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Showing 1 of 252 conversations about:
FN2187
2
Oct 6, 2019
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Edit (02/21/2020): I would stay away from this amp, it has caused me far too many issues since I bought it. Just ended up frying my X299 motherboard. Hoping to god that it didn't take the CPU, RAM, SSD's, and Titan away. We shalt see. If you are going to buy this, just don't use the USB connection, only use bluetooth or optical. Time to play "taps" for my wallet.
My review from amazon:
Hi! The SMSL AD18 is actually an incredibly good little amp. I have used it with predominately with Bluetooth and USB as a source. I have used it with all sorts of speakers, ranging from martin logan electrostatics and large MG-IIIa's all the way down to tiny bookshelfs. So far, it hasn't had trouble powering anything that I throw at it, with good sound as well. According to all of this, this amp would and should get a 5-star rating as it truly would deserve it outside of a very serious flaw.
I honestly do not understand exactly why this happens, but it is incredibly frustrating and is damaging my already existing equipment. The amp is primarily used through USB, set at 48 kHz (although it used to be set at 96 kHz). Not very often, but often enough, I'll be playing a game, or just listening to music and the amp will instantaneously pump out insane amounts of static to the point to where it hurts my ears. There is nothing to indicate this will happen and it is quite sudden. Anytime this has happened, the USB port it is connected to immediately dies and no longer works. As a result, I have had 4 out of the 7 ports on the back of my $350 motherboard die. This has happened with my headphones on, as well as when using speaker outputs. This is very likely to damage ears as the sound is well over 100 dB when it happens.
If I were you, I would wait until SMSL ore some rep decided to address this issue as it is not worth losing your hearing or have your equipment damaged due to a simple flaw.
(Edited)
veermaharaj
36
Dec 14, 2020
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FN2187I stopped using my ad18 with USB and switched over to optical. Something about this amp and USB is super buggy. From the moment my computer monitor stopped going to sleep after 5 mins i knew something was up because this was the only thing i added to my machine.
Switched to optical and boom, PC was back to normal.
The SA300 doesn't have any USB issues and the BT and UI controls/performance are much improved.
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