Harman/Kardon HD990 CD-player

Performed in a slim body of recognizable black and gray colors HD990 looks good even when it's turned off - the merit of the company's designers is beyond doubt. A more careful examination of the device showed that, in addition to the luxurious appearance, there are still many interesting features. Thus, on the rear panel of the player we found balanced XLR connectors, two digital inputs and a proprietary HRS-Link connector for synchronizing data with HK990 amplifier. The Harman/Kardon HD990 player can be used as an external DAC without any restrictions. In this way, the playback quality is noticeably increased, for example, from a computer or other non-audiophile sources.

First of all, you pay attention in the sound to a very lively dynamics with an excellent kick in midbass and a clear attack. The bass register is presented very neatly in the middle part, but the most extreme bottom is not as accurately performed as we would like. The middle is clear, with properly elaborated timbres and an abundance of details. It seemed that sometimes the vocal sibilants are slightly emphasized, but it is difficult to attribute this feature to obvious shortcomings. The quality of high frequencies is very high. Dicants are very clear, and in terms of accuracy of this range, the Harman/Kardon HD990 player may easily compete with very expensive devices. Even when playing mp3 special artifacts here were not audible.

We found almost none claims to the sound stage, you can only wish for a more accurate positioning of images in space.