HarmanKardon Reviews 157

Harman Kardon used to be the benchmark for me when it came to in-car audio systems. But starting around 2020, they basically died for me! Year after year, the so-called Harman Kardon sound systems in cars make it painfully clear that it’s just another piece of junk that makes no sense at all!

HarmanKardan customer service response is intended to make the return/refund process so difficult and time wasting, that you will give up and they keep your $. HarmanKarden sent me a game controller instead of the ear buds I purchased. I have already spent 2 hours answering questions and sending them pictures of product, its serial number and picture of UPS label, and Harman has failed and continues to fail in resolving their mistake of sending me the wrong product. I know it is a "con" because they are asking for me to send the same pictures and information again and again. This clearly reflects Harman's lack of business ethics and deceptive trade practices to wrongfully refuse to refund me for sending the wrong product, and providing free shipping to return the wrong product. BUYER BEWARE!! It is a "con job" !!
I will never buy anything from Harman again and neither should you. I have never had an experience like this from any other companies! It is bad!!

asked to return item within a few hours of delivery as not impressed with sound/design... now the sound/aesthetics are subjective so the review is not about that, but trying to get it returned has been a terrible experience. Tried to do it online as instructed but nothing, no email and no follow up, no chat agents available for first day, 24 hour reply for the WhatsApp who told me to wait a few hours for the email, tried again but now have to wait another 24 hours for a reply presumably. tried the chat function and finally got a human but was told 'someone else is dealing with it, they'll be in touch'- that was hours ago...

I dont know why buying and returning an item from HK is so much more complicated than any other online vendor. really soured my impression of the brand and changed my mind about the speaker i was planning to swap it for, will look elsewhere now.

Unfortunately, the Extra Package HK BMW doesn't play well, but for the money you can buy a better sound system yourself. Unfortunately, the HK sound system is overrated.

If you can score new or second hand items from some years ago, they are bomb, long lasting, worth repairing.
Don't afraid to shop very old products, even with cosmetic defaults, they will sound better than anything you'll find from most manufacturers today.
Anything recent on their website is overpriced for what's inside.

Firstly misread my initial request then when corrected stated there were too many different combinations to advise me which was rubbish. Simply put they can't be bothered to help.

Miserable customer service!
Device loses WLAN connection (daily) all forums confirm it is a firmware problem. Harman first wants you to change 100 settings and then repairs the box (without improvement) my device is now being repaired for the 2nd time and has been gone for almost 4 weeks. No admission of guilt, even when threatened with a lawyer no response to comments about firmware errors.
I will never buy anything from Harman again! This warranty case has been running for 6 MONTHS !!!!

DO NOT BUY THIS BRAND!!!! We bought a radiance 2400 for €4000 and since day one the sound coming out of the speakers got interrupted or completely stopped. So we got sold a straight up broken product for thousands of euros. We are not the only one because my sister bought the same product and she has the same issue!!! When you contact customer service they do not listen and just instruct to do/try hundred of different things that don't solve the problem. We had to sent the product to the service centre. It is such a insanely big product that having to sent it all back is almost impossible. We got the speakers back from the service centre and suprise suprise it still does the same thing. Harman has the prices of high end but the product and customer service is the worst I've ever experienced.

I bought a Harlan Kardon Radience 2400 speakers system in October 2023 paying €3.999.
After 8 months, the left speaker stopped working.
I contacted its technical assistance and after replying 5 or more requests of information I am asked to follow an absolutely inconvenient process that includes packing the speaker and shipping it to their authorized service center.
When I search the equipment its current price is down to € 2.999.
So I buy a premium brand speaker that after 8 months is sold for € 1.000 less than I paid and does not work well and all the trouble to deal with the packing and shipment to a service center is fully transferred to me.
Without any alternative I may end going through the hassle instructed by Harman Karson, what I certainly will not do is ever again buy their products.

Wish I would have checked here first.
I had a harmon kardon aura studio 3 before it got stolen.
The fake one u buy here maybe would fool you if you never had the real one
IF YOU WANT FAKE HERE IS THE BEST FAKE YOU WILL FIND

Never buy products from this company. Paid over £500 for a sound bar and sub woofer - problems one year on and 3 years on the unit blew.
Best they will do is offer a 25% discount with a new purchase but why would anyone buy anything from this company given the extraordinary poor quality.
Further the company does not offer any recycling so Harman Kardon is totally unsustainable and contributes massively to environmental pollution given all these poor quality items will go into landfill

Absolute shambles of a company. Do NOT purchase from them. I sent my parcel back on 5th January 2024, today is 10th February 2024 (Over a month now) and still waiting for a refund. Received an email today stating they are still investigating what has happened to the parcel and cannot issue a refund even though I have proof on my end that the parcel has been sent back.

Customer services are in Holland so a complete nightmare to deal with. I would highly recommend not to buy from them. Customer service is terrible also.

Bought a HK receiver and worked perfectly with my wired speakers until I moved house and internet company and now it won't recognise my speakers anymore. I tried everything under the sun and then tried to get help from customer support. Called 4x and each time I was cut off after I've given my name and contact details. This company seems to have major problems with their equipment and don't seem to care. Now I can't use the receiver anymore. WHAT A WASTE OF MONEY!

Some time ago I bought a Citation soundbar. One of the key features that made me chose this was the great bass and the ability to adjust/increase it without the need for subwoofer.
Over time I experienced that every time they issues a sw upgrade, that function would disappear. I would contact them, understand the issue and release a corrective update within few days which fixed the issue.
Lately this happened again (4th time in 18 months). Their first answer was to ask me to find a way to pack it and ship it to some service center 300km away. I refused and asked for a sw update like the other times. After some dialogue they came back and told me they would indeed release an update to fix the issue. After some time with no update I contact them again and they tell me that the version I have (and had sent documentation for from the beginning) is the latest one and no newer version exist or is planned, and that if I still have an issue I should send the unit back for service.
Finally I am not told now that the latest update intentionally removes that functionality because they want it to be available only in connection with a subwoofer - and they try to convince me that the bass adjustment I saw previously had no effect anyway, which is of course not correct (why would they have kept it for so long and corrected the disappearance every time, and claimed that a service of my unit would fix it…).
This is nothing short but removing a functionality that was there from start and make it contingent of buying additional of their hardware. This is against all marketing best practice and really a fishy business model.
Stay away, buy another brand where they don’t have these salami methods and where their customer support are not as confused and unreliable as these guys. Never buy HK again.

Buyers beware of return refund from H/Kardon
Case No.13888605 – December 2023

I made a on line purchase for an Aura Studio 4 from HK and had to return the goods back to and expecting to receive my refund with in few days, having to contact HK not realising that the customers support is working from home and you can hear sounds of pots and pans on the background and to add more stress from my end, the support team has no authorises to do anything and not able to put you in contact with a supervisor and only acting as admin by puncing in the details on keyboard.

Harman Kardon system is quick to send you an email, saying investigation might take up to 2 working days, right up to now I have received 6 email messages with no signs of refund.

Having to do more investigation on Trustpilot reviews are @ 1 -Star on 73%.
My advice is to AVOID at all cost.

Makes claims about their products. Then says they will not work with something like "another wireless signal nearby"

OK. so in order to use their speakers wireless functions. i aparrently have to get in a boat, sail out on open water. turn off my phone. and then play it via a non wireless signal. which defeats the whole purpose.

Bad.... company

Rene and his colleagues in customer service were exceptionally helpful when I foolishly fell for an eBay con. They swiftly confirmed that my JBL Flip 6 was counterfeit giving me the ammunition I needed to obtain a full and unconditional refund under the eBay "Money Back Guarantee".
Lesson learned - if the price is ridiculously low on eBay do your homework first and save yourself time and frustration
They then offered me a discount voucher to help sooth my chagrin and facilitate my purchase of the real Mccoy!
eBay were on the ball too.
Thanks to all.

You can literally spend THOUSANDS of dollars on an HK product, in my case it was TWO GRAND on an Enchant 1300 soundbar and matching wireless 10" sub.

While it works, sometimes, and the sound is reasonable, though nothing to write home about, the bottom line is that there is NO way once a given product has a firmware update available to actually update the product. I have seen reviews about many, MANY different products of theirs, not just mine stating the exact same thing. They have apps that you cannot download, and if on the off chance you can, they do not work, simple as that. Check out play store, search harman kardon, and look at the thousands of glowing 1 star reviews.

The directions literally say the firmware is available on their site, it is NOT, in fact, there are NO firmware updates for ANY product on their website, so forget about dropping it on to a FAT formatted USB drive as the instructions clearly tell you to do. Google Home, forget about that as well, it doesn't see your HK product, period, ever.

The product "experts" are in a call center in india, do not speak fluent English, have NO familiarity with ANY hk product, make it very clear they possess ZERO fks to give, and are condescending at best, or will just hang up when it is clear they don't know and don't choose to "assist" any longer because their metrics are more important to them. There is no US based number to call, you will NEVER speak to an American, much less a native English speaker, MUCH LESS an "expert" of ANY kind.

Harman, a once truly lauded brand is a shell of what it was. They don't care and it shows. Save your money. Go to another brand, hell, even SONY at this point is a better option, and may very well sound better. That's a bold statement. 2 grand out the window on a product that simply doesn't work.

Harman offers NO customer or product support, regardless of price paid. You have been warned.

They really ought to change their tagline to, "Harman, because FK you."

Definitely not bad. They are making clear equipment that gives great bass, trebles, good equalization and clear tone of sound. I like it. I like cars that have harman kardon sound system built in. they usually turn out to be the best ones that gives you the best atmosphere in a closed environment.

I have a Citation One speaker that worked perfectly till my Internet network changed and the speaker would not connect.
Contacted the technical department for help.
Absolute waste of time.
Gave them all the information about the unit, model, serial No, problem what I tried to get the unit to reconnect.
Virtually every email from them ignored my responses to the previous email.
We're told numerous times the unit would not reset and wipe the information stored in it. Every response asked me to reset the unit and then look for the unit in the available WiFi on my phone.
Despite being told the unit was showing no Internet on the Internet light. This seemed to be the response every time.
I still have a unit thst will not work and no response now from their technicians