Harman/Kardon Festival 60 Executive Music System.

Manufacturer: Harman/Kardon, 250 Crossways Park Drive, Woodbury, NY 11797; 516/496-3400; www.harmankardon.com

Price: $800

Source: Manufacturer loan

Reviewer: Kevin East

The name Harman/Kardon, like Marantz, Magnavox, and Garrard, recalls the Triassic period of modern hi-fi, when 25-watt amplifiers and speakers the size of West Virginia spelled audio bliss. It's a quality name, recalled with wistful fondness for the excitement generated by its pioneering amplifiers and tuners. And as audio has grown, the standard-bearers of a generation ago are either slugging it out in the marketing trenches, have long since given up the ghost, or have been gobbled up by a multinational. Harman/Kardon is still with us.

The Festival 60 is a so-called "self-contained executive system." However, unlike the other executive systems reviewed of late in these pages (Linn Classik, NAD Music System, Denon D-M10, and Onkyo EX1850), the Festival 60 consists of three separate components: a 35-watt per channel amplifier,

preamplifier/controller, and a 7-disc CD changer, complemented by two loudspeakers. The power amplifier and preamp/ controller have their own power sources and, therefore, AC cords. The CD changer is powered and controlled via a ribbon cable that connects all three components. The accompanying owner's manual doesn't say which component feeds power to the CD player (I suspect the preamp/controller) but in the end, I suppose it isn't significant. The power-sharing arrangement doesn't seem to have any impact on the unit's performance or sound.

The Basics: Fully assembled, the unit stands 13.5" high by 10.25" wide by 11.5" deep (fairly compact for a small system, but by no means as compact as the NAD, Linn, or Onkyo) and weighs in at 26.3 pounds. The power amplifier sits on the bottom, the CD changer in the middle, and the preamp/ controller on top. The Festival 60 includes two 5' lengths of Super OFC 16 AWG speaker zip chord with soldered ends. This means that all the parts are there to simply assemble and go---another paragon, like the NAD Music System, of plug and play.

The Components: The power amplifier's rear panel is basic: power cord connection (the power cords are all separate), two pairs of 5-way binding posts, and RCA jacks to feed a subwoofer. Unlike conventional power amplifiers, it has no "preamp in" jacks and so cannot stand on its own. The CD changer's rear panel has the FM tuner's antenna connections, 75 ohms for FM and a two-wire loop for AM. The preamp/ controller's rear panel has a power cord receptacle and three line-level auxiliary inputs, which include two-channel audio and video. The first input also has outputs, which can serve as a tape loop, and a "To TV" output to feed any one of the three video inputs to a television. Because I used the Festival 60 exclusively as a home-office audio system, I did not test the video inputs/outputs. Further, there is a pair of jacks to connect an outboard infrared sensor (not supplied) should the unit be positioned where the internal remote infrared sensor is blocked or otherwise inaccessible. Finally, all three components have inputs for the three-position ribbon wire.

It's at this juncture that we should point out the strengths and weaknesses of the Festival 60's engineering. First, as noted above, the power amplifier has no input capacity ("preamp in") other than that afforded through the ribbon connector. In fact, the ribbon connector is the key to the Festival 60. To wit, the CD changer is simply that: a box with a drawer, storage slots, and a laser pick-up. All of the controls that you would normally associate with a CD player/changer are on the preamp/controller. The tuner's antenna is mounted on the rear of the CD changer! None of the Festival 60's components will operate without the others. So, while one can say the system is three separate components, they function as one box. Any one of these goes bad, and you have no music until it's fixed. The strength of course is the power amplifier's dedicated power supply. If you accept the notion that integrated amplifiers' and receivers' peak power capabilities are compromised because any unit's power supply is shared (I mostly don't), then the Festival 60's separate power supplies are attractive.

Both the power amplifier and preamp/ controller front panels have a pushbutton power switch, and the preamp/controller has a mini-headphone jack. The CD changer's front panel has a pushbutton that operates the disc drawer. The preamp/ controller's upper panel is where all the business is conducted. First, the lateral shape (side view) of the preamp/controller is trapezoidal: the front panel is canted at about a 30E angle, affording a mammoth display area (6"W x 4"H) that a vertical configuration just would not be able to accommodate without adding a good 2" to the unit's height. On the left of the display area are three vertically oriented source input buttons for the CD changer, tuner, and auxiliary. The auxiliary button toggles among the three auxiliary inputs. Two more buttons in the same vertical column access the bass/ treble tone controls and the stereo balance control. A smaller vertical three-button array controls various functions germane to each source input. The legend on the display panel directly opposite each button changes as the source input changes. Finally, the last small button in the second column accesses the unit's clock and alarm.

Seven horizontal buttons below the display panel control the AM/FM presets in tuner mode or any one of the seven CDs in the CD changer. They also set the clock, alarm, and tone controls. To the right of the display panel is a large rotary volume control knob and the standard digital controls: start, stop, pause, skip forward/back, track forward/back. The skip/track buttons also function as seek and tune controls in tuner mode.

The system's remote control is basic yet cleverly inventive. Although it does not replicate all the controller's functions, it includes enough of the basics so that once all the basic setup (tuner presets, clock, tone controls, etc.) is completed, one can run the system from afar with little or no inconvenience save occasionally changing CDs. To power the unit, one must engage both power switches on the amplifier's and controller's front panels. However, unless the unit will be unused for long periods of time, the "Power" button on the remote will toggle the system on and off. In this instance, however, "off" is really a "standby" mode. Both Linn and NAD recommend powering down their units, as opposed to leaving them in standby limbo, if the units were not going to be used for more than a day or so. Harman/ Kardon's manual has no such precautions. In the four months I had the unit in the home office, I never turned the main power switches off--I simply put the unit in standby, powering it up from the remote. The Festival 60 worked just fine.

The remote includes two additionally useful functions. First, there is a volume control that operates the motor-driven volume pot on the controller. Second, there is a "Mute" button---extremely useful when one is answering the home office telephone, a blessedly frequent event.

The CD changer is a neat bit of engineering. Pushing the front panel button opens the tray drawer. You then insert the CD and close the drawer. The Festival 60 will deposit the CD in the first available slot in its internal queue. If you want the CD to go into a particular slot, simply push the button in the controller's horizontal array that corresponds to the desired slot. There are seven buttons that the display numbers 1 through 7. Almost too elementary, Watson. You know that a slot is occupied because a small green light in the middle of the button lights when the CD is nested. However, if you forget which CD is in which slot, you've gotta push the slot's button and open the drawer to find out. And you have to do this one slot at a time. I keep the jewel cases stacked next to the unit in, one hopes, correct order, so that problem seems to be solved.

The tuner scrolls through FM stations in rapid sequence and wraps around from 108.0 to 87.5 and vice versa. The Festival 60 has a "Seek" function that will stop at the next available signal. In FM mode, the display panel will read out Radio Data System (RDS) information if broadcast with the station's signal. You can even set the "Seek" function to search out only those stations that broadcast RDS information. Once an RDS station has been found, you can toggle FM Mode's "Display" button to "Text" to see whether the station offers more information.

The clock function is useful if the Festival 60 finds its way into the bedroom or you are prone to napping in the home office. It has a "Sleep" mode that will play for 10, 30, or 60 minutes before the unit shuts itself into "Standby." It also has an alarm that will wake the unit, and presumably you, back up at the designated time. The time display can be either standard a.m./p.m, or 24-hour military.

The owner's manual is wonderfully complete. Assembly and the operation of each function are clearly set out. The functional instructions are set out on one- or two-page spreads and are extremely well illustrated. The English is plain--no audio hoo-doo--and the functional instructions are linked to the diagrams with either numbers or individual icons. Finally, if a function is also controlled by the remote, those instructions are included as well. There's even a page on speaker placement, but it is so elementary that I suggest you consult one of HF's periodic essays in these pages for more comprehensive deliberations.

The Speakers: The two mini-monitors included with the Festival 60 are Harman/ Kardon-built--to my knowledge a first for the company. [Way back in the early '70s, H/K manufactured some speakers designed by the legendary A. Stewart Hegeman. -- KWN] They sport a 6" co-polymer midrange driver, a 1" flared dome tweeter, and are vented through a 1" circular port in the rear. The crossover point between the two drivers is 4kHz. Frequency response is claimed from 50Hz to 20kHz, and impedance is a nominal 8 ohms. Sensitivity (1 watt @ 1 meter) is 87dB.

A circular recess in the rear has two surprisingly sturdy 5-way binding posts, which will accept standard banana plugs, spade lugs, and bare wire. Each speaker measures 10"x 7"x 13.5", which means of course that they match the height of the three assembled components, making what I call Japanese placement (i.e., speaker, components, speaker, all in a row) aesthetically kosher. The actual height of the box is 13.25", but they come with four rubber feet, practically begging for shelf placement, which brings the height up accordingly. If you want to put them on stands, which I did, it's necessary to unscrew the feet.

It's one thing simply to assume that the speakers sold with one of these units are patently inferior to anything on the "regular" loudspeaker market, like the plastic toss-offs that come with most Japanese onebox systems. However, since Harman/ Kardon has seen fit to actually publish the speakers' specifications, I decided to put them through a more formal, however truncated, review process, like one would expect in a full, stand-alone speaker review. (TM's review of the Alpha Family in Issue 75 obviated this option with the NAD Music System.) Besides, any speaker manufacturer who has the courtesy to include binding posts, instead of the dreaded spring clips, gets a friendly nod.

The Festival 60 speakers were installed on 29" stands in the living room with the Big Rig (Sunfire power amplifier, AVA Omega III EC preamplifier, and Parasound CD/P compact disc player) in a near-field configuration: about 6' apart and 7' from the listening position with plenty of room from side and rear walls. They were put through the usual gamut of CDs with testing efficacy: Acoustic Alchemy's Red Dust & Spanish Lace, Enya's Watermark, Jellyfish's Bellybutton, Joe Jackson's Live 1980/86, and Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks' Striking It Rich! Each of these, besides being extraordinary musical experiences, has different kinds of tonal and spatial information that makes them great "real ear" test vehicles. For instance, Acoustic Alchemy's "Mr. Chow" has Greg Carmichael's steel-string acoustic guitar, a difficult capture even for excellent speakers like the Legacy Classics, and a percussion bridge complete with struck saws, hollow blocks, and wind chimes. Enya's "Orinoco Flow" rumbles with deep bass. Jellyfish's "The Man I Used To Be" has potent mid-bass, gobs of drum thwacks, and cascading chimes which frequently traverse the soundstage.

The first impression is of a slightly uptipped and forward high midrange and treble. These registers leaped into otherwise impressive space between the speakers. Midbass is respectable while deep bass is virtually nonexistent, hints more than real notes. The bass bridge on Enya's "Orinoco Flow" simply wasn't there. Spatial cues, especially with "Mr. Chow" and Dan Hicks' Live Music", were placed where expected as was the piano chores on Joe Jackson's "Breaking Us In Two". This same chorus, however, reaches into Jackson's piano's highest octave, and lesser speakers will punish the ear by reducing the notes to oversized digital blips. Excellent speakers such as the Classics and the Audio Advancement Maxeens nail this tough passage, but the affordable cadre, even the revered Dana Audio Model 1s, fail miserably. The Festival 60's speakers fell well in line with the rest of the affordable crowd.

However, putting modest bookshelf speakers up against giants like the Classics is hardly a fair comparison, so in went the Dana Audio Model 1s, which are still my reference for small, affordable speakers. Spatial information was the same; however, the treble glare noticeably disappeared. Even upper low bass, hardly a Dana strength, had palpably greater weight and feeling. But then something occurred which I did not expect: the gong that concludes "Mr. Chow" resonated with clearly defined overtones. I didn't remember this with the Festival 60 speakers, so I put them back in. Sure enough: the gong splashed like a bad dive and decayed raggedly--like being hit with a frying pan instead of a soft mallet. This confirmed the impression of their overall brightness. They would be better than average speakers save for this particular tendency. Intrigued, I removed one grille and measured the midrange driver: not even close to 6". Even generously including the basket flange, the diameter barely reached 4.75". The Model 1s also claim a 6" diameter, which measures a 3" short, but the difference in radiating area would more than account for the differences in bass performance and might also address the Festival 60 speakers' overall brightness. With such a high crossover frequency, the midrange driver is doing a lot more low treble work than its nominal brethren: the Model 1s, PSB Alphas, B&W DM 302s, and so on. All of the latter cross over at 3kHz and perhaps carve up the reproduction chores a little more equitably.

There is much to be said for Harman/ Kardon including speakers with the Festival 60. Certainly, as we've stressed periodically over the past year, the executive system market is growing and becoming more interesting. And, like Denon's inclusion of Mission 735is or NAD's PSB Alpha Minis, the incorporation of something other than plastic, fantastic wannabes is likewise welcome. The speakers' performance in the home office didn't introduce any significant issues, and it wasn't until they were contrasted with the Model 1s in an open, challenging listening environment that their upward tendency became more than cursorily apparent. Furthermore, even though the owner's manual is silent on the subject, those little feet mean shelf placement, and maybe, like the PSB Alphas, they're engineered so that shelf placement will tame them. Harman/Kardon doesn't claim so, and I don't have shelves in the home office (literally--it's barely controlled mayhem up there; the speakers are raised on stands above the chaos), so I couldn't test them that way. They look good; they don't cry out for immediate replacement; and in a small space their sound is acceptable. Nonetheless, after Big Rig testing was over, I put the Model 1s back into the Festival 60.

Performance: The Festival 60 pretty much works as advertised. Setup is so easy that what is not intuitive is clearly explained in the owner's manual. After playing it as packaged for a while, the noticeable lack of bass got to me, and I threw in a PSB SubSonic 5 powered subwoofer (review forthcoming). The SubSonic 5 will accommodate either a direct feed from the amplifier or a sub/sat configuration where the satellite speakers' signal is routed through the subwoofer. Usually, one can choose either option and the resulting sound will be more or less consistent. Oddly, the subwoofer required less adjustment and had more facile impact on the overall sound when I used the amplifier's direct feed.

I ran Digital Recordings' CD Check through the CD changer to test the changer's error correction capabilities (see RT's exhaustive review and explanation in Issue 72). The Festival 60 survived the first two bands before starting to break up considerably. For a CD player of this nature, even though RT would assert that clean Band 3 performance is minimally acceptable, the changer never skipped, balked, or otherwise malfunctioned on any CD. The changer, however, is possessed of an odd quirk: CDs play in the order that they were loaded. So, if you open the drawer and insert a CD into, say, the fifth slot, the changer will play it only after it plays the last CD you inserted even if it's in, say, the second slot, and the one after that, and the one after that, and so on. If you want the machine to play 1-7 in sequence, then you need the clear the sequence on the display panel and enter a new sequence. Hmm. This seems needlessly complex and only became an inconvenience a couple of times, but is something you'll need to pay attention to if not completely unloading and loading a set of CDs.

The tuner is great. The "Seek" function saved at least one reviewer a load of time by homing in on the strongest FM signals and passing over the weaker ones. Using a Terk amplified directional beam antenna, the Festival 60 pulled in a remarkable 24 of the 28 FM stations indigenous to the Washington, DC metro area. We live 25 miles west of the District, and the four absentees were all relatively low-output jobbers from the remote Maryland [is greater than] burbs. The tuner also pulled in another 20+ stations from Baltimore, West Virginia, and various Virginia points west and south. I probably toggle among seven or eight FM stations and having 40 and more stations on the menu, despite my dim views of today's radio, allows one to pick and choose. The tuner's "Mono" function can be engaged to strengthen FM signals, but with a plethora of alternatives, it didn't seem necessary. AM reception is okay, but that is heavily qualified because this is mostly likely the very worst area in the country, if not the planet, to receive AM signals. (We'd despaired of getting Orioles' games on the radio until the local AM carrier, WTOP, purchased an FM outlet in the Shenandoah foothills. Reception's spotty, but we'll take it.)

The RDS function is a hoot. First, it zeroes in on broadcast RDS information in a shot. However, sometimes it displays the information with delightful digital imagination. For instance, the local PBS outlet, WET, A-FM, came through initially as "WTF# #N". After a while it settled down to "WETA FM PUBLIC", but getting there was an adventure as the function mutated every few seconds to yet another variation on the theme. I have no idea whether the interim results were attributable to the tuner or the station, but I don't think it matters very much. I'm grateful for clear reception regardless of the additional information, and I can read the paper occasionally to figure out what stations play what. Every so often, having gotten an RDS station, I would engage the "Text" function to see whether the station was broadcasting any additional information. Nothing ever came up, so I suspect that we're witness to RDS infancy and its benign, if any, shortcomings.

Here in Domus Antiquus the Festival 60 is a welcome successor to the NAD L40. (The L40 now graces Mrs. East's corporate decor with predictable results. Especially with the PSB Alpha Minis on bookshelves, the "oohs" and "aahs" are consistent.) My reservations about the L40's power (20 wpc) have been satiated with the Festival 60's comparatively hearty 35 wpc. And while 35 wpc is teeny by today's standards, for a modest, second thought system, it seems about enough. This means that if you want to upgrade your speakers, you'll have a wider range of options simply because 35 watts will drive a whole lot more than 20. I like the "subwoofer out" jacks, something that GK regretted not getting with the Denon D-M10.

Conclusion: I really like the Harman/ Kardon Festival 60. At $800 it comes in furlongs ahead of the identically priced NAD Music System. However, in doing so it offers its own set of pluses and minuses. First, the power complement excels at 35 wpc versus the NAD's 20 wpc. Second, the 7-disc CD changer, however quirky its sequencing, is a plus. Like the NAD unit, the Festival 60 benefited from the change over to the Dana Audio Model 1s. This is as much to say that, again like the NAD Music System, the Festival 60's strengths lie in its compact aggregation of solid source and amplification components and including the speakers in the package, a clever bit of marketing. The Festival 60 will appeal to buyers who want a one-box, plug-and-play alternative over the sometimes daunting task of shopping for components.

This is where your humble scribe launches into his humble screed, extolling the virtues of less expensive components over pricier one-box alternatives. But what do you really get for spending one to two hundred dollars more on the Festival 60? Well, you get RDS, a 7-disc (vs. 6) CD changer, clock, alarm clock, and an assembled unit that's fairly compact. What you don't get is the convenience of individual components: you can upgrade each as you want/see fit, and if one crashes, you can patch things together until it's fixed. The Festival 60 after all is a system, and without that three-position ribbon holding everything together, its individual components are pretty much helpless on their own.

Nonetheless, the Festival 60 is a good deal. It works, and works flawlessly. I sorta wish Harman/Kardon had partnered with a real speaker manufacturer, as Denon did with Mission or NAD did with PSB. But when all is said and done, the Festival 60 passes muster. It is not as compact as the NAD or the Linn, but it is loaded with features and is priced even with the NAD, and like the NAD, the Festival 60 beats the value whiskers off the Linn. I recommend the Harman/ Kardon Festival 60, but suggest that unless you're severely space-challenged, that you keep reading The Sensible Sound and get yourself some excellent individual components at a lesser cost. -- KE

Harman/Kardon has decided to discontinue the entire Festival line, meaning that there may still be some of these systems on the shelves at reduced prices, but probably not for long. If you are interested in this sort of mini setup, a discounted Festival system might be just the ticket for you. -- KWN