Help me choose an amp for JBL control 5

ArchAnGeL · 17 Mar 2015 at 15:22

I have a pair of JBL control 5 monitors which I currently run from an old yamaha AV amp which is not ideal

I was considering a new amp for them but have no idea how to match an amp to the speakers or what to look for.

The current signal comes from my mixer as RCA but I could also use balanced XLR/TRS.

I don't have a sub woofer connected and it is unlikely I would add one

Ideally sub £200 and would happily go second hand

Use is DJ (320 mp3 /FLACS, some old vinyl) and some production

Nick1881 · 17 Mar 2015 at 16:21

How about a Behringer A500

These are good for the money, plenty of power so will drive them with ease.

ArchAnGeL · 17 Mar 2015 at 17:32

Looks good.

How do you define the requirement e.g the speakers are 4 ohm 175w so this is 230w @ 4ohm, is it good that it has a little extra (not that they will be anywhere near full power when I am using them)?

lucid · 17 Mar 2015 at 18:46

It looks like Behringer are getting the message that buyers are more clued up now than previously. That A500 spec sheet actually gives some useful info, and the spec is okay. It's far better than the iNuke (iPuke

) hunk of junk they sell to the home DJ crowd. Still, you can do better for your money......

Before talking about specific amps, I'll just mention amp power vs speaker power. A bigger amp than the speakers are rated for is perfectly fine. At the end of the day you have total control of how hard (loud) you drive the amp. The advantage of a bigger amp is that it runs well below the threshold where it's starting to distort. An amp running at 40-50% capacity will run cooler, last longer, and provide a cleaner signal to the speakers than an amp running at 80-90% of its maximum rating. You're far more likely to kill speakers with distortion than with too much clean power. You should also bear this in mind when playing highly compressed MP3s or any music source with high distortion in the signal.

Amps:

In the same price bracket as the Behringer is Samson Servo 300. On paper it looks less powerful: 150W vs 185W both in to 4 Ohm. That is until you look at the THD (total harmonic distortion) figures. The Behringer is producing ten times the distortion (1%) compared to the Samson at 0.1%. Everything else in the specs says "made better" for the Samson too.... better S/N, bigger voltage gain (6dB more which equates to double the signal gain), better damping factor....... all of it points to better power supply- and signal regulation quality.

The Samson Servo 600 produces 2 x 300W @ 4 Ohm. It improves yet again over the 300 and is available for around the £220 mark.

Nick1881 · 17 Mar 2015 at 18:51

The A500 is actually rated at 185w RMS at 4 ohms.

You'd have to go pretty mad to do any damage, though I prefer to have an amp with headroom. If you had a lower powered amp then you could run the amp into clipping as it ran out of power, the clipped signal could damage your speakers.

You will probably find this combo will provide ear drum destroying levels way before any equipment gets damaged.

My dad has the A500 driving some TDL speakers he was given and it sounds pretty good.