Slammin, Jammin and ALOT of Value- Super Watt-For-Dollar Ratio
Written: Jan 16 '04
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Pros: Lots of watts, lots of value, very clean and appropriate as it is sub-only designed
Cons: Lacks flexibility in terms of floating "q" and other tweak-ability
The Bottom Line: A great quick-and-dirty CHEAP solution. You certainly get alot of value BUT if you want to tweak and make your EQ environment perfect, this is NOT the amp
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| nick1326's Full Review: JBL BP600.1 Car Amp |
Picking an amp for subwoofer use can be a pretty daunting task. So many advertisements to sway you one way or another- so many dollars to potentially spend... ALOT of misconceptions to get past, and with all the confusion, it's quite easy to waste alot of money without really thinking in to your objectives and goals within your system. Many have a misconception that says, if you're not spending about a dollar per true RMS watt, you're getting a garbage amp. While I can certainly agree TO AN EXTENT, being that so many inferior amps are available on the market, there are a limited few which actually offer superior value AND incredible performance while falling well under the dollar-per-watt rule. Enter the JBL BP600.1.
JBL's amplifiers have never been renowned for ultra-clean signals and haven't ever garnered a reputation for being the best in terms of power OR sound quality. Perhaps it's a combination of 2 things) 1) marketing approach and 2) a certain stigma that puts JBL in the "pounding, but not quality" category. My goal in this review is to offer the most objective look at an amp that could easily be overlooked because of an undue mediocre reputation - Here, you'll get the untainted facts- BUT, first let's look at the specs and guts of the amp:
The BP600.1 is rated at a conservative 300 watts RMS driven into a 4 ohm load (600 watts peak). The amp is inherently a mono- configured subwoofer amp- this means there is no bridging, no stereo, no special connections- just a simple, mono layout designed for one thing: driving a subwoofer (or multiple subwoofers). The power output at 2 ohms is 600 watts RMS: this means that you could take 2 4 ohm subwoofers and wire them in parralel- this would deliver a total of 600 watts RMS, so when you divide that between 2 subs, the amp is "seeing" a 2 ohm load (due to being wired in parrelel) and thus each sub would receive a rated 300 watts continuous (RMS = continous, or TRUE- no maximum, maximum in this case is 600 per sub [peak]). The amp IS capable of delivering power to a 1 ohm load- which means you could effectively drive 2 dual voice coil (DVC) subs and still get 300 watts to each sub (150 to each voice coil) ***NOTE: Power output between 1 ohm and 2 ohm net load remains static- thus you gain no power advantage by driving a 1 ohm load rathen than 2ohm...however sound quality DOES degrage as ohmage decreases....
True power: JBL's often come in grossly under-rated. The last 600.1 I installed rang-up a whopping 378 watts ot 4ohm under a 12.6 volt input power on the bench. This is pretty impressive, ESEPCIALLY at a street price of about 225.00!!! Sound quality wise, the amp is rated at >90dB signal-to-noise. On paper, this may not seem too great compared to >95dB or >100dB however since this is a subwoofer amp, the audible difference in distinguishing noise increases at these frequencies is virtually indistinguishable! AND, your cars accoustics will have a MUCH more drastic effect on sound quality than the difference between a few dB of signal-to-noise ratio difference! Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) is rated at a nominal .1%. Again, Many amps SHOW much less, like .02% or .05%, HOWEVER, this is misleading because these numbers are often spec'd at 1 watt over 1 ft of power wire- NOT at rated power. Finally, on paper means next to nothing compared to what you're ears tell you- I compared the performance of my single 4ohm Boston 12.5lf running on the JL 500/1 I have compared to the JBL, and quite honestly, there was very little difference- even with a decrease in nominal power (the JL 500/1 puts out a flat 500 watts regardless of ohmage- this is a unique and very cool power supply architecture, and also the reason I chose the JL- however if it wasn't for getting a killer deal on the JL, I probably would have picked up the jibble (JBL) for a hundred bucks less! Normally, the JL sells for over 420, where as I bought it for 310!!!
Size wise, the 600.1 is very small: 9 1/16 x 12 9/16 x 2 3/16, the thing is nearly a cube- it will fit on a neat small amp rack and can be easily mounted out of site and out of mind, either under a seat, trunk-mount, deck-mount or anywhere else depending on how creative (and how much time) you want to put into it. Performance wise, this amp ROCKS- bass-q is non-adjustable, instead level of boost is adjustable between 0 and 6dB of bass-boost ONLY at 50hz... IN other words, you really don't have EQ flexibilty. This is much less than most other amps (typically 10 to 15 dB of room to adjust) however I find that driven properly and EQd properly, any more than 6 is over-exageration. However, the Fixed 50hZ "q" point is appropriate, but if it were movable (between say 40 and 70 Hz, I would like it better). Again, it depends on your prerogative. The JL 500/1 that I use DOES have alot more bells and whistles in terms of cross-over flexibility though: The JBL only has a 12dB/octave roll-off, where as the JL has switchable 12 or 24dB roll-off. This is ALOT more accuracy in terms of EQing your cars acoustic environment...however this is also how JBL keeps their costs down AND still delivers the power you want. Again, More flexiblity would be nice, but for a straight-forward POUNDING sub amp, you can't beat the JBL in terms of boom fo your buck.
In closing, for just over 2 bills, I don't think you're gonna find anything out there that provided this much power and "slam" however again, it is the flexibilty and adjustability that are lacking here- certainly power is way up there! For the money, it's a great choice- it's easy to find at almost any store and makes for a quick easy install WITHOUT alot of fuss interms of setup- therefore, I find this to be one of the best choices for D-I-Y laymen, especially if you just want a quick and dirty sub solution to rock your bass desires WITHOUT spending tedious hours tuning and tweaking. This amp simply straight-foward POUNDS.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 225
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Epinions.com ID:
nick1326
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Location: Long Island, NY
Reviews written: 232
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Music, Motorcycles, Drumming, Surfing, the finest cigars and living life to its fullest...
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