60W Hi-Fi Mini Amplifier USB/SD Card Player

I purchased this amp to complete a mini-home theater (home "cinema" may be a more apt way of putting it) system. Basically I wanted to hook up a set of 2.1 speakers to my TV to enhance the sound. Personally, I'm not a big fan of 5.1 surround sound systems; I actually find having the audio portion emanating from all around to be rather distracting. For me it detracts from the viewing experience, not enhances it, so I didn't want to go that route. However, that doesn't mean I want to suffer with the anemic speakers that come with most TV's today. The subwoofer I bought has it's own internal amp, so I just needed something to power the satellites. Since I don't require a tuner section -- just an amp and preamp -- a "mini" amp would work just fine. After doing some research it seems that Pyle has a virtual monopoly on that segment of the market; there are very few companies other then Pyle making this type of amp. After looking over all the models they have, and there has to be a dozen of them, I settled on the PVA3U, one of the higher-end units. I opted for this one because it had tone controls on separate knobs, the ability to use both USB drives and SD cards and an LCD display. After hooking everything up I noticed a very bizarre sound coming from the left satellite speaker, almost like an electronic pulsing sound. It's akin to a repetitive sonar ping, very staccato in nature. Since the amp, satellites and subwoofer were all brand new I set about trying to isolate which component was defective. Over an hour later I was able to identify the Pyle amp as the culprit; no matter what speaker I hooked up to the left channel, or what input source I used, it always made that sound. Got an RMA number from Amazon, sent it back and got a replacement. Second unit arrives, hook everything up, and the exact same thing happens! Surely Pyle couldn't possibly have the identical problem on 2 units, could they? Spent another hour+ isolating and troubleshooting the issue only to come to the disturbing fact that it was indeed the amp, so I contacted Pyle for "support" (as it turns out what they consider support and what most of us would consider support differ by quite a lot). The first email I sent them garnered no response, so after about a week I sent another one. The second message was answered, but that's about the extent of it. Even telling them this was the 2nd amp I had gotten with the exact same problem there only response was to send it in for a warranty repair. Oh yea, and to include $15 to cover shipping back to me. Sadly, Pyle has distinguished themselves like too many other companies today; they essentially have no support. However, while exchanging emails with these buffoons, I ran across something very, very strange... Since the pulsating sound wasn't terribly loud -- and didn't change in pitch, tone or intensity when the volume was adjusted up or down -- I was just living with it while researching other alternatives. One day, while listening to MP3's from a USB thumb drive, I had to mute the volume to answer a phone call. When I returned to the music I noticed that incessant tone had stopped. Hallelujah! Finally, I could listen to music and watch TV in peace. Sort of... When I removed the thumb drive from the USB port the sound instantly returned, plug it back in and the sound disappears. That happens 100% percent of the time, regardless of the input used. Since there really aren't too many other companies building mini-amps, which severely limits my options, I decided to find the smallest thumb drive I could and just leave it permanently installed in the USB port. Unobtrusive thumb drive = problem solved, right? Unfortunately, I found it can't be just any thumb drive. I bought a LaCie mosKeyto, which is the tiniest thumb drive I had ever seen. To be honest, I'm surprised the darn thing even works. But it does. It doesn't, however, posses the magic quality needed to keep this crummy amp from making that infernal noise. I have a total of 5 thumb drives now -- 4 I already had, plus the mosKeyto -- and only two of them quiet the amp. All 5 are from different manufacturers, and range in size from 2 gig to 16 gig, so they share nothing in common. While experimenting I also found that some SD cards had the same affect, so what I ultimately did was install an old 512 meg card I had laying around from a camera. Those slip almost all the way into the amp, sticking out perhaps 1/4" inch, so not only is it close to invisible it solves the problem. What a ridiculous thing to make a customer go through. Another item I'm not at all thrilled with is the grossly overstated power ratings. Seems as though all of Pyles amps are advertised listing there peak output, not RMS. This isn't a common practice, and is rather disingenuous. The PVA3U, listed as 60 watts, is only 15 watts at 8 ohms and 30 watts at 4 ohms. Since few small speakers will be lower then an 8 ohm load, which I'm reasonably certain constitutes the vast majority of the speakers this type of amp will be hooked to, I find that very misleading. And it's not even clean power; turn the volume up with no source and you hear this incredible hiss, a sure sign of a low quality amplifier section. I do like the PVA3U's diminutive size and easy to read functions, but Pyle has obviously cut so many corners in this amps design and engineering -- not to mention their lousy support -- that I can't recommend this product.