OK, I'm going to give this site another shot, because after all, I did pay to support it. I know that doesn't apply to this particular post but I am trying to make peace here so that I can get on with things and hopefully not have people jumping down my throat about things that aren't really their business. Moving on (hopefully), My question here is, and I hope I'm in the right area, if not, apologies and please let me know in a civil manner thank you, are powered home theater subwoofers, particularly those made by decent brands such as JBL, Klipsch, and so on rated in RMS or max power?
I'm asking because I have a JBL 12" subwoofer that's rated at 350watts but I can't find anywhere if that's an RMS rating or max and it has a cooked amplifier. I tested the woofer on a lower powered amp from another powered sub that I have. It's only a 150 watt powered sub but it was enough to move the woofer to confirm that it's good.
I'm by no means an electronics expert, as some of you may have figured out from other threads, but I am able to do some testing with a meter and I am capable of doing some soldering. I found a spot on the PCB that looks like it got really hot by the brown burnt looking spots, and there were 2 resistors, 3 capacitors, and 2 3 legged components marked Q2 and Q3 that were involved in the event that caused the heat, which I am assuming is the cause of the amp being fried. I carefully desoldered all of them and observed that the copper sheeting used for the pathways and the coating that adheres it all has been compromised by the heat and there is a lot of charred residue left from the components so whatever caused the meltdown did a pretty good job of destroying the components and the board so I'm calling it toast.
So I'm looking at options for a replacement amp board or even an amp with it's own enclosure that I can install inside the cabinet and construct a panel to seal it up so that I can get the sub working again. I am not the one who cooked it, I bought it used for parts at a huge discount and am trying to get it working. However in my search for an amp I am trying to determine a good power match for the woofer and I have been unable to get a clear understanding of what I should be looking for. Should I get an amp rated for 350 watts max/peak, or 350 watts RMS?
It's not JBLs top tier equipment, it's an older model from a box store home theater series known as the Venue series. I have all the other speakers in the series. I realize they are nothing special but I've enjoyed collecting them, they do sound decent, and it's what I'm choosing to use for my dual 7.1 HT setup which is complete, save for this sub and a second TV that I may or may not add later.
If all you are going to do is criticize me in any way or otherwise be a D, then please refrain from comment. If you are willing to help me out here, please do and thank you in advance. I'm saying this because my first 2 experiences here have been less than pleasant and I don't feel that I deserved it. That may not be agreed upon and if that's the case, I apologize for whatever it was that ruffled feathers but I'm just a guy who tries to make something out of next to nothing because I don't have a mountain of disposable cash so I'm usually working with components that need some TLC or maybe a little more but I don't think I'm doing anything wrong by that and the reason I come to places like this is to gain knowledge and that's why I will usually donate or subscribe to the premium service, however I feel that I was judged before the trial started by a few members who evidently think that I'm supposed to be a certified engineer before doing this but we all have to start somewhere and I don't have the funds for formal electronics degrees, nor do I have the time. I'm not stupid so I don't work on things while they are plugged in, I understand that capacitors can hold a charge for some time even after the unit is off, unplugged, etc. and I don't care enough about any of the components I work on, which wouldn't be of any significant value to me or anyone else, to worry much about tossing them in the recycle bin if what I'm trying to do doesn't work. Thanks for your understanding, and please, if you must be critical, can you at least do it in a civil manner?
I'm asking because I have a JBL 12" subwoofer that's rated at 350watts but I can't find anywhere if that's an RMS rating or max and it has a cooked amplifier. I tested the woofer on a lower powered amp from another powered sub that I have. It's only a 150 watt powered sub but it was enough to move the woofer to confirm that it's good.
I'm by no means an electronics expert, as some of you may have figured out from other threads, but I am able to do some testing with a meter and I am capable of doing some soldering. I found a spot on the PCB that looks like it got really hot by the brown burnt looking spots, and there were 2 resistors, 3 capacitors, and 2 3 legged components marked Q2 and Q3 that were involved in the event that caused the heat, which I am assuming is the cause of the amp being fried. I carefully desoldered all of them and observed that the copper sheeting used for the pathways and the coating that adheres it all has been compromised by the heat and there is a lot of charred residue left from the components so whatever caused the meltdown did a pretty good job of destroying the components and the board so I'm calling it toast.
So I'm looking at options for a replacement amp board or even an amp with it's own enclosure that I can install inside the cabinet and construct a panel to seal it up so that I can get the sub working again. I am not the one who cooked it, I bought it used for parts at a huge discount and am trying to get it working. However in my search for an amp I am trying to determine a good power match for the woofer and I have been unable to get a clear understanding of what I should be looking for. Should I get an amp rated for 350 watts max/peak, or 350 watts RMS?
It's not JBLs top tier equipment, it's an older model from a box store home theater series known as the Venue series. I have all the other speakers in the series. I realize they are nothing special but I've enjoyed collecting them, they do sound decent, and it's what I'm choosing to use for my dual 7.1 HT setup which is complete, save for this sub and a second TV that I may or may not add later.
If all you are going to do is criticize me in any way or otherwise be a D, then please refrain from comment. If you are willing to help me out here, please do and thank you in advance. I'm saying this because my first 2 experiences here have been less than pleasant and I don't feel that I deserved it. That may not be agreed upon and if that's the case, I apologize for whatever it was that ruffled feathers but I'm just a guy who tries to make something out of next to nothing because I don't have a mountain of disposable cash so I'm usually working with components that need some TLC or maybe a little more but I don't think I'm doing anything wrong by that and the reason I come to places like this is to gain knowledge and that's why I will usually donate or subscribe to the premium service, however I feel that I was judged before the trial started by a few members who evidently think that I'm supposed to be a certified engineer before doing this but we all have to start somewhere and I don't have the funds for formal electronics degrees, nor do I have the time. I'm not stupid so I don't work on things while they are plugged in, I understand that capacitors can hold a charge for some time even after the unit is off, unplugged, etc. and I don't care enough about any of the components I work on, which wouldn't be of any significant value to me or anyone else, to worry much about tossing them in the recycle bin if what I'm trying to do doesn't work. Thanks for your understanding, and please, if you must be critical, can you at least do it in a civil manner?
Current JBL powered subwoofers list the power as WRMS and include a peak value also. Could you post the model you are working on?
OK, thanks for the response. You must use better search terms. I was thinking that because JBL has been solid in the past but with the merger with Harmon and sales trends these days, even though Harman has been a quality name in the audio business as well, who knows.
Anyway I am assuming that my best option is the Dayton Audio 300 watt plate amp. There are a couple of others similar but I have some experience with Dayton and Parts Express and I have an account with them so ordering it will be easy.
I would like to know if anyone has any input on the 350 watt DIY amp boards that eBay has from several sellers that are between $30 and $50. It looks quite similar to the OEM board that I removed from the JBL sub. I also have A Difinitive Technology 10" subwoofer rated at 375 watts that also has a cooked amp. I have that one set up as a passive sub with an inexpensive mini amp. The Amp is rated at 220 watts on the sub channel. It's a 2.1 stereo amp with a separate subwoofer channel which is rated at 220 watts by itself with the other 2 channels rated at 100 each. It does produce some bass but nothing compared to what it did before the amp blew so I know the power ratings on it can't be anywhere near what they claim.
I'm running it with just the subwoofer channel, nothing on the 2 full range speaker channels. I don't know if that would have any bearing on the outcome but it worked really well with a couple of old onkyo bookshelf speakers and an 8" sub in a sealed car enclosure that I used strictly for my turntable before I got an AVR with a phono input.
Anyway going back to the cheap eBay amp, it resembles the one that I pulled out of the JBL very closely and it's also similar to the DT amp parts wise although that one has them placed a bit differently in the way they are oriented on the board. Most of the actual parts look the same though but it doesn't have the big transformers that the JBL and DT amps do so that's a little concerning. If it's just a matter of them lacking the transformer and requiring one to be wired up to it, I still have them both so it wouldn't be difficult for me to do. I have schematics for both and I photographed and made hand drawn diagrams of what each wire was connected to on the boards and where they were positioned. I know I shouldn't expect much for the price but every once in a while there's a gem in the sea of junk. There are some pretty clear close ups of the boards on some of the sellers listings and comparing them with mine, so long as they're selling what's pictured it looks like most of the components are exactly the same, brands, ratings and all other details that I could see clearly.
Anyway if anyone has any info on them, either way, it would be greatly appreciated. If I don't decide to experiment with one, I'll probably be getting the Dayton Audio plate amp this weekend..
Anyway I am assuming that my best option is the Dayton Audio 300 watt plate amp. There are a couple of others similar but I have some experience with Dayton and Parts Express and I have an account with them so ordering it will be easy.
I would like to know if anyone has any input on the 350 watt DIY amp boards that eBay has from several sellers that are between $30 and $50. It looks quite similar to the OEM board that I removed from the JBL sub. I also have A Difinitive Technology 10" subwoofer rated at 375 watts that also has a cooked amp. I have that one set up as a passive sub with an inexpensive mini amp. The Amp is rated at 220 watts on the sub channel. It's a 2.1 stereo amp with a separate subwoofer channel which is rated at 220 watts by itself with the other 2 channels rated at 100 each. It does produce some bass but nothing compared to what it did before the amp blew so I know the power ratings on it can't be anywhere near what they claim.
I'm running it with just the subwoofer channel, nothing on the 2 full range speaker channels. I don't know if that would have any bearing on the outcome but it worked really well with a couple of old onkyo bookshelf speakers and an 8" sub in a sealed car enclosure that I used strictly for my turntable before I got an AVR with a phono input.
Anyway going back to the cheap eBay amp, it resembles the one that I pulled out of the JBL very closely and it's also similar to the DT amp parts wise although that one has them placed a bit differently in the way they are oriented on the board. Most of the actual parts look the same though but it doesn't have the big transformers that the JBL and DT amps do so that's a little concerning. If it's just a matter of them lacking the transformer and requiring one to be wired up to it, I still have them both so it wouldn't be difficult for me to do. I have schematics for both and I photographed and made hand drawn diagrams of what each wire was connected to on the boards and where they were positioned. I know I shouldn't expect much for the price but every once in a while there's a gem in the sea of junk. There are some pretty clear close ups of the boards on some of the sellers listings and comparing them with mine, so long as they're selling what's pictured it looks like most of the components are exactly the same, brands, ratings and all other details that I could see clearly.
Anyway if anyone has any info on them, either way, it would be greatly appreciated. If I don't decide to experiment with one, I'll probably be getting the Dayton Audio plate amp this weekend..
Harmon bought out JBL (and a metric ton of other companies) when they collapsed.
I believe Harmon is now a 'group' under the ownership of LG.
I believe Harmon is now a 'group' under the ownership of LG.
That wouldn't surprise me a bit. The corporate climate never ceases to disgust me. I had 2 LG TVs and a few Android phones. My first cell phone was a Motorola Razr, the original, which I still have and still works. I don't think it would still work connectivity wise but I suppose it's possible but it still charges, powers on, functions and actually holds a charge quite well considering it's well over 25 years old and has the battery that was in it when I bought it.
My next one however was an LG. I don't recall the model but it was a gift and was quite cool because it slid open into an almost double wide configuration with a button style keyboard that was hidden when it was closed. As it was opened though, it revealed the keyboard and the screen would automatically switch to landscape mode. It was a phone designed for texting. And text I did. Among my curiosities of how things work, I stumbled across the world of phone hacking and this phone was quite easy to mod and once rooted I was able to play around with using a text editor to manipulate certain things within the phone's OS as well as within the files for the apps. I was introduced to an entirely new world of fun.
My next phone was also a gift. A Samsung Galaxy S3. Which I also learned how to root and play around with. Then I got an S4 because I liked the S3 and all was well and good. However when I moved from Maine to Colorado, I discovered that US Cellular, the carrier I had in Maine, didn't operate here and my phone wouldn't work unless I was on wifi. So I traded it in for another S4 on a network that services Colorado. However upon attempting to root it and get things set up as I had them on my first S4 I was met with the wall of Knox. So after doing some research I went back to LG because I like to have a stylus and the Stylo series worked for a while. I ended up losing a Stylo 4 that I'd recently purchased and in the process of getting a new phone to replace it, I ended up back with Samsung and a Note 9, then to a Note 20 Ultra 5G 512/8GB chunk of awesomeness. Or so I thought. However I soon found out that it was an evil monster sent to destroy my life. And so it proceeded to do until I had enough and turned it into a very expensive paper weight and bought another Note 9. Which proceeded to exhibit similar behaviors that the Note 20 Ultra did. So back to Motorola I went with the Moto G Stylus 2022 5G but by this time, Motorola has joined the crowd and after 2 screen replacements that failed soon after, I now have given up on the stylus and have a OnePlus Nord N30 5G and after a year of ownership, so far so good.
Both of my LG TVs stopped working very shortly after the manufacturer's warranty expired and after doing some research into that learned about how the mainboards fail from heat and cooling cycles. I'm not into TV much at all however I do like to have one here in case I have company and sometimes to use as a monitor for my laptop and some features of my AVR can't be accessed without the OSD feature, so it kinda helps with that as I am a huge audio buff. So I've gone out on a very weak limb and bought a mid tier Samsung TV which supposedly isn't a victim of mainboard heat cycle failures. We'll see. But beneath all the hype, most of the products that we buy are nothing more than junk.
Some of us spend a lot of our time working and saving so that we can buy this junk. It doesn't phase the people who think nothing of it because money is not a factor in their ability to buy it and when it fails, it's no big deal because they can just go get another one without blinking an eye about it. But it's disheartening for those of us who work for a living. I mean actually do some real physical work, those of us who do what needs to be done in order to keep things going for those who get way too much of our hard earned money and do no actual work that means a thing for us.
Actually Harman International is a wholly owned subsidiary of Samsung and is still very actively acquiring other audio related businesses.
Our town council has a reuse centre where I all sorts of audio gear from tube sideboards to Yamaha HT receivers. Places like these are worth a look to find replacements for consumer electronics. I keep finding the Logitech Z623 and taking them home for $5 due to the faulty volume pot and power knob in the design, they last about a year before playing up and most folks dump them