Most unreliable AMP I’ve ever owned - DROP THX AAA 789

Submitted by uqil t3_zueuzj in headphones

I’n using it with a SONCOZ LA-QXD1 DAC and Audeze LCD-2C heaphones. The sound quality this setup allows me to achieve is excellent considering when putting the price altogether, I bought it all for under $1000. I really like the design, and the aesthetics as well of the AAA 789 but its reliability and quality is very subpar and on top of that DROP is not willing to repair these or send you a replacement if they are out of warranty.

This is the second unit I’ve owned and its the second time it has just randomly stopped working. My guess is static electricity somehow fried the internal components. I will not be purchasing this item a third time and I cannot recommend this product to anyone. It will not last more than a year or two and you will have a big useless $200 paperweight on your desk.

Discuss below if you’ve also had similar experiences with this amp, which I know many of you have considering seeing the comments section on the DROP website for this amp.

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Comments

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covertash t1_j1itvif wrote

Weird. Mine was from the second drop, which I received in January of 2019, and I haven't used it much in the past year, but I fired mine back up just to make sure, and it still works fine.

Perhaps, as with a lot of things, the quality standards aren't the same as pre-pandemic times, which is a shame. :(

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AdeptFelix t1_j1kmy8m wrote

I also have a 2019 unit, and I've been using it constantly since then. No issues on my end.

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Tasunkeo t1_j1ly8te wrote

Mine is from the first Drop branded batch. Used pretty much daily since I got it, still working fine.

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AZ3-Chan t1_j1iqpve wrote

I've been using this amp almost everyday from pretty much release and I haven't had any issues with it, probably bad luck tbh.

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frobroj t1_j1jay4c wrote

Ditto. Mine has been super solid. Little bass heavy but great amp over all! Though recently bought a Burson Soloist 3x thinking "Gonna be diminishing returns..." and immediately after hearing it thought "Must listen to all my music for the first time... Again..." Simply shocked at the level of sound some of my cans are capable of. Especially the Open Alphas I made. Didn't expect them to hold up to and IMO trounce HD800S and OG Clears....

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jumboshrimp93 t1_j1m6w04 wrote

Damn, is the Clear really that much better with the Burson? I use mine with the 789, the Burson stuff looks really nice but they are expensive

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frobroj t1_j1n5fg0 wrote

it's definitely a much bigger jump than I was expecting! Not sure what kind of magic they are bottling but it's pretty nice. Could just be my expectations were so low that any improvement was a major wow! Was running a 789 prior to the burson. I wouldn't get the Burson for the clears though. I still run my clears on my xduoo ta-26. The clears love tubes. Heard the Rebel is a great solid state amp to pair with em. A bit warmer and more tube like. Got my Burson open box so round 700 ish.. worth it and then some. I use my open alphas on it as well as my hd800s. The clears I run on it from time to time but mainly they stick to tubes.

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elementIdentity t1_j1j7lgw wrote

Everyone saying “mine works fine” but when I was researching this amp I kept seeing stories of it just randomly not working one day. It’s a shame cause it’s a nice looking amp with some nice features and specs.

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AZ3-Chan t1_j1jeyks wrote

It's normal because it's far more likely for someone to complain if there's is a issue than if there's not. You won't hear the "review"of your average joe who's amp just works.

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elementIdentity t1_j1jiw5c wrote

Yes thank you I’m aware of this phenomenon. That doesn’t cancel out the considerable amount of reports.

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DreamDropDistancia t1_j1l44ku wrote

No, but reporting bias is, however, related to the total number of experiences/devices in the wild, in general.

So, if you have a very popular, very hyped, relatively inexpensive, "pretty much end-game" amp that, say, 100,000 people buy, and you compare it to an amp that only 10,000 bought, and 0.1% have problems, you might hear 100 bad stories of the popular device, and only 10 bad stories about the less common device.

So, let me ask you: do you know how many 789s are out there?

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elementIdentity t1_j1l5f77 wrote

There’s no way for me to know that. If I did and it turned out that only 1% of these amps failed, that would be good enough for me to take a chance. But we don’t know, and that’s why we can’t completely ignore negative experiences, especially when there’s no recourse.

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DreamDropDistancia t1_j1l9ri1 wrote

You don't have data to determine the scope/range of the data you do have... so you're just going to go ahead and take the data you do have as fact/the whole picture, and call it a day?

We don't know, therefore we should not accept the negative reviews as representative of a good cross section of the population.

...

Anyway, the number is approx.15,600.

"22.7K requests·15.6k Sold·" -drop.com

So, if you've actually seen more than 156 reports of failure, then I guess don't buy one.

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elementIdentity t1_j1lab0w wrote

Yet OP is 0 for 2. I wonder if he reported it online the first time, since anyone with any problem posts on Reddit about it apparently.

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Claytonbigsbys t1_j1kpyrh wrote

Well if one particular amp/headphone is getting more complaints than others than it’s a sign.

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AnotherMax2021 t1_j1itqwi wrote

I’ve been using mine for a couple years with no issues other than it has a scratchy pot on the volume control. Too bad about the reliability issues as I agree it has great functionality, perfect front panel layout, and unmatched volume knob.

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Scharfschutzen t1_j1l3zsp wrote

Both my Schiit amps have super scratchy pots to the point I bitch and moan on the daily :).

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hurtyewh t1_j1j138r wrote

Mine's been good since release. Any particular source of static in that space? I have a friend who fried quite a few things due to a carpet.

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hurtyewh t1_j1jitfi wrote

FUCK! Guess who just blew his 789 moments after making the comment. I accidently peaked the PC volume so the amp turned off and now I can only barely hear the music with max output on a sensitive headphone. The headphones are fine so I'm surprised the amp would die. Need to look into if it can be fixed. I repeat, FUCK!

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WoodenSporkAudio t1_j1k5jq7 wrote

Ouch, bad luck.

Someone that made of fortune on GME or AMC or BTC buy this man a Christmas miracle! I would do it if I had ever been able to get in on any of my many market insights.

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hurtyewh t1_j1l8d16 wrote

No worries. I'll order an L70 or SA-1 today ;)

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SmartOpinion69 t1_j1iug1k wrote

companies should not be allowed to sell shitty hardware like this. amp/dacs usually just sit on a table without much physical movement. you should contact customer support and accuse them of knowingly selling shoddy hardware because it's the second one that died on you, and see if you can get a warranty or possibly a refund. if not, try contacting your bank and give them screenshots of both your receipts for buying this item twice and maybe a bunch of screenshots from other people having issues. see if your bank will stand by your side and force a chargeback. if not, then the best you can do is sell both your amps "as is" on ebay to recoup some of the costs.

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unfitstew t1_j1ky40r wrote

This is a valid route. But just keep in mind if you do a chargeback the your drop account will for sure be banned.

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Hell_Brigade t1_j1jliw9 wrote

I've had mine for a couple years and have had no issues whatsoever. TBH its the first issue ive heard over this amp as its known for being reliable, clean and detailed. Sorry you had that experience.

u/uqil one thing I might mention that I had one issue with the THX 789 and that I didn't realize it had an AUTO OFF SWITCH on the back and it confused the hell out of me at first when I'd leave the amp on and Id come back to find it turned off a short time later.

I would check to make sure your auto off switch is disabled if you are having issues with it turning off randomly. It took me some sleuthing to figure out what was going wrong.

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random_LA_azn_dude t1_j1khvrc wrote

Other than a scratchy volume pot that developed after one year of ownership, and after the one year warranty expired, I didn't have any other problems. The scratchy volume pot was easy enough to fix. Just slide out the amp by pulling it out via its faceplate after removing the back screws. Applying deoxit to the volume pot shaft was all it took to fix the issue and it has been running fine ever since. There could be one or screws underneath that needs to be removed too, but I could mistaken for the MCTH whose scratchy volume pot I fixed the same way.

Mine came from the third drop, which was before Massdrop's rebranding to Drop, and has been sitting boxed up in my garage for the past year.

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Antonius369 t1_j1j1zu4 wrote

Been using mine since December 2019. 5 to 12 hours + daily and no issues.

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doublebassface t1_j1jna3a wrote

Annoying scratchy volume pot which I disassembled the whole unit, cleaned the pot and had great results... for about 3 weeks until it came back. Otherwise performance is great, but feel it should do better on that pot.

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D00M98 t1_j1k4i5j wrote

I don't have Drop THX AAA 789. I do have its little single-ended brother Drop THX AAA One. Still under warranty. Fingers crossed it will continue to work well.

Here is my take. The issue is entire consumer market. Most consumers buy products for value (cheaper the better). Besides a small minority, most are not willing to pay more for quality.

The result is that manufacturers and merchant just focus on building the cheapest product. $250-$300 for THX AAA 789 was a greate deal. I am sure there wereshort cuts. Such as using cheaper components, reduced quality control, reduced testing, etc. And result is likely slightly higher failure rate. Hard to say what that failure rate is. Is it 1/100, 1/1000, etc?

And there is no guarantee that cheap product will fail prematurely. Or high-end premium product won't fail. So on average, most consumer still wins with the value products.

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Thumper_777 t1_j1kt7ck wrote

So sorry for your issues. Hate to sound like a broken record but I too have never had a single thing go wrong with my 789. It has been one of the best purchasing and most dependable and amazing sounding products I've purchased for my audiophile life.

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MaverickO7 t1_j1lpfnu wrote

For international customers IMO the real issue is not the relatively high failure rate of these amps (although I think it's a valid question why such simple and low wattage devices fail at all), but the fact that Drop only ships replacements upon receiving and verifying the faulty unit. This takes about 2 months (from personal experience, way before the pandemic). Drop is also unable to provide any technical support or parts replacement, so you wouldn't even be able to pay them to fix your unit.

Between this and the Drop panda which similarly died randomly after a few months (to Drop's credit, in both cases they accepted a return and full refund), I decided never to buy any Drop electronics. Sure miss the massdrop days when they were offering all sort of interesting stuff from established manufacturers at good discounts.

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[deleted] t1_j1iykpp wrote

Are you running it with any kind of power conditioner?

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KiyPhi t1_j1jfkqj wrote

To be fair to OP, most amps you can buy don't need one so that would still be a big flaw with this product if it did.

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[deleted] t1_j1ji5ze wrote

If the difference between broken gear and working gear is a 100$ Furmann, its not a big issue. Anyone running pro audio gear in a studio uses power conditioning.

Using one can eliminate in-house power issues. It very well still may be the Drop amps, by design.

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KiyPhi t1_j1jihq4 wrote

>Anyone running pro audio gear in a studio uses power conditioning.

But this is not a pro audio product, it is a consumer product meant to be used by consumers. It is an issue because the competition doesn't have this problem and at no point should a company expect people to know and use power conditioners for their audio when most of the time they aren't needed. They don't advertise or advise consumers to use one.

>It very well still may be the Drop amps, by design.

Definitely possible.

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[deleted] t1_j1jixb2 wrote

I would advise anyone with electronics they care about to use a power conditioner. Computers, active monitors, any audio gear with a plug that can carry 60 cycle hum.

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trbd003 t1_j1jupor wrote

The vast majority of 'power conditioners' are basically 4-way extensions inside a rackmount unit. You basically get a surge protector, an EM filter, and maybe a rack light or a little voltmeter.

The only way to actually 'condition' your power is to use an inline sin wave UPS. Fortunately these have become inexpensive these days, so do that, rather than pissing around with a Furman.

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Fullyverified t1_j1jgaza wrote

I've had mine for years and it works fine...

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okaykoolaid t1_j1jmkrd wrote

Mine was fine apart from the knob giving the amp considerable channel imbalance, which is unfortunate even at its price tag. Thankfully mine was still under warranty. I described the issue to customer support and they just sent me the full refund back, which was cool.

Edit: too bad you basically become a stranger to the customer support once your warranty comes to its end. If I,m buying something as stationary and single-purpose as a desktop amplifier, it would be nice to at least be able to have it repaired.

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Kingofsoysauce t1_j1k0ccb wrote

I had one from audio gd I never turn it off and it never had issue.

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Lelouch25 t1_j1k4mir wrote

I mean…yeah I was tempted on eBay by these too, but seeing so many broken ones online gave me a reason to doubt their reliability.

So are you looking at Monolith 887 now?

What about the THX balanced that’s so sweet?

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tehcharizard t1_j1kphtm wrote

I've been using one daily since the first run of them and have never had any issues with it.

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TopRamen-OCE t1_j1krgly wrote

Never had an issue with mine, great build quality for the price. Mines been sitting in a cupboard since I've gotten my singxer but still a solid buy.

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Total_Juggernaut_450 t1_j1kv0x4 wrote

I have the Monolith version and everything has been great with that one. I've had it for over a year and I got it used.

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Utterkid t1_j1l0ya7 wrote

average drop product qc issues

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AEsylumProductions t1_j1lt3ax wrote

Mine was the Nov 2019 batch. Still going strong and never a sign of trouble using it daily.

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Ticonderogue t1_j1mj7e1 wrote

I got the sense that it'll quit after a couple years or so in, seeing them frequently for sale online for Parts. The original, non-Drop THX amp (forget the model number? with the digital display, I rarely see for sale used, and people still pay a good amount for it - little doubt that it's built better.

But there are other amps in the similar price range that have a noise floor nearly as low, and inaudible in any case, you might check out. Topping, SMSL?

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Rossdabosss t1_j1mkk23 wrote

I’m still works. I bought it used after my schit died…. I hope I didn’t make a mistake! I use it every day.

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Sev-is-here t1_j1jmmja wrote

I have a Monolith THX AAA 789 and it seems to work great, however I have heard the DROP version isn’t the greatest.

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magnumstrikerX t1_j1kvg4k wrote

The Monolith is more reliable than the Drop one. Bought my Drop one last holiday season and it broke after 3 months of use but that one was on me because I was running cans on the Balanced XLR using a 3.5mm to XLR adapter + daisy chaining one too many adapaters (Terrible Idea and such a noob mistake of me. You can get away with 3.5 to 2.5mm/4.4mm adapter, but NEVER with an XLR.) Nowadays, I stick to SE to SE and Balanced to Balanced to ensure proper load and longevity of the AMP. Drop amp eventually tripped the OCP and stop powered on ever since.

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DreamDropDistancia t1_j1l4q76 wrote

I can almost guarantee you, if you actually asked "How many of you have no problems with yours", you're going to get more stories of a good time being had, than you are going to get stories of failures, using your post as-is.

Products that reach consumers rarely have as high of a failure rate as social media/bad reporting bias would lead you to believe. It's some small number of units, for any product, ever, that sees failures. If a product sells a million units, and a different product sells ten units, and there's a 1% failure rate across both products, you'll never see a single complaint about the rare product, but you'll see ten thousand complaints about the popular product - despite the failure rate being the same*.*

I bought my 789, used, on Ebay. I've only had it for a month - if it explodes into a billion pieces, I'll let you know.

And then I'll probably fix it or something.

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Pokrog t1_j1jlu2l wrote

Mine died about a month after release and drop replaced it. The best thing I ever did in my audio journey is get rid of that piece of shit. Not a single amp I've owned since has sounded anywhere near as bad as the 789. It's a wholly shit amp with extremely poor detail and control in the subbass. They fucking suck.

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