Monoprice Stereo Hybrid Tube Amplifier 2019 Edition, 25 Watt with Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, Wired RCA, Optical, Coaxial, and USB Connections, and Subwoofer Out

3 days ago, I'd have bet you the cost of this amp ($122 USD) that I'd be underwhelmed by the sound of this amp.I would have lost that bet.Five years ago, I put together a sound system that I absolutely love. The heart is a Peachtree Audio Nova300, 300 watt, Class D amplifier. Class D means it uses fast-switching transistors to create soundwaves. I didn't want a tube amp because they fail and go out of spec and I want reliability. And the Peachtree amp sounds glorious.The speakers I chose are Tekton Pendragons. They giant but have an efficiency of 95dB, so I figured anything could drive them. The Nova300 sounds like it was made for them. The system was such a huge upgrade that it was like I had a new music collection. I couldn't stop listening to music. It felt like I had a whole new music collection and some of this stuff I've been listening to for 50 years.But because I love the sound of my guitar amp, which uses tubes, I had to see if there was a difference in a stereo amp.Full disclosure, I like Monoprice's business philosophy very much. To me it is simply, "Let's give people good products at a reasonable price". How refreshing! I chose the Monoprice amp among many competitors in the price range because it's Monoprice. And I have to say, this amp sounds great.High frequencies are chimey, distinct and lovely. The guitar on Martin Sexton's "Wasted" made me feel giddy. There is PLENTY of bass. "Masseduction" by St Vincent and "Definition" by Blackstar sound fantastic and they both have gobs of bass. Midrange on "Girl Gone Bad" by Van Halen got a little...slushy, but that could be my recording, because "Drop Dead Legs" from the same album sounds stellar. "Away Down The River" by Allison Kraus was extremely moving with beautiful separation between vocals and instruments.And right out of the box I tested it to 95dB (as measured at my sitting position), which is about as high as I like to listen most times. Above 85dB the highs become more pronounced and in a nice way.I haven't tried any of the other features like bluetooth or optical cable. I just plugged it into the wall and my computer and cranked it up.So how does it compare to my $2,500 Nova300? It's like a high school basketball player versus an NBA player. It's a different class of play, but the Monoprice is analogous to the HS kid holding his own in an NBA game. I think Monoprice knocked it out of the park. Pair this amp with some good bookshelf speakers and you have a dynamite, plug and play sound system for a good-sized room. And you could probably do it for $300.And it looks cool as hell! That's it sitting next to the Peachtree.If you're thinking of buying this, I say do with the caveat that I've only owned it for about 4 hours. Monoprice hasn't let me down yet.

in order to get some umph, you have to turn the vol to 3oclock. with BS41's with a 84db sensitivity, they drove them ok as near field. switched to Klipsch R-14M and same position was loud enough. played various carlos santana and herbie watermelon man. sounded smooth enough and easy to listen to. with no audio present, there is a hiss. 25w ? i doubt it. my rotel rx 102 has 5w p/ch and has more grunt. i would guess maybe the same'ish. none the less, for 99 bucks, it does sound decent, doesnt beat my rotel or cambridge, but doesnt sound bad at all. my kid will be getting it for a budget 2 channel home theater setup. i think i watch a video of someone changing the tubes and hiss went. so i may do that, they are cheap enough. for a cool looking blue glowing box of noise for the price, its worth messing with. either way, its a fun toy to have.

Update: after 6 months of daily use, the digital input failed. I now get extremely distorted audio using the coaxial (rca) input. I tried multiple sources, all are very distorted. The analog inputs still sound OK.Rest of review:When I ordered this the pictures in the description showed two subwoofer out jacks. So i also ordered a subwoofer with stereo inputs. Surprised on opening the box and finding only one sub out jack. Not happy.I used this to replace a bookshelf amp that laster 40+ years. I thought I could just swap it out.When I first turned it on I just got a high pitched squeal. Powered it off, back on. Squealed as soon as the music started. Then I remembered that some class D amplifiers induce feedback between channels when the speaker leads are close together. My speaker leads are bundled together the first ten feet or so for neatness. So I unbundled everything and it played just fine.Overall, the amp sounds really good. Highs are there, lows go to my subwoofer and give a nice thump. The vu meter is useless. Just eye candy. The space could have been replaced by a balance pot and made useful. The blue leds under the tubes are ugly. Orange leds would be awesome and match the glow of the tube filaments much better. The bluetooth works but is unused in my case. I didn't try out the digital usb stick portion.Would I get it again? Maybe, maybe not. There is an ugly mess of wires coming out the back. The blue tube glow is ugly. As a hybrid tube amp, well it's just ok. It is cheap for what it does. The product description being wrong really made me mad.

I got this amp one because it's beautifully designed and two because it had pretty good reviews. (Reason to trust this review I bought two of them thinking that just one was faulty.) My main goal with it was to use it with my Audiotechnica headphones but when I got it and set everything up it had a prominent static noise coming through. I was immediately concerned because it wasn't a problem with my PC's output or the chords I was using because I had just been using them for a different amplifier. It seems that this amp is not built to receive audio information from a pc through two channel. Quite disappointed because it looks perfect with my setup. That being said, I used the Bluetooth function and it worked great and sounded fantastic but there was a problem there too. The audio channels L and R were swapped! How this is even possible, I don't know. Probably a manufacturing issue with swapped wiring. Overall, I wouldn't say that this is a waist of money at all, it just depends on what you want to do with it. If you are using it for Bluetooth, perfect. Shelf speakers? Perfect. Record player? perfect. But not direct connection with PC for your mixing headphones.