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JBL L100 Amplifier Recommendations

I recently purchased the JBL L100 Classics. I have paired them with my existing Cambridge CXA80 and MyTek Brooklyn DAC+. The Mids and Treble on the JBL’s are great, especially with the DAC. However the bass response seems to be rather flat on these JBL’s. I’m thinking it’s simply the Cambridge not having the ability to drive the 12” woofers on the JBL’s as well as a more powerful amp. I’m looking at perhaps a Bryston 4B3 amp one day instead of the Cambridge to improve the bass response and overall performance of the JBL’s. Is my thinking correct? Would this help the overall performance of the JBL’s? specifically the bass response? Or is it just how the JBL’s are in general? Alternatively I’m thinking of getting a little sub . Although a woofer that big on the JBL’s you’d think you’d never need a sub. Keen to hear what everyone thinks.
andyboom

Showing 1 response by atmasphere

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,577 posts
 
Its not so much that you need a gutsy amp to drive a 12" speaker; what you are dealing with here is the simple fact that JBL chose to make this speaker hard to drive. Its nominally 4 ohms to start with, and has a difficult phase angle in the mid bass region.


Due to the 4 ohm impedance the efficiency translates to about 88dB. This means that in an average room the amp will need to make about 200 watts (into 4 ohms) to be able to play at lifelike levels.


Now you may have an issue with having one speaker wired out of phase with the other, so I would check your connections and make sure both speakers are working together rather than against each other- if the latter is true, it will be a bit bass dry!

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