Which of these recievers are better to start a home theater?
 

Harman Kardon AVR 210
A/V receiver with Dolby Digital and DTS

Info At Crutchfield


Onkyo TX-DS595
A/V Receiver with Dolby Digital, DTS, and Pro Logic II

Info At Crutchfield

Both are great receivers. I love the Onkyo. Best value in its price range. Others to consider include the Denon 1802 and the Outlaw Audio 1050.

Are you looking at buying new speakers also? If so what is your total price range? A common mistake IMO is to spend $500 on a great receiver and buy cheap mass market speakers.

Also look into Denon and Yamaha. Denon edges out Yamaha
for sound quality, but is a bit more $$$. Let your budget be
your guide. :)

The Onkyo is a great receiver. Here's a review:

http://www.cheaphometheater.com/onkyo-tx-ds595.htm

As Skar said, don't shortchange yourself in the speaker department after purchasing a nice receiver.

I would go with the Onkyo over the H/K 210, but if you had the funds to step up to the H/K 310 or 510, I would choose either of those over the Onkyo.

If you are dead set on H/K check out Ubid. They have some new and refurbished H/K that go for pretty decent prices. If you don't mind refurbs you could probably pick up last years H/K 500 for a fairly good bargain.

J

Onkyo!
 

The H/K are too bright for my taste!

I needed to replace my HarmanKardon AVR25II pro-logic for the obvious reason and because of remote conflict with my HK DVD50 player. I called HK and told them of my remote conflict and they said they would give me a deal on any A/V reciever of my choosing. I wanted to try out the new Onkyo recievers since I had heard good things about them.
I went to CircuitCity and had pleasure of trying out all the HarmanKardon and Onkyo recievers that they sell. I couldn't find one Onkyo that could compare to the sound quality of the Harman Kardon AVR line. All were compared on the same Infinity speakers that I have. The daddy rabbit of all of the receivers is the HK AVR7000, but I didn't have room for it in my case. I liked the HK AVR510, it sounded just as good as the AVR7000 but didn't have quite all the features.

I got the AVR510 and am thrilled with it's performance!

Heres a link to the HKsite:
http://www.harmankardon.com/

I'm glad you like the sound of your H/K. They make nice receivers. One comment though:

The Harman Kardon AVR-510 retails for $999.
The Harman Kardon AVR-7000 retails for $1799.
The Onkyo TX-DS595 retails for $530.

The 595 is the best Onkyo available at my local Circuit City. Not to discredit your sound quality observations, but it isn't quite fair when you compare the Onkyo to receivers costing 2-3.5 times as much. BTW at the $1799 range I would recommend looking at seperates. They sound better than ANY receiver out there IMO.

I bought a Sony STR-DA333ES 1 1/2 years ago for $599 at Big Apple Electronics.

I've been really happy with it so far.

Another good site for info/opinions is Audio Review

I agree that's alot to spend but the MSRP's are way outa line. The last time I checked you could get an AVR210 for about $400 and an AVR310 for $550. When I got my AVR510, Circuit city was selling them for $750 and they could get me a AVR7000 for $1050.

HK sold me my AVR510 for 1/2 of MSRP as a service for my trouble with the remote conflict.