on your Treble knob, audibly brighter but also boosts hiss.

Use either one any time you like. However there is no good reason to use 25uS. The MPX noise is a nice in-between for weak signals: you still have stereo midrange but the higher hiss is reduced. When that is not enough, use Mono ("plain FM").

 

[Ian Greenhalgh]

Thankyou.

I live in a valley in a remote corner of northern England - Cumbria, the Lake District, so FM is restricted to the 7 stations on the local transmitter, which is a small relay mast. You may get a weak signal from more distant stations with an external antenna, but I'm just using a simple internal dipole wire.

 

[Ian Greenhalgh]

Who needs all that modern digital trickery with programmed presets when you can just use some stickers... and the super smooth tuning knob is a tactile joy to use.

For the non-UK peeps, the stations are BBC Radio 1, 2, 3 and 4, BBC Radio Cumbria (local station), Heart (local commercial station), and Classic FM. These are the only 7 stations on the local transmitter. Not hooked up an AM antenna to see what medium wave stations I can pick up yet.