Is this reasonable receiver behavior? (Integra DSR 4.8 Receiver)

[tbessie]

Hi all!

I just bought an Integra DSR 4.8 receiver. It's pretty new in their line-up, and I have one of their older ones (DSR 7.3), which I like.

After using this new receiver for awhile, I found the following to be true - do you think these are acceptable? This is just a simple, 2-channel receiver with a CD/DVD player in it (not HD, just regular SD).

<blockquote>1. Source and volume knobs are wobbly/off-center. They are fixed firmly, but aren't perfectly centered.

2. If you use the pass-through HDMI (or any video source), you can't listen to the radio at the same time; it's only one source-set at a time.

3. The fan in it is pretty loud, and is on ALL THE TIME. In my previous receiver, the fan almost never came on.

4. The DVD tray can take up to *10* seconds to eject, even if nothing at all is happening on the receiver.

5. If you press the "eject" button on the unit, but then switch to the radio (before the tray ejects), the radio will say "Waiting..." for up to 5 seconds before the radio goes on. This happens even though the tray never eventually ejects.

6. The user interface, both onscreen and on the face of the unit, seems to react slightly slowly to user input when switching between sources... like it is trying to do too much processing and has to finish up the last thing before going on to the next.</blockquote>

... so I've never experienced this kind of pokey behavior from any receiver, especially not one with a reasonably good name like Integra.

I'd like to bring it back, but there's nothing "broken" about it - it just behaves like an underpowered processor with too much to do. I suspect they used very low grade hardware in it.

Comments? Suggestions?

- Tim

 

[Adam]

Tim,

The thing that I'd like to comment on is the fan. Do you have it in a constrained space that would prevent it from getting enough cooling air? If not, that fan should not run all of the time - and it should not be loud even when it is on. I have never heard a fan come on in my receivers. Heck, I didn't even know my Yamaha had a fan until I pulled it out of the rack to replace it.

Adam

 

[tbessie]

Tim,

The thing that I'd like to comment on is the fan. Do you have it in a constrained space that would prevent it from getting enough cooling air? If not, that fan should not run all of the time - and it should not be loud even when it is on. I have never heard a fan come on in my receivers. Heck, I didn't even know my Yamaha had a fan until I pulled it out of the rack to replace it.

Adam

Hi Adam...

Well, the receiver's in a smallish case, but it has about 2 inches of clearance on top, and the front and back of the case are open to the air so it's getting as much as it needs. I actually just called up Integra support, and they said that it was designed that way, for the fan to be on all the time. :-( And it is rather loud (I have pretty sensitive hearing)... it's almost as loud as my HTPC with it's 2 hard drives running in it, even.

My older receiver has a fan, but I don't recall ever hearing it come on.

- Tim

 

[Adam]

Did you also mention the noise level of the fan? It could be that there's something wrong with the fan itself, or how it is mounted. I just can't imagine that it would be purposely designed to be distracting.

You mentioned bringing it back. Can you do that without any fees? If so, sounds like that might be the plan - or at least an exchange to try out another one of that model. There are clearly things about it that bother you, at least a bit. Being an Integra, I imagine that it wasn't inexpensive. Are there other units that you had your eye on to try out, or was this kinda the only real option for your system?

 

[tbessie]

Did you also mention the noise level of the fan? It could be that there's something wrong with the fan itself, or how it is mounted. I just can't imagine that it would be purposely designed to be distracting.

You mentioned bringing it back. Can you do that without any fees? If so, sounds like that might be the plan - or at least an exchange to try out another one of that model. There are clearly things about it that bother you, at least a bit. Being an Integra, I imagine that it wasn't inexpensive. Are there other units that you had your eye on to try out, or was this kinda the only real option for your system?

Yes, I'm sure it wasn't designed to be distracting. Maybe just cheap. It was just $600 (which was how much I paid for the last Integra unit I got about 3 or 4 years ago, which makes me worry the innards are cheaper).

The place I bought it from will take it back with a 15% restocking fee, I think; I'm going to go in today and play with their floor unit and see if it has the same faults. If not, I may just get another of the same.

Basically, I wanted a small, lowish-power receiver like this one (I have a very constrained space to put it in) with a built-in DVD/CD player - I could use my HTPC for all discs, but sometime's it's just very convenient to use a separate player and the remote if I don't want to hastle with the noise and heft-of-use of the HTPC. Since that's not a very big market (I think there are only 4 or 5 units of that type on the market of any quality, unless I want to get something from a small boutique shop and pay $5000 or $10000 for it), it's not the easiest thing to find. I also want it to have at least HDMI pass-thru for the HTPC and HDMI-output and scaling for the built-in DVD player. NAD makes a couple of models like that, but they don't have HDMI pass-thru.

I think I was happier without using HDMI pass-thru and using my old DSR 7.3, which was quiet and faster, though kind of clunky by modern standards.

*sigh* Ya get into tech, ya stand the chance of getting disappointed.... kinda like love, eh? :-D

- Tim