I bought one of the DTR 80.1, I was told at the time of sale why they are better than the Onkyo range.
1) they come with 5 Year Replacement warranty - not repair
2) Components are hand picked instead of manufactured in assembly line
They said its like Lexus from Toyota
So I bought it. The system kind of worked for just over an Year and then decided to start playing up. No display and no audio etc. I contacted Ambertech, the distributor in Australia and they asked me to take to authorized repairer. I was handed over the unit back after repair only to find out, that now it won't do anything at all. Frustrated, contacted Ambertech again and they asked me to send the unit to them. Instead of replacing as mentioned at time of sale they repaired it and sent it back. I now have a repaired unit, which I can only run upto a max of 55-60% of the volume, with only 3 speakers 2 front and 1 centre. If I add another side or rear speakers or a passive SUB, which it supports, the unit shuts itself down. It heats up a lot even when the Aircon is running. Please note I only use this unit to watch movies now and then and its not that its heavily used everyday. But simply it appears to be a cheap unit.
Doesn't matter how you caliberate it, it can not play music that will sound in any form that you are using a good home theatre or music system. Its only good with DTS input. Even dolby signals are pretty boomy at times.
My Computer using a Cretative XFi Titanium sound card and Logitech Z5500 sounds 100 times better than Integra.
These units are not what they used to be years ago. It appears they are just another product from assembly line now, very poorly built and you don't get that value from your money anymore.
Retailers sell them to get good margin out of it and will say anything or everything (like replacement warranty) to push the sale. I see a lot of them being repaired and sold by Ambertech, the Australian Distributor selling them as refurbished on ebay at 1/3rd or half of the RR Price.
I read an article that Ambertech recorded major loss for the previous financial years. I am not sure if its the Distributor who has stopped honoring the replacement warranty or they are simply not making any profit because of the number of faults increasing in these units simple because of the poor built quality and the supplier can not cope up with replacements.
I would stay away from this unit and will never buy an Integra product again. It is currently sitting in my living room and only turn it on every now and then, to watch a movie with only 3 speakers connected and keeping the volume at only 55 %.
I am deeply disappointed in this unit and simply decided to wait until it dies and will then look for some other brand, and do a bit of research before buying it. Retailer and Distributor, bluntly refused to offer replacement or fix it any further. NAD seems to be a better brand.
