2220B power requirement question

[MLinVA]

Hi, I've been hooking this system back up and I have gone over the old specs for the 2220B. It appears they went from 100 watts RMS (2220) to 200 watts RMS(2220H and J) around the time I bought my speakers. I ran mine for years with 400 watts RMS for the 4 speakers. 16 ohm speakers wired parallel and then the 2 8 ohm cabinets parallel and the 4 ohm load driven by 1/2 of a Yamaha P2200. The other half of the P2200 pushed 2 16 ohm 2482 wired in parallel for an 8 ohm load at around 250 watts. I mainly ran hard rock bands in 300 - 1000 seat venues and outdoors and they worked fine. Why did JBL change the rating, was there a materials change or was it more of a thinking change? I am amazed that I ran this system with about 500 watts a side. Each of my EAW full range cabs need a minimum of 1000 watts and they are about 3ft by 2 ft and 66 pounds. They do sound great though.

any suggestions?
Mary Lou

[Mike Caldwell]

Hello
The change mostly likely was from different glue and or voice coil former materials. The 2220 is a very efficient 15 inch speaker at 101 db at one watt, so it does not take a lot of power to produce a lot of output. the 2220 is not really true sub or extended low frequency speaker since it only has a rated xmax of about 3mm. It is more suited in a horn loaded cabinets for low midrange like a 4560. With your four speakers all wired in parallel each speaker was only seeing about 100 watts from the total output of the amp.

Mike Caldwell