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1 Level
798 Review
26 Karma

Review on πŸ”΅ DROK Blue~Tooth Amplifier Board 4.1 | Digital 2 Channel 50W+50W | Wire~Less BT 3.0 4.0 | Speaker Amp with Case by Bryan Reed

Revainrating 5 out of 5

Works better than expected

After putting 2V at 5A on this little board I got nothing but pure power and fantastic sound from both channels. The small thermal synchronization that is included works great and hardly gets warm even at high volumes. The Bluetooth aspect works very well, the Bluetooth broadcast ID is "XY_BT" and all you have to do is plug in your cell phone or iPad and play music. In my implementation I connected an Alexa Dot Echo and it works great. In terms of sound, the dynamic range is very low, low frequencies can easily drive a woofer and high frequencies really get the tweeters going. If you use the paired device as a volume control, you can turn it up really low or blow your rock 'n' roll. I have several large floorstanding speakers that are so loud and distortion free I can empty an apartment building if I want to. It's actually getting a lot louder than expected. The biggest issue with it is the Bluetooth pairing prompt it makes when it's on. You will hear a Chinese-English voice calling out "Bluetooth is ready to pair" and then "The Bluetooth device is now paired". Very annoying, especially after the 20th time. When switching to Line In mode, the voice will yell "Line In". Other amps I use only deliver nice sound when connected via bluetooth or switched to line-in. I've used several amps in the last month, one at a very high volume, and they all work fine. A few notes: 1) The mounting pins that you connect your speaker cables to are very cheaply made and the mounting screws can work loose. Also, the terminals don't look like they can handle the current the board is capable of supplying. I've limited my power to 72W (via the PSU) but the board can put out 100W. 2) You can increase the bluetooth range by soldering a short wire to the bluetooth antenna printed on the circuit board. I get an extra 20 feet compared to 30 feet, giving me 50 feet of Bluetooth range. 3) Because every identical board you buy from this supplier (or any other supplier) will come with the same Bluetooth ID. Therefore, you cannot run two or more amplifiers in the same house in Bluetooth mode. It's very annoying when you're building a lot of it and what you're testing. Only one can be tested at a time. If you have one above and one below, you cannot play them at the same time.

Pros
  • Feels good
Cons
  • Almost never