Pyle Wireless Bluetooth Home Audio Amplifier - 100W 5.1 Channel Home Theater Power Stereo Receiver, Surround Sound w/ HDMI, AUX, FM Antenna, Subwoofer Speaker Input, 12V Adapter

Update#2: Amp is still working well, but the same cannot be said about the remote for it, or at least the remote functions. Pyle has been good and trying to send new remotes, but non of them are able to control the unit. This is an issue since the unit is mounted on the ceiling and the only way to get to it is on a ladder. I now have 4 remotes that do nothing. I tried to explain to Pyle that I believe the issue is something other than the remote, and they just said that they would close my ticket. Unfortunately, there is no way to control the unit now without getting on a ladder to adjust things, which isn't feasible. Amp looks to be well built. I will be installing it in a training classroom with a five speaker set up to replace an outdated amp and speakers that are currently there. After reading reviews, this product looks to fit my needs, plus the price was great. Hoping that it will work well. Will update after installed. Update: Amp paired with 5 Acoustic Audio R191 in ceiling speakers and sounds great. Sound quality is much improved over the failed system that was previously installed many years ago. One improvement that could be made is the blue led display. The amp is mounted on the ceiling and it is very difficult to read from a distance.

Small compact unit with exactly what I needed to replace my broken old 5 channel surround sound amplifier. I don’t have a huge need for surround sound, but I use this for my tv in the family room. Works great. Has a separate subwoofer RCA outlet.

This was for a bedroom setup. I had an old decent Sony Home Theater box that ran an unpowered subwoofer with 5 surround speakers. I didn't need perfect surround, all the speakers were on the same wall as the TV. The old box was just so big and could not be controlled well with remotes and did not offer any kind of HDMI passthrough. Just wanted something small and simple and not expensive that could provide semi decent sound through my already existing speakers. This works for the speakers. I plugged my unpowered subwoofer into the center channel and the 4 remaining L/R channels for my 4 surround speakers. Sound quality is decent enough after messing with the settings. HDMI passthrough works great. Smart device power now sends signal to TV. Winning so far. Where it didn't meet my expectations was in the device's own ability to handle HDMI commands. It just simply does not. It won't power off or change volume unless it was the original remote only. Volume was worked around because my Smart device has its own volume control and I could just turn the Amp volume up and adjust through the other device. Last problem was the overall power to the amp. I didn't care about leaving it on but the Blue LCD was so bright at night. Problem was solved by mounting it on the wall behind my TV which now gives the TV a blue backglow at all times. I can live with that and the waste of always on power.

Pyle PFA540BT.5 Technical Evaluation I couldn't find much technical information about this unit online so decided to order one and discover for myself what it actually does. After playing with it for a couple of hours, here is what I learned. 1. It advertises itself as a stereo (not surround) processor. Like most devices that can handle HDMI input, the PFA540BT uses Extended Display Identification Data (EDID) to tell other devices about its capabilities. True 5.1 audio receivers provide a list of 5.1 formats that they can process. This unit does not. The practical consequence is that your streaming device will politely find ways to send stereo content rather than surround-sound content. It's also a big clue that it can't process audio encoded in any of the common 5.1 formats. 2. It can send audio to six channels The PFA540BT provides connections for five speakers (FL, FR, FC, SL, SR) plus an RCA connection for a subwoofer. I was able to get intelligible audio out of all six channels. In that sense, it's a 5.1 surround-sound amplifier. At first glance, this seems inconsistent with finding #1 above. That's where it gets interesting. Read on. 3. It has a "surround" toggle Some reviewers on Amazon noted that the earlier model had a "surround" button that appeared to work backwards from what they expected, but that it had been "fixed" for this upgraded model. After some experimentation, I think I understand what they meant. To make sense of what this button does, it's important to remember that this amplifier can't process surround sound input. It works with only two input channels: front left (FL) and front right (FR). When the button is in the "off" position, it acts just like an ordinary stereo receiver. It plays the FL input through the FL output and the FR input through the FR output. It also merges both stereo input channels into one mono channel and plays it through the subwoofer output. That's it. The other three output channels (FC, SL, SR) remain silent. FL -> FL FR -> FR FL + FR -> SW When the surround button is in the "on" position, the receiver does exactly what it does with the button in the "off" position, but then it also uses the remaining three channels. My unit introduced a significant amount of noise to the surround channels (SL, SR) so I couldn't be completely sure, but here's what I think I heard. The surround channels duplicated the front channels. The center channel (FC) duplicated the subwoofer channel (SW). In table form: FL -> FL FR -> FR FL + FR -> SW FL -> SL FR -> SR FL + FR -> FC 4. It truly can't process Dolby (AC3), DTS, or plain AAC surround sound Just for fun, I used an EDID generator to disguise the PFA540BT.5 as a true surround-sound receiver. Then I force-fed it 5.1 surround-sound content in three of the most common formats. It produced nothing but noise. Call that truth in advertising. THE BOTTOM LINE I tried to imagine a use case where the PFA540BT.5 would be an ideal choice. It's small and runs on twelve volts, which happens to match common automotive electrical systems. It's also cheap. As other reviewers have noted, it's too quiet to be useful in a moving vehicle but it could play a role in a mobile theater system -- if you're OK with five channel stereo rather than true surround sound. On the other hand, you could produce the same result but with more power by splitting your stereo source between two stereo amps, one of which might be built into your vehicle. I suppose that means I don't understand why anyone would want to buy this thing.

Sound is good. Setup easy. But wanted a usable remote and this one does not work well at all. Pressing down volume button can cause unit to change input. You then have to cycle through all input selections to get back to what you were watching/listening to.

Been using to drive vintage lips h forte loudspeakers with built in passive subs. This unit can’t drive these speakers very loud but it’s good enough for living room. Had trouble getting pared with Samsung smart tv at first and iPhone but once originally paired can connect without issue. Good for the small investment. Remote lacks quality. Buttons depress not well but not a deal breaker.

Great replacement for my full size receiver

2 years it lasted, doesn't power on. Gets confused with Bluetooth and shuts down everytime since I had it. Looking for something else.