Ok, so after a long week with relatives coming in and out, I finally got the 80.3 installed. All I can say is wow! The Audyssey XT32 calibration really transformed my system compared to the Marantz SR7500 which also has a calibration system. Audyssey set my fronts to 40hz, and actually had me turn down my sub to 75 dB before running the calibration. Afterwards, I changed the fronts back to 80 Hz which gave me more bass out of the sub. The sub was weak at 40 Hz. Overall, the installation of the Integra was fairly straight forward, however setting up the HDMI inputs for resolution took some reading to figure out how to bypass the video processors for my Oppo 93. I do not have any sync issues with audio from either of my sources. The picture quality on Dish Network is slightly improved, but by all means is not a night and day difference. I did have issues getting PCM and DolbyTrueHD and DTS HD Master to work correctly. At first I thought the receiver was the problem due to the fact that when I put in a Dolby True Bluray, I would get a DTS light on the receiver. Long story short, come to find out the secondary audio on my Oppo was set to ON, which causes the player to output a lossey format which defaults to DTS. Once I got that fixed everything worked correctly.
I too also get the clicks when two channel sources switch back over to DD, such as commercials going into regular programming with DD encoding. The clicks are not loud at all, and are not bothersome. I have some more tweaking to do tomorrow getting my remote setup, and setting default listening modes for my sources. The receiver has so many features and options that it can almost be confusing on what feature can and can't work with other features.
I was not able to get a video of the box opening, but I took a few pictures of the unit as I opened it. In the power supply section of the amp on the left and right side of the amp you will find a fan. I assume that one pulls in air while the other draws air out of the power supply section. I didn't notice whether the back section of the receiver had fans. I can tell you that the unit does run rather warm, but is not anything to be concerned about. The receiver is noticeably warmer in the rear section were the HDMI board sits. The board is rather close to the top of the lid so I think the heat is more noticeable because it sits at the top of the receiver. I do have my unit in an AV cabinet, but I recently installed fans to help ventilate the cabinet. I'll post a picture of my setup sometime tomorrow.
On a side note, my back hurts from lugging the receiver around during the installation. There is even a warning on the box recommending a two man lift to move it.
Thats all for the moment, I'll update tomorrow if I find out anything interesting.
Josh D.
The reason, is because Audyssey once set up kind of "takes over" your settings -even if you go into the speaker level settings and bump it up. I noticed that the red "Audyssey EQ" light on the receiver (on near the dts, DD icons) went away. I think this was nannying my receiver and trying to keep all of the levels of the system in line, even when I wanted to crank it up to the max.
