Advertising for Integra or Integra Research

[Burke Strickland]

Has anyone seen any ads for either Integra Home Theater or Integra Research anywhere in the past six months? Integra Home Theater has recently introduced their hot new separates that could be "competition killers" in their category, but all I've seen in the latest magazines is one "institutional" ad touting the "Integra" name but not really saying much about any of their products. And Integra Research has fallen off the radar completely. We know how great the products are , but it continues to baffle me why they don't do much to promote them.

Any thoughts (or ad sightings)?

Burke

[Razvan]

No ad sightings at all.

When I bought my RDC-7 in January 2002 it was on backorder apparently due to high demand - the unit was pretty popular. Nowadays, the RDC-7 seems to have lost the battle against the Anthem AVM 20 and the B&K Ref 50, units that offer comparable performance for less $.

R

[Burke Strickland]

From my own listening, I'm not so sure the B&K REF 50 or the Anthem AVM-20 actually have performance comparable to the Integra Research RDC-7. But they do seem to be winning in the market place for a number of reasons:

1) substantially lower price
2) impressive feature set on paper
3) higher advertising profile
4) you can actually see and hear them at a dealer before you decide to buy one.

If the RDC-7 is not available for a "look-see" in person, then the features on paper are all anyone has to go on to compare with the competition. However, from what I've been reading elsewhere recently, it sounds like Anthem dealers are now starting to walk down the same path as too many of the Integra Research dealers, not budging on price and no longer stocking the units or even having demo units available to audition, depending instead on product "reputation" to make the sale.

Perhaps they figure if Outlaw can move units sight unseen, then they ought to be able to do the same thing. However, the Outlaw pre/pro is a small fraction of the price and comes with full return privileges.

Burke

[David Meek]

That is puzzling. The model works for Outlaw because of their price point and return policy. For Integra, their price point puts them in a category where the interested buyer is generally more informed/experienced and wants to seriously audition the unit before purchasing.

Are they minimizing their outlay, looking for D&M Holdings to buy them up, too?




David - HTGuide flunky
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