Harman DVD31 DVD Player

I purchased this unit to replace my 2 month old DVD 22 unit. I am so far very pleased with the Harman Kardon system though not perfect. One of the reasons I bought this was I did not want to get outdated only 2 months after my initial purchase. I am sure many of you can understand. I also wanted to enjoy the latest in DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD. I purchased this from J&R along with my HK changer. Both shipped the next day. Best service on audio/visual I have received to date on the internet. Stay away from Dealznet and Letsgodigital (same company).

Packaging is your usual Harman Kardon which is to say good. Everything wrapped up and protected. Comes with simple RCA cables and remote connect cable. Remote connect is to attach to another HK unit for universal remote operation. It works pretty good.

I was dismayed that it did not come with HD component cable or the 6 channel direct cable. But, I know of no other manufacturer that does so expect to pay extra for good quality cables to enjoy the best of what this unit has to offer.

Feeling as if I broke new ground akin to purchasing my first DVD years ago when people thought DVD was a transmitted disease, I bought a Sting DVD-Audio and Celine Dion SACD.
I unpacked the unit. Plugged in the power cable to my HK AVR430 receiver and my newly purchased digital coaxial cable from the unit to the receivers digital input. Put in Celine, powered her up and hit play. CLICK….CLICK….CLICK…..CLICK….CLICK…. and then some more CLICKS….. WHAT!!!!! I then try the Sting DVD-A and it played fine yet no sound from the speakers. I can see the countdown on the DVD unit counting up as if playing the DVD but no sound. I checked all of the cables. Still nothing. I switch cables with the one connected to the HDTV receiver. Port works ok. Still no sound from the other input. Hmmmmm. OK, I guess I will read the manual. I hate it when I have to do that. After a few minutes of hunting through the usually poor HK manual I found out that in order to play DVD-A music, one needs to connect the DVD player to you receiver via 6 RCA cables using DIRECT 6 CHANNEL! Holy cow. It will not work with a digital cable. There goes 20 bucks spent on that cable. So I grab my cable box full of thousands of cables and find some simple RCA cables to get me by. Plug them in and POW. Sting is screaming at me. I spend the next half hour adjusting the sound to my liking. Folks, if you have never heard DVD-Audio, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? It is stunning. The effects are amazing. My fiance was very very pleased and comments that it sounds considerably better than the regular DVD Sting and Sting CD she played on the same system. OK, granted, I have more cables for my audio/visual system than a 747,but it is worth it. So did I waste the $$ on the digital cable? Nope. For regular DVD use, this is the way to go. So I have my receiver set up as Direct 6 for DVD-A and regular DVD for the digital coaxial. Not that I had much choice. So budget yourself some cables.

DVD play back is the same as the DVD 22 unit which is to say superb. 16:9 option for my plasma is there. Top notch picture. Nothing more to say.

Remote is your typical simple remote with backlight though the HK receiver remote works controls it fine.

Now back to the CLICK….CLICK…. and my main gripe with this unit. It supports DVD-A but NOT SUPER AUDIO CD (SACD)! What was HK thing? Put out a state of the art unit with no SACD compatibility! DVD-A is very nice but SACD will be the new standard for CD's within 3-5 years. Many more titles are available for this vs DVD-A.
This is a sore spot with me as I cannot even fathom what was going through their head.

My other issue is the tone of the blue lit display. This unit sits on top of the HK CD changer and the receiver is below that. All have a nice blue neon tone for some of the lights. However, all three have different blue tones to the back lite displays. HUH? Did HK run out of one color on blue and switch to another. All of these units are to be used together in a series so it make's no sense that HK would use different colors. At night you would swear you have a Sony DVD, Onkyo CD, and Pioneer receiver as the lights do not match. Small but annoying issue.

I do plan on keeping the unit even with the SACD issue though I did have to think about it a while. You may want to think about this as well since SACD is the future more so than DVD-A. SACD is backward compatible with regular CD players. DVD-A is not compatible with anything but DVD-A.

The unit does support DVD-Video, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, VCD, SVCD, CD, CD-R/RW, and even MP3 so all is not lost. However once you have heard DVD-A or SACD (still not heard it-anyone want to buy a Celine Dion SACD for cheap) you will never want to listen to standard CD music again. It is THAT GOOD!
I give it a AVERAGE score for one reason. NO SACD support. If it had this, I would have given it a 5 star, excellent, Oscar gold winning rating.

Hope this helps.
Lee Dye
Fontana, CA