I've recently purchased a new Harman Kardon HD970 CD player. It works fine, and the audio quality is brilliant. However, one thing I have noticed is it is a little noisy, in relation to it reading a CD when you insert it and when you change tracks. It's very quiet when playing CDs, otherwise.
I didn't notice this in the store, but I will look to visit them again to verify if there on-show demo has the same noise. However I was just wondering if anyone could shed some light on this prior.
The type of sound is a mechanical sound, which occurs when you insert a CD (as it reads it), maybe for a second or two. Then if you change tracks, you here it for a split second (if I change from trk1 to trk2, the noise is a split second, if I move from trk1 to trk12 (for example) the noise is slightly longer - it's like the CD player is moving the CD into the position to be read by the laser). I was just wondering if other HD970 owners have this, as a result is just part of the CD player. Or is it something just on my unit?
When I fast forward, it doesn't make the mechanical sound. It only occurs when I change tracks or insert a CD (and it is read).
Another thing I noticed was, when I was analysing this mechanical sound in a quiet room, I had my ear quite close to the CD drive (closer than you normally would!), and could here a faint clicking like an analog clock (I thought it was the clock in my room, but it wasn't!). Again, does your HD970 experience this?
I played the same CD on my DVD player, and it was silent, when it came to reading the disc and changing the CD (except for the slight noise you here, which is the laser at work).
These noises don't effect the audio performance/quality of this unit. However, I am trying to confirm if I need to get the unit replaced or not.
I have owned hd970 player about year now. Yes, it is a little noisy when it reads the disc, and when you change song. So, i guess its not broken, just that HK had these noise problems in older version of this player and they were even worse. Haven't heard older but that I was told in store. I don't mind much about those 'problems', cause when i hit the play button i forget everything else!
I really appreciate the reply! Ahhh, it sounds like my unit is not broken then.
It is a little noisy, but it's tolerable, and is silent when actually playing the music, so that's very important. If I was reviewing this item, it'd lose some points for the mechanical noises when navigating tracks and initial loading of CDs. However, sound-quality, IMHO I think it's fantastic. Moving from a DVD player to a dedicated CD player, there is so much I've been able to appreciate even more in the many CDs I've played so far. Even my gf noticed the significant improvement from a DVD player with optical to HK AVR235, to the HD970 (analog).
