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- Sep 10, 2025
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I was about to go buy a Crown amp for this JBL S2S-EX [are they taking the piss with that model name?]. It's a $3,000 supposedly semi-pro audio (farm league?) subwoofer I got for $300 in visibly fantastic condition from a reputable private party I've done business with before. I decided to be cheap and got a Rockville D12 2-Channel Class D Amplifier with purportely "5000W Peak/1400W RMS" . That claim is for bridged into 8ohm the JBL S2S-EX's nominal impedance. The JBL's specs which I've pasted for convenience say 1.2kW RMS and 3.2kW peak. So, on paper, this Rockville D12 should be a relatively decent match that can't easily fry the driver. Now I think everyone knows Rockville's numbers are, as my nephew would say, 'super sus', but I figured if it's 900W RMS and can do bursts of 2-3kW, I should be impressed given that until I recently acquired a SVS SB16 Ultra, my most powerful amp was a KEF KC92. But even getting the line level voltage as high as I probably can, it just doesn't punch and if you look at the specs, this thing should punch more than deliver infrasonic rumbles, right?
And this raises a bigger engineering question I want to throw to the forum: Do you actually want an amp whose specs essentially match your speaker's RMS and peak values so theoretically you shouldn't be able to easily damage the voice coils with some blasting or ham-handedness with the remote?
Or do you want an amp that exceeds the speaker's capacity significantly? And if so, by what amount?
In my personal opinion, the absolute effortlessness of an amplifier operating well away from its limits is what really determines how clean it sounds. When an amp is gasping for air, everything chokes up long before hard clipping sets in.
So I'm going to dump this budget paper-weight and buy a Crown amp as soon as one shows up as "Used - Like New" or "Very Good" on Amazon. I've had fantastic luck with that route before and even once rolled the dice on some "Used - Acceptable" Klipsch RP-8060FA 2s for 80% off. The odds were good to me there as it was 'Acceptable' just because of some dings in the back and they appeared to never have even been fully unpacked.
But I digress. More importantly, as a Buckeye NCx500 owner, I would love a Crown full on Class D and not the AB with a switching supply, as they are heavy and won't sound any better, right? Curious what y'all would recommend. Also I don't mind drop shipping it to Amir if you want the fact it hasn't been reviewed yet to be part of your calculus.
But if you don't give a damn about advising how to power my hifi junk specifically, what do you think generally about going very extra on headroom versus nominal power matching? Does relative driver mass make a difference? The JBL uses a W1500H transducer with 15" (380mm) Kevlar-Kapok reinforced cone. The enclosure has 2 huge ports but I do have bungs for them.
And this raises a bigger engineering question I want to throw to the forum: Do you actually want an amp whose specs essentially match your speaker's RMS and peak values so theoretically you shouldn't be able to easily damage the voice coils with some blasting or ham-handedness with the remote?
Or do you want an amp that exceeds the speaker's capacity significantly? And if so, by what amount?
In my personal opinion, the absolute effortlessness of an amplifier operating well away from its limits is what really determines how clean it sounds. When an amp is gasping for air, everything chokes up long before hard clipping sets in.
So I'm going to dump this budget paper-weight and buy a Crown amp as soon as one shows up as "Used - Like New" or "Very Good" on Amazon. I've had fantastic luck with that route before and even once rolled the dice on some "Used - Acceptable" Klipsch RP-8060FA 2s for 80% off. The odds were good to me there as it was 'Acceptable' just because of some dings in the back and they appeared to never have even been fully unpacked.
But I digress. More importantly, as a Buckeye NCx500 owner, I would love a Crown full on Class D and not the AB with a switching supply, as they are heavy and won't sound any better, right? Curious what y'all would recommend. Also I don't mind drop shipping it to Amir if you want the fact it hasn't been reviewed yet to be part of your calculus.
But if you don't give a damn about advising how to power my hifi junk specifically, what do you think generally about going very extra on headroom versus nominal power matching? Does relative driver mass make a difference? The JBL uses a W1500H transducer with 15" (380mm) Kevlar-Kapok reinforced cone. The enclosure has 2 huge ports but I do have bungs for them.
