Harman Kardon Citation 22 No Love?

And yet another thing to remember is that these later Citations followed the XX series, which were at the very top of the heap ($7,500 for the amp and $3,500 for the preamp-in 1980!)
I remember HP did a comparo test in The Absolute Sound of all the big amps available at that time and the Citation was the winner, beating them all.
Then Harman bought Mark Levinson, and the Citation line was put on the wayside for a while; then re-emerged at a much lower price point. Hard shoes to fill.
I recently had an urge to go vintage, and I am currently using a CItation 17s preamp and a 16 power amp. Compared to my previous Audible Illusions combo, they don't fare bad at all, there is less palpability and detail, but there is also more musicality; and the 17s phono stage is just as good if not better than the Modulus standard phono stage.
Yeah, compared to say a Mac, most Citations are I think undervalued and underapreciated. All the better for those who know and want one!

I like my 22s, have 4 of them in my system, seem to work great 1 gets a little hot but not too bad.

Well you all are right about one thing and that is that they sound amazing! Yes they were all biased incorrectly from the factory and the left channel also had to have a mod done on it as there were some errors on the main PC board on how the L ch. Bias circuit is configured. I have a few of these amps and all have been re- biased and modified and now they run just barely warm and they are so reliable.

They have an incredibly warm sound. One can listen to music for hours and not have any listening fatigue. Even the Citation 21 Pre-amp matches so well with it.
I'm very happy to own these classic 80's audio gear.

I don't have any experience w/H-C Citation amps but did note that Jim McShane appears to work with Citation gear. Check out his website. I think it's a mod/upgrade offering but not sure. In any event, it seems to me he wouldn't work with the brand unless there was some inherent quality.

I believe that all the Citation amps followed certain quirky design principles laid down by head HK designer Matti Otala. Definitely a different way to skin the (power amp) cat. A quick Google search will return a ton of info about the design and help explain why they are distinctive (and, IMHO, very, very good) sounding SS amps.

The new HK990 integrated amp (that I'm about to buy once they provide a software patch for the glitchy DSP chip) has a power amp section using the same basic Citation design.

Marty