PFA540BT

So I have an older HDTV with limited audio out functionality, a set of bookshelf speakers and a center channel speaker, and 2 HDMI devices (Apple TV and a game console). I wanted to connect all of this together for a small 11ftx11ft room - used as a kids loft playroom. Preferably with a solution that was small, cheap, and not overly complicated. It turns out it’s surprisingly expensive to cobble together a system that does this, if you want true multi-channel audio. It would take an HDMI switcher (to switch between the 2 HDMI devices), an HDMI audio extractor (to pull the 5-channel audio from the HDMI signal), and a multi-channel receiver with SPDIF/Toslink inputs (since that’s what the HDMI audio extractors typically output). At a minimum, it would take a large dedicated A/V receiver, which I didn’t have space for. For a tiny room, reused speakers, and an older TV that will be used primarily by my kids to play games and watch Netflix, I was not enthusiastic to put out that kind of money. So I was very surprised when my internet searches led to this device - it basically contains all of those features in a form factor the size of a paperback book, for a fraction of the price. It has 2 HDMI inputs and 1 HDMI output. So no HDMI switcher required. It has true 5.1 channel output (including a separate sub output, which I haven’t tried). So I can avoid the audio extractor to Toslink device. It has a built-in “20W per channel” (more on that) amplifier, so I didn’t need a separate receiver/amp. It has some modest tone control features (treble and bass) and you can separately control the volume of the center, front, rear, and subwoofer channels. Will “audiophiles” be into this? Probably not. Pyle gets mediocre reviews at best for sound quality. I can’t even vouch for the durability. But it gets the job done. Design: it’s a compact unit, the size of a paperback. The design is clean, modern, and actually handsome for a Pyle device. The metal case, buttons, and volume knob feel high quality. The remote, however, is very flimsy and the buttons are imprecise (minus 1/2 star for that), but that’s a minor quibble. Sound: The instructions are sparse, but from what I can tell, the “surround” button does the opposite of what you would think. If you have a true 5.1 channel input and you want 5.1 channel output, you turn surround OFF to get “real” 5.1 channel sound. If you turn it on, it uses (according to the manual) “analogy” five channel signal. Does that mean “simulated” 5 channel? Who knows, but I know when I had my Apple TV in Dolby 5.1 output mode, turning “analogy” Surround on meant I couldn’t hear the center channel. I turned it off and the center channel audio returned. To me, the sound was clear, stereo separation was accurate. Bass was a little anemic, but that could be both a function of my small speakers and whatever chipset the amplifier uses. As far as the wattage rating, it uses a 12V x 3A power supply, for a total of 36W. So I’m not sure how they calculate 20W per channel x 5 channels, or 100W total. No, that’s not a lot of watts, but - again - consider the optimal use for this amp. A typical bookshelf speaker is rated at 89-93dB/1W at 1 meter sensitivity (you put 1 watt of power in, it will generate 89-93dB of sound measured 1 meter away). As a rule of thumb, for every doubling in W, you get a 3dB bump in volume. So, even if I got 3-4W per channel, that would be VERY loud in a small room. Much more than that and I’m certain this little amp would start to distort (remember the total power input is only 36W). I’m assuming this has some low cost Class-D amplifier chip. Others noted a lot of distortion via BT - I paired it to my phone and streamed songs via Spotify (with “Analogy” five channel ON) and it sounded fine! No distortion. It pairs almost immediately and very easily. There's an audible chime that tells you when the device successfully pairs. Others noted that the unit would forget the preferred channel volume/treble/bass settings when turned off. I did not find that to be the case when I used the “sleep” function. Perhaps when you unplug the unit entirely? Who knows. It does not come with an FM antenna, but does have an FM tuner. So, overall - I'm very pleased. Very good value for the price. There is no way I could have purchased the various components (a 2-input HDMI switcher, HDMI audio extractor and multichannel amplifier with Bluetooth, FM tuner, and Aux input, or a much bulkier AV receiver) for anything close to the price of this unit. This is also, easily, the most compact solution to contain all these features. Much smaller than a typical AV home theater receiver. Minus 1/2 star for the flimsy remote, the unclear instructions, and the likely exaggerated power ratings.

First off let me say that you should completely ignore the critical reviews on this unit, I was a little skeptical after reading some of those but decided to take a chance anyway, and I am really glad that I did! I guess some people were expecting this $80 little unit to come with features and sound quality of something like Marantz, Harmon Kardon, Yamaha, etc. It is not that! However it is a decent and very reasonably priced solution for anyone looking for simplicity in a small package with very respectable sound quality. I installed this unit into my motorhome that already has a fairly high end 5.1 speaker setup. I previously had a Harmon Kardon AV receiver, a quality unit with a lot of features but it was also a big heavy unit that was bouncing around inside of the stereo cabinet when we were traveling down the road. To make matters worse, it also got very hot inside of the RV's stereo cabinet, which it shared with an Xbox. Therefore I decided to give this little Pyle unit a try in-place of the big HK. The first thing that I really liked was the ability to mount it with screws, I chose to mount it vertical up on the inside wall of the cabinet leaving plenty of space for the Xbox to reside by itself on a shelf. The unit does not generate a lot of heat at all, just barely warm to the touch, even after playing movies/music at level 15-20 volume levels. The bluetooth is very simple and easy to connect, and it even works from quite a distance away - I can be outside of the motorhome in a lawn chair, connected through my phone and playing music through this unit inside, and it stays connected great. It honestly would take a well trained ear to tell the difference in sound quality from this unit as compared to the HK AV receiver that it replaced. For our purpose it sounds really good while playing movies in surround sound, listening to music, and also while playing games on the Xbox. When my wife first heard it her response was "Wow! Is that coming out of that little thing?". Overall I couldn't find anything else comparable to this unit in size and especially in price. I am very satisfied so far and as long as it holds up long term I think it was a great purchase. We just returned from a 2-week vacation where this thing was on 85% of the time and it didn't miss a lick. The only reason I did not give 5 stars is because the antenna connection for FM is an oddball that I cannot seem to find any adapter for, so we haven't been able to use the radio functions at all. Not a big deal since we typically travel through different cities and often remote areas anyway.

Very good for the price. I was looking for a small receiver to use in our motor home. This unit saves a LOT of space. It's not mentioned in the description or the instructions, but this model has an HDMI ARC connection which makes it much easier to hook everything up with one less cable. Very happy with this so far.

FIRST THING THEY R NOT SUPPORTED BY AMAZON RETURNS. PAY OUT OF POCKET TO EVEN GET A REPLACEMENT UNIT OR RETURNING IT. EDIT: Gave this product a 2nd shot and I got fooled again. Atleast I can return it for free now because I will be returning it for a 2nd time. Either this is a bad & cheap product or there is no Quality Control with these guys. I'm hoping that it's the latter because the one that I got came in broken. One of the slots to put a speaker wire broke at 1st use and won't take a wire. The sound quality is a bit hit or miss. At different times it would have a hissing or a sudden but quick change in volume it is really weird. Something that my older and bigger receiver had no problem with. When I try to connect it to either of my PCs via HDMI, it cannot even register this device. My PCs' audio drivers r updated. IDK why this won't even see this device, I won't see it on the port. EDIT: The unit I got was functional this time, no broken parts. However, it still cannot connect to a PC via HDMI. While connecting it via aux still produced hissing and bad sound

Overall this is a great inexpensive amplifier for powering a set of passive speakers. It offers 5.1 channel surround sound which I didn't test, since I was just using it to power 2 speakers in the basement work shop. Sound quality was great, remote works fine, and the bluetooth works well. It's also very small and fits nicely on a shelf. I like that the display is blue, and bright enough to see when lights are on but not so bright that it blinds you at night. A minor complaint is that the display uses 7-segment LEDs, so when it says "AUX" it really looks more like "AUH". They could've used an 11-segment display, or a dot matrix display, but I understand this would add cost and it's really not necessary. However, the reason I returned it is because it emits a "pop" sound on the speakers whenever you turn it on. It doesn't matter if you set the volume to minimum, or which input you're on. I did a little research and this is basically an effect of power-on transients common in low-end equipment. Better amplifiers have delay circuits which keep the speaker outputs disabled until the power-on is complete so you don't hear the popping noise, but on this unit the outputs are always on which is why it makes the sound. I emailed the manufacturer (Pyle), and they said this is normal and isn't bad for the speakers, but as an electrical engineer I disagree. Power-on transients are stressful since they force the coils to move very quickly and may have long-term detrimental effects. But even if they don't, it's still very annoying to listen to. I turn it on and off at least twice a day and it's not something I want to hear. Five stars to tech support for getting back to me quickly. I thought about opening up the unit and wiring in my own time delay relays, but this would definitely void the warranty and I shouldn't have to go through all this trouble for a feature that should be included. In case Pyle is reading this, I would pay an extra $20 for the same unit if it offered a delayed output to eliminate the popping sound. This is something that should be considered as a standard feature. My 30-year-old Sony amplifier has this, and the only reason I'm replacing it is because it doesn't have bluetooth built in (and it's enormous in size). Bottom line, if you're ok with turn-on noise, you won't be disappointed with this unit. And it's less of an issue if you use it infrequently or leave it on most of the time. But it's not for me and I will regrettable be looking elsewhere.

nice amp. small with a good sound. versatile. i use it amp my TV sound to my room speakers. what i really liked was the warranty service. the hdmi input failed. i e-mailed pyle and they helped me id the problem. they told me to ship the amp to them for free repair, they said 6 weeks. they returned it in 2 weeks. it is fix. oh, i paid shipping to them, they paid shipping to me.

Two year review. Device worked well and sounded good for the price point, I had it wired to 4 small bookshelf speakers, CPU and Switch in my workshop. I was able to quickly switch the connections between the Switch and the CPU and select wither two or all speakers. May of this year the sound output for the HDMI 1 input stopped working, video still good, connected the CPU audio out to the Aux input and was still able to function, then the Aux output died, selected the Bluetooth and paired it to the CPU and this functioned for a week or so, before failing also. at this point Shelved the device and moved on to another AV amp. cleaning house and decided to try again, plugged the CPU into HDMI 1 with Pandora running in the background and was able to hear audio ( yay) until I plugged in the HDMI output to my monitor then everything died, the only output that is functional at this point is the FM output. Device will be boxed backup and donated to the recycling bin. For less than $100 I got 22 months of functionality, I guess that's about all we can expect any more.

I've had surround sound speakers set up in my living room for years, but the receiver stopped working quite awhile ago. So I've just been using my TV's built-in sound. But after I recently watched a movie and had to turn it all the way up to just barely make out the dialogue, I figured I'd look into a replacement. I had good luck with a Pyle PCA2 two-channel receiver I bought a few weeks ago, so I figured I'd try them again. Glad I did. This thing went from box to boom in about 20 minutes. It's easy to set up even if you don't read the manual. The back uses standard RCA/HDMI/speaker wire connections, so it wasn't tough. Admittedly, the sound is not going to match a Marantz or a Harmon/Kardon or anything...But it's way better than I expected for the price. It drove the speakers just fine, and got plenty loud and clear. I was also pleasantly surprised to see that the remote had separate bass and treble adjustment, as well as an independent subwoofer volume. All in all, I was super impressed with the features. I even dropped a 5.1-mixed copy of my favorite album into my CD player, connected it, and fired it up. It sounded really good. Then I connected my phone to the built-in Bluetooth to play some MP3s, and that was easy as pie and sounded good, too. Honestly, I only have two complaints, and neither one has anything to do with the unit. One, the remote is pretty small and feels a little insubstantial...but it still works just fine. And two — now I think I may need to upgrade my speakers! They're pretty old, and I think some newer, bigger ones will sound better. This receiver will definitely drive them, though! If you have any reservations about picking up this unit, don't. You could certainly spend more on something with a fancier brand name, but this will definitely satisfy everyone but the pickiest audiophile.

Buena calidad de construcción en aluminio. Excelente para home cinema de una sala pequeña y altavoces acorde, en mi caso sala de estar de 4x4m, y sistema bowers Wilkins m1. Opción estéreo y multicanal, no opciones ni modos ni funciones extras ni excesivos que te incitan a traer el control remoto en mano todo el tiempo. Lo que hace, para ese tamaño de salas, muy bien logrado. Solo tiene entradas hdmi y rca. Eche de menos una óptica. El control remoto con todas las funciones que ofrece el equipo, pero es de plástico blando y fragil, a tener cuidado. Lo compre de urgencia para sustituir averia de un receiver de marca premium, en estancia secundaria y, muy complacido.

There was always a risk with pyle stuff as its infamous for poor quality so took a gamble as it was the only compact HDMI amp out there. Was so impressed with the unit at first worked great. In fact was so impressed I was about to order a second one. Then after a week all HDMI inputs stopped working. I did the usual checks, cables etc all worked fine when connected direct. But via the amp no signal was getting through on both HDMI inputs. Lucky Amazon saved the day and arranged for an immediate return.

nice amplifier. bought it for my home use as an audios system in basement with the speakers that a friend got from a friend. Nice versatile unit

It does not meet my expectations.

The ir sensor is not very sensitive. The display is a 8segment display and not a matrix display like is depicted on the photos and that makes it look cheap. The bluetooth antena is not very good. I placed the thing behind the tv and is enough to cause interference with an iphone placed 8 feet away. No IR extension and no OSD so if you hide the thing behind your tv then you have to point the remote against the ceiling and you wont know wich input are you changing into and because the ir sensor is not very good sometimes does not work and you have to move close to be sure. Besides that, the product works good. If you place the receiver away from the tv i think the bt and the ir should work correctly but in my case the tv is on the wall so i had no choice. Very good sound for an amplifier like this. I solved the ir problem buying a cheap hdmi ir extension. Still no OSD though...