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The predecessor of the current company Harman
International Industries, Inc. was Harman Kardon Inc., founded by
the two Americans Sidney Harman and Bernard Kardon. The two met
while working for another well-known American consumer electronics
manufacturer, the Bogen Company. By the way, they probably later
collaborated with this company very closely, since some models of
these two companies shared a common design and the power tubes used.
Harman and Kardon started in 1953 with the development of an
advanced stereo turntable. They were also pioneers of specific
American integrated designs because they were the first to construct
a set containing a tuner, preamplifier and an amplifier designed to
be built into furniture. One of the most famous series of their
receivers was called Recital and Festival. The model Festival II
TA-260 shown in the photos comes from the beginning of the 1960s and
is, thanks to its quality and durability, a typical HK product from
those years. Aluminum chassis known from other American production,
thick aluminum front emphasizing the solidity of the structure.
Added to this is the good quality of components and a fairly decent
assembly. This model had a stereo in the "simulcast" version, i.e.
one VHF channel and the other on medium wave, so you can see on the
front two wave knobs, two scales and two EM-84 magic eyes. In
addition, it was possible to connect an external stereo decoder
using the "Multi in" and "out" sockets and by setting the function
switch to the "FM Multi" position. The 7355 power tubes used are
also typical HK hallmarks of those years. Of the more famous
companies, 7355 only used HK and maybe Bogen. The lamp gave the
TA-260 power of 25 W per channel in the P&P system. There is
information on the Internet that it was a development / transitional
version of the 6L6 pentode and preceded the 7591. The HK design did
not burden this tube very much and it operated in a quite "gentle"
regime. Therefore, most HK models on these lamps still have a full
set of them on board. It is true that the 7355 has no replacement
and is no longer produced, but it can be easily replaced by the
previously mentioned 6L6 or 7591 and even EL34. Apart from this
model, a model with the same design, but a power less by half, with
the symbol TA-230, was offered. The main difference was the use of
the 7408 output tubes working with the amplifier's maximum power of
approx. 12 W. Lamps 7408 are the so-called industrial versions of
the known 6V6 / 6P6S pentodes. They are distinguished by a higher
maximum operating voltage. The sound reproduced by the TA260 is very
faithful and calm with quite a lot of "pace". Overall it is a very
good design with good sensitivity with an FM tuner. In addition, it
also has a turntable preamplifier with a magnetoelectric cartridge,
which works on two 12AX7 / ECC83 tubes. As in every respectable
American company, the lamps were signed as "Harman Kardon".
HK, apart from these series of receivers, produced many models of
tuners, preamplifiers and amplifiers in the series "Citation",
"Epic", "A", "FA" etc. They could be mounted in consoles or they
were independent equipment and had housings. In addition to the 7355
and 7408 lamps, the company also produced equipment powered by EL84
and 6L6 lamps.
The next line of receivers were the TA-xxxxX models. They were
characterized by a specific design, i.e. a lot of knobs and switches
on a rather narrow, but high front. It resulted, among others, from
HK's use of separate band regulation for both channels. The TA
series consisted of three models with different power amplifiers.
And so the TA-3000X was constructed on 7408 power tubes (like
TA-230), TA-5000X on 7355 pentodes (like TA-260), and the last
TA-7000X had a 7591 power tube. These receivers duplicated the
electronic solution (with minor modifications ) from the TA series,
the only significant difference is the work in the MPX system.
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