My Nightmare Hunting for a Good Amp

[Big Salty Fish]

I bought a pair of JBL 4309 speakers this year, so I needed to put together a proper system. At first, I got an SMSL D200 DAC, paired with a 15-year-old Pioneer AV amplifier I pulled from an old Pioneer XHM-501 system. But its power is just way too low. Even at full volume, it couldn’t drive the speakers to a satisfying level.


So I purchased the SMSL VMV A1 Pro. I later found out there’s barely any real difference between the A1 Pro, PA200, PA400, and PAX models. Unfortunately, both the D200 and A1 Pro have issues. The D200 randomly freezes and becomes unresponsive, and I have to unplug it to restart it. The A1 Pro keeps drawing power even when turned off, unless I flip the power switch on the back. I noticed this because its case runs much hotter than the D200.


I live in China, so contacting their support wasn’t hard. But their response was very disappointing. They never explained why the D200 freezes, nor did they ask me to send it in for repair. Since it works again after a reboot, they just told me to keep an eye on it. When I asked about the A1 Pro overheating, they told me to unplug it when I’m not listening to music. It’s that ridiculous. I can barely believe this is a product from 2025.


Later, I saw forum reviews mentioning the A1 Pro also has issues with reduced power output at low frequencies. I messaged their support engineers about this, but they never replied. The whole experience left me really unhappy.


During this time, I also tried products from Topping and Fosi. Honestly, I can’t hear any meaningful difference between the Fosi V3 and the SMSL A1 Pro. The only reason I bought the A1 Pro was that the looks of Fosi and Topping gear are just plain ugly. They belong on a workbench in an electronics factory test lab, not in my bedroom. I really hate having external power supplies on my desk, even though I’m currently using the Fosi V3.


It feels like every Chinese brand is pumping out tons of amplifiers, but beyond power ratings and specs, I can’t tell much real sonic difference between them. Many brands keep cutting prices, but almost no one seems to care about better design or better customer service. They just keep making rebranded, identical-looking products that are ugly and interchangeable.


This reminds me of my old job at a listed company a couple of years ago, where we made home gateways with tons of models. As a project manager there, I knew most models were basically the same — just a few more or fewer ports. Some products only existed to use up leftover parts in the warehouse.


It’s the same with SMSL. They’re a big manufacturer in China with a huge lineup, but quality and service are basically nonexistent. They don’t even allow returns once opened on sales platforms. The only thing I can kind of praise is that their design is somewhat decent.


I really love VU meters, like the ones on old Panasonic amplifiers. But nowadays everyone just shoves a circuit board into a metal box, chasing smaller size and lower cost — and often worse build quality.


Recently, another Chinese brand, FiiO, released a nice-looking DAC/amp all-in-one unit, but it still uses an external power supply. I even reached out to their product manager to ask why they’d pair such a good-looking device with an ugly black external power brick. He made some excuses, but I know it was just to save cost.


To this day, I still haven’t found a suitable amplifier. I might end up going with Wiim or Eversolo instead. At least they look and feel like modern electronics, and they’re convenient to use.

 

[delta76]

Save all your troubles and go with Wiim ultra amp. or Wiim pro plus + Wiim amp pro, or a Ncx252mp based amp , and be happy

edit: a link https://www.audiophonics.fr/en/powe...cs-ap300-s250ncx-ncorex-ncx252mp-p-18419.html

 

[Big Salty Fish]

Save all your troubles and go with Wiim ultra amp. or Wiim pro plus + Wiim amp pro, or a Ncx252mp based amp , and be happy

Yep, I’m now seriously considering the Wiim Ultra or Eversolo Play. These devices support Huawei HiPlay, though it seems the Wiim Amp Pro doesn’t.

 

[MAB]

I bought a pair of JBL 4309 speakers this year, so I needed to put together a proper system. At first, I got an SMSL D200 DAC, paired with a 15-year-old Pioneer AV amplifier I pulled from an old Pioneer XHM-501 system. But its power is just way too low. Even at full volume, it couldn’t drive the speakers to a satisfying level.


So I purchased the SMSL VMV A1 Pro. I later found out there’s barely any real difference between the A1 Pro, PA200, PA400, and PAX models. Unfortunately, both the D200 and A1 Pro have issues. The D200 randomly freezes and becomes unresponsive, and I have to unplug it to restart it. The A1 Pro keeps drawing power even when turned off, unless I flip the power switch on the back. I noticed this because its case runs much hotter than the D200.


I live in China, so contacting their support wasn’t hard. But their response was very disappointing. They never explained why the D200 freezes, nor did they ask me to send it in for repair. Since it works again after a reboot, they just told me to keep an eye on it. When I asked about the A1 Pro overheating, they told me to unplug it when I’m not listening to music. It’s that ridiculous. I can barely believe this is a product from 2025.


Later, I saw forum reviews mentioning the A1 Pro also has issues with reduced power output at low frequencies. I messaged their support engineers about this, but they never replied. The whole experience left me really unhappy.


During this time, I also tried products from Topping and Fosi. Honestly, I can’t hear any meaningful difference between the Fosi V3 and the SMSL A1 Pro. The only reason I bought the A1 Pro was that the looks of Fosi and Topping gear are just plain ugly. They belong on a workbench in an electronics factory test lab, not in my bedroom. I really hate having external power supplies on my desk, even though I’m currently using the Fosi V3.


It feels like every Chinese brand is pumping out tons of amplifiers, but beyond power ratings and specs, I can’t tell much real sonic difference between them. Many brands keep cutting prices, but almost no one seems to care about better design or better customer service. They just keep making rebranded, identical-looking products that are ugly and interchangeable.


This reminds me of my old job at a listed company a couple of years ago, where we made home gateways with tons of models. As a project manager there, I knew most models were basically the same — just a few more or fewer ports. Some products only existed to use up leftover parts in the warehouse.


It’s the same with SMSL. They’re a big manufacturer in China with a huge lineup, but quality and service are basically nonexistent. They don’t even allow returns once opened on sales platforms. The only thing I can kind of praise is that their design is somewhat decent.


I really love VU meters, like the ones on old Panasonic amplifiers. But nowadays everyone just shoves a circuit board into a metal box, chasing smaller size and lower cost — and often worse build quality.


Recently, another Chinese brand, FiiO, released a nice-looking DAC/amp all-in-one unit, but it still uses an external power supply. I even reached out to their product manager to ask why they’d pair such a good-looking device with an ugly black external power brick. He made some excuses, but I know it was just to save cost.


To this day, I still haven’t found a suitable amplifier. I might end up going with Wiim or Eversolo instead. At least they look and feel like modern electronics, and they’re convenient to use.

Sorry to hear about your unreliability problems. I have zero Topping pieces that still work for example. They all gave out within a year or two. Some while still under warranty, like the PA5 amp I bought that failed within a few days. I got the PA5 to use on my workbench system while I repaired my Yamaha CA-2010 from 1978, the PA5 died before I could even finish fixing the Yamaha. It took almost a year to get a partial refund from the reseller... I wrote a ton of nasty emails, and publicly shamed them on this thread and elsewhere. Your story of amateur customer service is familiar, and makes me sad since it will prevent these companies from ever making a meaningful and durable difference.

It's hard to glean from the review threads, but I do get the impression there are lots of poor reliability with people buying some of this gear, despite the very high SINAD of the devices. Between the PA5 with the systematic issue, the A30 Pro with one channel dead and lots of cold solder joints and missing thermal grease, or the D30 Pro with defective volume control, hard to recommend any of these. Especially when none of the DACs I bought sound any different from my Adcom GDA-600 that I got from the Adcom sales rep for selling tons of Adcom gear (my last year working in audio sales were heavily Adcom and Bryston since I had completely given up on Levinson, Audio Research, etc. sounding any different). I am confident that many of these manufacturers will finally gain a quality mindset, but that takes time and usually some failures for a manufacturer to realize that quality builds the business over time. But until they stop with the endless flow of new and imperceptibly different equipment they will likely keep churning out unreliability.

Regarding audible differences... I'm not surprised you can't hear audible differences, not just brands from China. DACs are solved ages ago, and the only way to get one that sounds different is if it is severely broken or if you are really young and have been trained to hear out of band artifacts due to reconstruction filters, and care about winning the golden-ears contest for identifying artifacts instead of listening to music. My Adcom DAC sounds great, but I moved on to DSP-enabled DACs some time ago.

People have also been failing to hear amp differences. Like this famous study, one among many by David Clark on page 78:
https://americanradiohistory.com/Archive-HiFI-Stereo/80s/HiFi-Stereo-Review-1987-01.pdf
The store I worked at sold Levinson, this result was no surprise to me since nobody in our store could pick out a Levinson or Audio Research amp from any of our midrange models... Unless you hooked up a pair of Apogee Scintillas or Infinity Kappas, in which case the Audio Research would sound like crap since it couldn't handle the low impedance. A Niles commercial installation amp could, and when used is sonically indistinguishable from the Levinson, or Krell, or Threshold, or whatever. The rest of the magazine is great too.

I bought Bryston back then based on reliability and after-sales service, which was the result of watching people waste money on amps while not being able to discern differences. It did help that I got a store discount. I use them to this day, and even reviewed them here.

You have good speakers. They do need some power. I would look for something with 200 Watts per channel into 8 Ohms.

 

[Big Salty Fish]

Sorry to hear about your unreliability problems. I have zero Topping pieces that still work for example. They all gave out within a year or two. Some while still under warranty, like the PA5 amp I bought that failed within a few days. I got the PA5 to use on my workbench system while I repaired my Yamaha CA-2010 from 1978, the PA5 died before I could even finish fixing the Yamaha. It took almost a year to get a partial refund from the reseller... I wrote a ton of nasty emails, and publicly shamed them on this thread and elsewhere. Your story of amateur customer service is familiar, and makes me sad since it will prevent these companies from ever making a meaningful and durable difference.

It's hard to glean from the review threads, but I do get the impression there are lots of poor reliability with people buying some of this gear, despite the very high SINAD of the devices. Between the PA5 with the systematic issue, the A30 Pro with one channel dead and lots of cold solder joints and missing thermal grease, or the D30 Pro with defective volume control, hard to recommend any of these. Especially when none of the DACs I bought sound any different from my Adcom GDA-600 that I got from the Adcom sales rep for selling tons of Adcom gear (my last year working in audio sales were heavily Adcom and Bryston since I had completely given up on Levinson, Audio Research, etc. sounding any different). I am confident that many of these manufacturers will finally gain a quality mindset, but that takes time and usually some failures for a manufacturer to realize that quality builds the business over time. But until they stop with the endless flow of new and imperceptibly different equipment they will likely keep churning out unreliability.

Regarding audible differences... I'm not surprised you can't hear audible differences, not just brands from China. DACs are solved ages ago, and the only way to get one that sounds different is if it is severely broken or if you are really young and have been trained to hear out of band artifacts due to reconstruction filters, and care about winning the golden-ears contest for identifying artifacts instead of listening to music. My Adcom DAC sounds great, but I moved on to DSP-enabled DACs some time ago.

People have also been failing to hear amp differences. Like this famous study, one among many by David Clark on page 78:
https://americanradiohistory.com/Archive-HiFI-Stereo/80s/HiFi-Stereo-Review-1987-01.pdf
The store I worked at sold Levinson, this result was no surprise to me since nobody in our store could pick out a Levinson or Audio Research amp from any of our midrange models... Unless you hooked up a pair of Apogee Scintillas or Infinity Kappas, in which case the Audio Research would sound like crap since it couldn't handle the low impedance. A Niles commercial installation amp could, and when used is sonically indistinguishable from the Levinson, or Krell, or Threshold, or whatever. The rest of the magazine is great too.

I bought Bryston back then based on reliability and after-sales service, which was the result of watching people waste money on amps while not being able to discern differences. It did help that I got a store discount. I use them to this day, and even reviewed them here.

You have good speakers. They do need some power. I would look for something with 200 Watts per channel into 8 Ohms.

Thanks for sharing! I’m not looking to change my amplifier anytime soon. I’ll probably keep an eye on things for a bit, waiting to see if any new gear with more power and better design comes out.
You said 200 watts per channel at 8 ohms, but JBL officially recommends that the 4309 speakers only need up to 150 watts per channel at 4 ohms. Is the power you suggested overkill?

 

[MAB]

Thanks for sharing! I’m not looking to change my amplifier anytime soon. I’ll probably keep an eye on things for a bit, waiting to see if any new gear with more power and better design comes out.
You said 200 watts per channel at 8 ohms, but JBL officially recommends that the 4309 speakers only need up to 150 watts per channel at 4 ohms. Is the power you suggested overkill?

Possibly overkill. Not by that much.
I tend to aspire to more power than I need. While people can't hear differences between amps that are working properly and within their limits, clipping amplifiers are certainly audible.
If I had one amp to own, it would be about 200 Watts. Reliable. Low noise. Able to drive low impedance. Good distortion.

The only concern, if you really want more SPL, your speakers are likely limiting you, especially if your room is large. I like how they sound, but they can only play so loud.

 

[Dsggolv77]

Mulit-channel Amp,Which one you would like to own?

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3e Audio amp with built-in GaN psu. Wiim and Eversolo have inferior PFFB implementation to my knowledge.

 

[Waveform Fidelity]

I suggest a used SONY TA-N55ES amplifier

 

[Esque]

@Waveform Fidelity Why? They're old, not that powerful, likely needing maintenance, fairly hard to find and you're paying that ES premium.

Don't get me wrong, I love the vintage ES equipment. But I don't see why to use an old power amp instead of new class D amps or AB amps.

 

[Waveform Fidelity]

Why? So that the OP has no more nightmares! There are lots of modern day amps, whats the problem? How many are really designed that well with good DC and overload protection like the old ES series of amps.

 

[Joe Smith]

There are, obviously, a lot of vintage integrated amps that can deliver excellent sound and be different/pleasant to use compared to the "many small boxes" approach of most products being released today, especially from your nation. I love all my new Fosi, AIyima, SMSL and Schiit audio equipment, but it does create a more complicated looking setup, with many different power supplies etc.

The main thing with vintage amps for peace of mind and good usability is getting one that's really been well restored and does not have marginal/failing components. You will pay more for those units, but if the restorer is competent, they will work for many, many years more and give good value.

I personally use a fully-restored Marantz 2220 receiver and a Kenwood KA-3500 integrated amp that a EE friend of mine worked on. Both are lovely to look at, sound great, very reliable. Nice to have all of the old-school features such as tape monitoring, dedicated phono circuit, loudness, etc.

In general though, these vintage units have a lot of components that can fail or diminish, influencing sound, so you really have to know what you're buying etc.

 

[3125b]

I haven't had an issue with any of my Chinese audio products, be it SMSL or Topping.
But I absolutely agree that they release way too many new products and often do not test them enough, there have been several issues reported here in the past.

I really love VU meters, like the ones on old Panasonic amplifiers. But nowadays everyone just shoves a circuit board into a metal box, chasing smaller size and lower cost — and often worse build quality.

If you don't mind paying a bit (a sizeable bit to be fair) extra for looks, the NAD C3050 is a modern amp with vintage styling. Or see if you can find one of the big Yamaha models used, they're way too expensive when new. That saves you from ever having to heat your apartment too

 

[Waxx]

There are still modern amps with low noise that last a bit more, but they often cost a lot more than the chinese mass market stuff. NAD makes exellent devices, altough not flawless. But they keep working long like the older devices, while running on Hypex or Purifi amp boards and Blue streaming systems. The NAD M33 is an example of that.

Or cheaper (but without the streaming) you have the Audiophonics DA-S250NC. Very good specs (Hypex amp boards), well build and not that much more expensive here in Europe than those of SMSL & Co. But maybe hard to get in China... And there are more companies doing similar things.

 

[Waveform Fidelity]

Probably everyone knows that most Class D amps ratings are based upon power output based on a music waveform, where in the “good ole days” class AB amplifiers are rated on continuous RMS output power - which partially explains why they are so big and heavy (heatsinks due to class AB and heavy transformer due to 50/60Hz power supply operation vs Class D switchers.

 

[DVDdoug]

Probably everyone knows that most Class D amps ratings are based upon power output based on a music waveform,

Not necessarily, but many (most?) manufacturer's "fudge" regardless of class.

I'm not exactly sure what Amir does but I believe he does a short-term power test. And sometimes he may run it longer to make sure the amp keeps-it up. He's not doing a music-peak or impulse test and I'm pretty sure he doesn't run at full power for an hour.

where in the “good ole days” class AB amplifiers are rated on continuous RMS output power

In the U.S. there was a regulation which seems to be largely ignored these days. The new regulation seems reasonable but I wouldn't count on manufacturers following it. I believe the lack of enforcement is the major issue.

- which partially explains why they are so big and heavy (heatsinks due to class AB and heavy transformer due to 50/60Hz power supply operation vs Class D switchers.

Class D amplifiers generate less heat (when putting-out maximum power) so they can use smaller & lighter heatsinks (or sometimes almost no heatsinking). And they often use switching power supplies which operate at higher frequencies so they can use a smaller-lighter transformer, and the voltage regulator can use a smaller heatsink. Of course, it's possible to build a Class-A/B amplifier with a switching power supply.

 

[rwortman]

I have a pair of 4309’s. I have a Rotel RB 1582 200wpc amp and a Primaluna Evo 200 42wpc tube amp. The tube amp will drive this speakers louder than I usually listen. The D200 should be able to drive any home audio amp to full power. Something seems fishy.

 

[olds1959special]

My SMSL PA200 died and no one would try to fix it. I even tried to contact SMSL, which led nowhere. I threw it in the trash. My Aiyima A70 monos are still working.