Integra DRX Series, Surprised!

[The History Kid]

I figured I'd write up something on this unit since it's fairly new still.

 

Earlier this year, my Fusion 8100 suffered a nasty fault that it wouldn't come out of.  It had been on its last legs for a while, and after having issues with another Fusion, I had kicked around the idea of jumping ship from Emotiva.  I decided though, that I'd give them one last chance as my entry point to separates.  So I went with an MC-700 preamp, and to power the speakers in my setup that weren't powered by stereo amps or monoblocks, I went with a UPA-500.  This combination was a mistake.  The UPA was flaky, and while it was by no means a slouch, it made my RS-3's struggle, to keep up with the main stage, while starving the RC-7 for power.  The exact opposite of what I wanted.  The MC-700 was a train wreck interface wise, and between it and the Fusion, I will never own an Emotiva system with any kind of digital interface ever again.  

 

Things I was looking for:

- Power to supply to the RC-7, and 4 RS-3's in my configuration.

- Tuner

- 4K Video Processing

- Halfway decent processing without breaking the bank

 

Outboard amplification that was staying included a UPA-2, and an XPA-2.  The sources included a turntable off of a Schiit Mani, an Oppo BDP-103, a Dell computer, 3 Playstations (2, 3, 4) and an Xbox 360.  EQ would also address the RB-5's, RF-3 II's, and the RSW-15.

 

I picked up this unit on Accessories4Less - the DRX-3.1.  Having previously moved a system from a Fusion 8100 to an Integra unit, I had fairly high expectations, since I knew the DTR series was more than capable to make the Heresy I's sound good, and the DTM series was handling a newly modified pair of Heresy II.  My focus has been shifting around from 20-40% movies to 60-80% music, so my criticality came into play with music.  Unlike the DT series of systems, the DRX doesn't pretend that Spotify is built into the unit, it tells you up front that it's through Spotify Connect, the rest of the streaming features included Pandora, Tune In, Tidal, and a few others.  The big kicker was Chromecast being built in.  Fantastic for most (but I do have my computer).

 

The interface out of the box was much more pleasing and easy to understand than the Emotiva's was.  I had no problems navigating the screens, and understanding what each screen was came much more naturally.  The first thing I noticed was that unlike my MC-700, the DRX-3.1 was passing a fully fledged 4K picture to the screen.  The computer is fully 4K, and previously I had frequent issues with the screen resolution cycling to 1920x1080, but with the DRX-3.1 that resolution is forced to run at 4096x2140.  The Oppo also detected this change, where it would default to 1920x1080 on the MC-700 as well.  The computer also recognized that the Integra was ready to process an Atmos signal.  I don't grade the MC-700 hard on that since it wasn't Atmos enabled, but it was nice to see that out of the box, the Integra was sending and receiving all of the right signals.

 

Power wise, I was pleasantly surprised.  The Integra is rated at 100 WPC with 2 channels driven from 20 Hz to 20 kHz.  The total power output is around 530 W, so my total WPC with 5 channels driven is probably around 60 or 70 - similar to the Fusion 8100.  However, it seems to drive the speakers with quite a bit more ease than the Fusion 8100 did, and certainly better than the UPA-500.  The unit weighs a meager 26 lbs, with a smaller power supply - however, it easily delivers power more effectively than the 35 lb Emotiva AVR, and the 28 lb Emotiva amp did.

 

EQ - I almost always run flat.  I don't like adjusting the spectrum if I don't have to, and I was happy to say with the Integra that continued.  However, the bass management of the Integra seems to drive the MR and LR much better than even my old Yamaha's did.  It's tamed the RSW-15 to a considerable degree, and doesn't seem to cause quite the rattling punch that previous units kicked to the sub.  This is a welcome change, as the LFE spectrum is still delivered in its entirely, but the Integra's ability to filter out any noise that might get spit out anywhere in the signal makes the bass a much smoother sounding experience.

 

Overall at first full 24 hours of handling, I'm surprised.  I would have expected a pre/pro/power amp configuration to outperform a mid-level AVR, but Integra has surprised me on at least 3 other occasions.  Ultimately, what it comes down to is that the Integra is a much more refined product capable of putting out sufficient power to drive Reference II series speakers, and an EQ and sound profiling that is more than adequate, especially compared to other units in its price range.  The company is batting 1.000 with me right now, and that's more than I can say for Yamaha, Denon, Marantz, or Emotiva.

[rbrown0678]

Pleased you've found some thing that is interphasing well with your system.time to test,and see what else is possible, great write up.

[oldred]

Michael

I'm glad you like the Integra....I still have my 80.3....I like it but.... because of all the issues with Onkyo/Integra  I had to move on to the Anthem..... Don't get me wrong Integra does stand behind everything they sell....getting the HDMI boards replaced on both my 80.3 and my 40.1 was as painless as it could possibly be....only took 3 days for each.

I thought Integra was better than the Denon I had before it.....even though there was a change in technology....The AVR 3805...never did like it.....gave it away

 

Enjoy,

 

George