I'd say GENERALLY at that price range, the more you spend the more you get and Outlaw gear has gotten a lot of converts over the years. Having not personally demoed the two units you mention I can't say either way of course. By your question you seem to be saying you're buying "sound unheard"? Not a great idea, although depending on what you are upgrading from you'll probably pretty happy in any case, but still every company has it's sound. In the range you're talking about I always liked NAD amps. They seem a little more neutral than the HK gear.

Does the Outlaw RR2150 sound $400 better than the HK3485? I don't know, but I would think the Outlaw will sound better. I have a friend who has the HK and likes it. He is using an OPPO DV-970HD and driving Paradigm Titan Monitors with them and I think it sounds pretty darn good for a $650 system. He just recently added a SVS PB10-ISD subwoofer he found used for $250 which rounds out his system nicely.

What are you going to use for a source? Turntable? CD player?

Quote:
What are you going to use for a source? Turntable? CD player?

I think that's the big question. For me, the thing that totally ruled out the Outlaw receiver was JA's discovery that the RIAA EQ on the Phono channel was pretty awful. There's not much of an excuse for that-- the schematics for a darn-near-perfect RIAA equalization are widely available (or even reverse-engineerable with a decent SPICE simulator) and just as cheap, parts-wise, as the way Outlaw did it. Better to not do it at all and have an extra line-level input than to do it badly, IMHO. But I listen to a lot more vinyl than most people who are in the market for a budget receiver.

I have no idea of HK makes good stuff anymore. I've owned one of their 70's receivers, (the HK630) and it is one of the better receivers I've ever heard (on par with Marantz and almost as good as McIntosh)-- and has a great MM phono channel. While their current receivers aren't as overbuilt as the older ones (imagine, a mass market receiver with a dual power supply!) I'd be willing to give them a listen, based on their history and the decent (class D?) rating for the last model that Stereophile reviewed.

Stereophile on the HK3485's predecessor the HK3480:
Harman/Kardon HK 3480 stereo receiver
Driving the $550/pair Magneplanar MMGs with Jeff Rowland's $14,800 Model 302 amplifier was an exercise in absurdity, but a pleasant one. Back here on earth, I paired the MMGs with Harman/Kardon's HK 3480 stereo receiver ($449). The remote-controlled 3480 has a phono stage, and is one of the few two-channel receivers still available out there; most other mass-market manufacturers now make only home-theater receivers.

From southern Rhode Island, the HK 3480 brought in Boston FM stations using only a wire-dipole antenna. The 3480's 120Wpc output makes it a good pairing with the MMGs' 86dB efficiency and 4 ohm load. It drove the MMGs to room-filling volumes with respectable bass on organ pedals, always performing fusslessly. Add an entry-level CD player and you have a dorm-room/vacation-home system that punches way above its weight class, costing less than $1000. By the way, it was Dr. Sidney Harman who invented the (monophonic) receiver, a little more than 50 years ago.

And on the Outlaw RR2150: http://www.stereophile.com/integratedamps/306outlaw/