Using an inexpensive plate amp to drive 18" sub-woofer?

My friend Steve has 4 JBL 2245 in stacked homemade cabinets. He runs each of them with an Adcom 565 monoblock amp. Think they're 300w ch but with 4 of them he gets plenty of output in a treated basement audio room.

I have a JBL 4641 sub, with the 2241H 18" driver. Its an ugly big box black pro sub, but I've laid it on its side, wrapped it with black cloth and put a beech board across the top to visually match it to the other speakers in the room. I've usually run it (and the B380 I had before it) with a Harman Kardon Citation 22 amp bridged to mono (500+ watts). At one point I tried it with a bridged Adcom GFA555 (ver I, not II), but it just sounded better with the Citation. Bass seems fuller somehow.

These days I run the mains with a B&K St202+ (200+ w/ch). I run the system with an Integra 7.1ch preamp/processor - and the sub channel is set 6 db down from the other channels. Crossover point is 80Hz, but I let the mains play fullrange as well. There is plenty of bass in the room.

Speakers are currently Vandersteen 2CE mains and 2CI on the sides, and a matched Vandy center.
Its a very fine combination, but I never get into stupid loud territory.
Of course, the room isn't very large - its a Home Theater for 2 or 4 (smile).
Its mostly used for movies, TV and music video ... but it works well for the occasional music we play in that space.

The main music system is the 2 channel JBL/tube system upstairs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by robertbartsch

I have been using an earlier version of the plate amp that is linked below to drive a JBL 18" sub-woofer (2245?). This is a Dayton 1,000W (AB) plate amp. It seems OK but I don't have much to compare it against. I did try a bridged Adcom 555 to drive this speaker but I could not get enough volume from it to match the rest of the system. Anyway, the specs on this plate amp are not very impressive and it has lots of THD compared to other consumer amps. Is anyone else using these? Is a high THD rating bad in a sub-amp or does it not matter much? What are you using to drive sub-woofer systems? thanks... http://www.daytonaudio.com/index.php...amplifier.html

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