i've got this amp from a friend of mine who couldnt hook it up to his car. . . it's a rockford fosgate punch 500x2 (250x2 rms @ 2 ohm)
i connected my amp correctly, hot wire (from battery, fused) into B+, ground cable to GND, and remote to REM. . .
upon me turning on the stereo, the red LED (only color on the amp) came on, but there was no sound produced. . . simply an extremely hot hot wire with small amounts of smoke coming from the connection. . .
i have hooked several amps up in the past, so im not completely stupid when it comes to what you're saying. . . i actually unhooked my personal amp (Majestic 100+100) to see if the fosgate would power my Volfenhag 10" sub any better. nothing like this has ever been thrown at me before. . .
It sounds like a dead short inside of the new amp. The heat and smoke normaly comes from shorts of some sort. Remember install the ground wire first and remove it last to help protect the amp and head Unit.
i just got a 1600 watt power acoustic amp. . . it was doing basically the same thing, except there is an indicator light, (green/red), and it turns on, goes red for a second and shuts off. . . i took the back off of it to see if i could source the smoke. . .
two of the heat blocks that attach to the body of the amp have black marks near them like they have been shooting smoke/sparks/etc. . .