New user with some questions

[MrBoat]

I know this is probably very common but a little background first. I've almost always been into higher performance audio, but as time went on, and as the family grew, my passions sort of got pushed to the side, or the noisier ones at least. I recall times where I would just have to listen to music loudly. To the point where when my 'ex' wife would disapprove, I could only really see her lips moving, albeit with some relatively universally understood facial expressions that depict disapproval. Music is just not much fun when you know it irritates people, and trying to be in the mood at that point where everyone is gone elsewhere is just not natural.

I'm not tech savvy. Hate smart phones, but got pretty good at computers somehow, in spite of my industrial arts background. It just never occurred to me to plug my pc into old gear, so I suffered with affordable desktop speakers like the Harman Kardon soundsticks II. Actually, those don't sound too bad for their size, all point blank like. Recently, someone gave me a, I am sure, much hated late 80's Scott amp that's 150w. The older Asian couple that lived next store to me sold me a pair of 'never' used, JBL S312 speakers for 75 bucks and they are heavy as all get out. His wife refused to allow them with her decor so they've been in cardboard boxes in their garage since Y2k. or shortly thereafter. Anyway, I hooked them up to the sorry(albeit loud) amp and plugged my pc into it. Worlds better than the desktop speakers. They're in a room that's approximately 20'x12' with terrazzo (concrete) floors and they really sound good. If they sound this good with this amp, there surely has to be more potential there. They are not lacking bass, that's for sure and I have to leave the loudness button on the amp off, with the EQ set to 0 pretty much across the spectrum. I'm not into movies, or surround systems, for that matter. 2 channel has always been enough.

After reading around, figuring from where I left off with audio, I would likely get better value/satisfaction with vintage, but guess what, the collectors have that too so prices can be ridiculous. The deals that are out there, I have no idea what is good, with all having a fan base of some sort, while being touted as junk everywhere else. I also have a Pioneer sx-780 that someone gave me, and a Harman Kardon HK340, but if I recall correctly, one is 45w and the other 60 at best. Not sure if those would really power these JBL speakers now that I have gotten used to them with the 150w amp, although admittedly, I haven't been pushing them past the 25-50w range according to the meter on the Scott amp. These speakers are obviously more efficient than the 3 way 15" chuffers that came with the donor amp and cd player, because they are noticeably louder at lower watts, again, according to that meter on the amp. I was listening to the others just where they start going from green to red lights, or beyond 50w, or peaking into the 100w range. I would make sure it was suitable daytime hours before even subjecting the neighbors to just the thump outside the house from the JBL's at that level.

Now the perplexing part. After living through the hype of the 80's furniture store offerings, I don't know that I believe reviews or in the newer stuff. I'm also not going to pay thousands of dollars for an amp. I have next to no experience or knowledge of pre-amps, the stand alone amps with very few switches or knobs on them. It's hard for me to understand how those do everything all by themselves without an EQ or other manual enhancement options. The equipment I have had is like one step above that crap my mom used to get from sears or maybe even kmart that never really sounded good turned up. So it's easier to understand why I was ok with the 80's stuff and huge speakers in the 100w/ch range, or this current Scott amp, for that matter.

My questions essentially are, is the newer 2 channel stuff worthy? Would it work with these speakers better than what I have? Is ultra light weight still crap? What type and how would I use a newer amp? I am fine with controlling the volume from my pc. Would I benefit from an equalizer? Would I be surprised in how new tech has advanced? What about reliability? Would it still be around years from now like this old Scott amp? Where is a good place to start? Can you tell I am old and out of touch?

 

[shadyJ]

I don't think you will benefit very much from a new amplifier. If you are happy with your speakers and you are happy with your present sound, no need to bother with modern stuff. As long as your amp is functioning properly and you are not driving it into clipping, a newer amplifier isn't going to give you a big difference at all.

 

[rojo]

I'll second what shadyJ said. Good sound comes from good speakers. If you're unhappy with the sound, better speakers offer the most profound improvement. Consider adding a subwoofer.

EQ should be used for room correction, to tame room modes where reflected sound combines with direct to create humps in the response. Good with computers are you? Excellent. Get yourself a calibrated measurement mic and download the freeware Room EQ Wizard, and the other freeware EqualizerAPO. No need to invest in a hardware EQ or DSP if you can perform the corrections in software.

 

[lovinthehd]

Curious what Scott amp and why you think it is hated?

 

[MrBoat]

Thank you for the replies.

It's a HH Scott A1600.

After trying to get a feel for what's going on with home audio, it seems that the consensus is, at least with amp builders/restorers that the 80's was the worst for audio equip. Some won't even consider anything from that era.

 

[MrBoat]

This Amp came to me with a set of BSR speakers that I actually rebuilt the surrounds on just to have tunes in the house. They actually rock, but not like these JBL's. When looking up info for (BSR) these speakers, I discovered that they were offered through one of those discount type, generic outlets. I assumed that if this was the habit of the people that owned this setup initially, that the amp was possibly laughable as well. There's not much information on this amp online.

 

[MrBoat]

I tried to consolidate more information into a single post but then the forum software would not let me post it due to it being recognized as spam?

 

[lovinthehd]

My biggest complaint with 80s gear (and I still have some of my better stuff, but generally don't miss it) is its age ......they start to need new caps, get scratchy controls, that sort of thing. Mostly "vintage" just means old to me.

I was wondering if you had a tube amp but seems you have a solid state integrated amp with a built in graphic eq altho didn't find much on it. If it works well then keep using it until it doesn't would be what I'd do.

 

[lovinthehd]

I tried to consolidate more information into a single post but then the forum software would not let me post it due to it being recognized as spam?

You probably need more posts before you can add links and such....forget how many here.

 

[MrBoat]

You're right about the scratchy controls which is why I condemned my 80's Fisher rack system. This Scott amp does not have a mechanical volume control. You hold the switch down one way or the other and the volume increases or decreases. The other thing is it weighs about 40lbs and has a pretty substantial heat sink in the case. The integrated EQ sliders are not scratchy, which surprised me.

Are my JBL speakers my limitation as to why a better amp would not improve their performance? If you follow the people who build/restore amps, their claims are that the amp does matter, right down to the circuit design and the amount/quality of electronic components used to essentially 'torture' the desirable effects with the consequences of having too much power. Also, there are a lot of brand names I do not recognize.

 

[ski2xblack]

Well, what's still the same as it ever was is that the three most important aspects of all this are 1) quality of the source material, 2) the quality of the speakers, and 3) the influence of local acoustics. These should get the bulk of your attention and budget. The rest, such as sufficient amp power, etc, is small potatoes.

What's changed are things such as the ubiquitous use of subs, making bass management a highly desirable feature, and other features such as the accommodation of digital sources, streaming music, etc.

Stereo kit is still good. More and more of it is coming equipped with bass management and modern connectivity (e.g. a bevy of new NAD integrated amps just hitting the market), but still tend to be poorer value propositions compared to AVR's which have the same capabilities but are simply produced in much larger numbers.

I would agree to keep what you have, enjoy it, and only make changes when you've learned a bit more and can better judge which changes are worthwhile.

 

[MrBoat]

Well, what's still the same as it ever was is that the three most important aspects of all this are 1) quality of the source material, 2) the quality of the speakers, and 3) the influence of local acoustics. The rest is small potatoes.

What's changed are things such as the ubiquitous use of subs, making bass management a highly desirable feature, and other features such as the accommodation of digital sources, streaming music, etc.

Stereo kit is still good. More and more of it is coming equipped with bass management and modern connectivity (e.g. a bevy of new NAD integrated amps just hitting the market), but still tend to be poorer value propositions compared to AVR's which have the same capabilities but are simply produced in much larger numbers.

I would agree to keep what you have, enjoy it, and only make changes when you've learned a bit more and can better judge which changes are worthwhile.

This seems, as with the other replies, what I was hoping with where I was at. I suppose I just wondered if I was missing out. Half of this being that these speakers are new to me. I sort of just discovered that 150w, and 250w capable speakers with 12" subs are pretty substantial. They perform better towards the higher ranges, and after a bit of time off from this hobby, I am not used to it. It's excessive for my living space.

I also agree about the source material. Especially if dealing with random quality of uploaded material from say, u-tube, or older recorded stuff before multiple tracks etc.

Thank you all for your time. I'll follow the forum and see what I can find out. Maybe try some smaller speakers with favorable values for what I have and see if I can have multiple options for when and how I listen to things. Like speakers for night time so I don't have to crush my neighbors when I want quality tunes later at night.

 

[lovinthehd]

You're right about the scratchy controls which is why I condemned my 80's Fisher rack system. This Scott amp does not have a mechanical volume control. You hold the switch down one way or the other and the volume increases or decreases. The other thing is it weighs about 40lbs and has a pretty substantial heat sink in the case. The integrated EQ sliders are not scratchy, which surprised me.

Are my JBL speakers my limitation as to why a better amp would not improve their performance? If you follow the people who build/restore amps, their claims are that the amp does matter, right down to the circuit design and the amount/quality of electronic components used to essentially 'torture' the desirable effects with the consequences of having too much power. Also, there are a lot of brand names I do not recognize.

Weight isn't much of an indicator of quality IMO. I'll put my 8.6 lb 300W/ch (8ohm stereo) amps up against "heavier" competition any time.

Speakers and your room are the biggest factors in chasing difference in sound qualities, electronics very little by comparison. I've used, and use, a variety of amplification but don't ascribe to the finer points of "amp listening"; I currently have three avrs and four power amps in use, plus two power amps waiting on repairs, and find it is fairly generic, particularly compared to changing speakers and/or rooms.

If I were you I'd think about adding a sub/bass management capabilities, that's what I found to be a better way to go than chasing amplification differences. While your speakers may have decent sized bass drivers, subs will still improve on them.

Your JBL speakers I haven't heard nor find much about, I recently changed to some newer JBLS I like a lot (JBL S590 with 530s and a 520) but I really doubt a change in amp would significantly change the way they sound (and can be a pain to properly compare) but I suppose your current amp could have declined in performance with age....

 

[MrBoat]

Weight isn't much of an indicator of quality IMO. I'll put my 8.6 lb 300W/ch (8ohm stereo) amps up against "heavier" competition any time.

Speakers and your room are the biggest factors in chasing difference in sound qualities, electronics very little by comparison. I've used, and use, a variety of amplification but don't ascribe to the finer points of "amp listening"; I currently have three avrs and four power amps in use, plus two power amps waiting on repairs, and find it is fairly generic, particularly compared to changing speakers and/or rooms.

If I were you I'd think about adding a sub/bass management capabilities, that's what I found to be a better way to go than chasing amplification differences. While your speakers may have decent sized bass drivers, subs will still improve on them.

Your JBL speakers I haven't heard nor find much about, I recently changed to some newer JBLS I like a lot (JBL S590 with 530s and a 520) but I really doubt a change in amp would significantly change the way they sound (and can be a pain to properly compare) but I suppose your current amp could have declined in performance with age....

I can agree about bass management. Not so much for more, there's plenty. It's holding it back sometimes on certain tracks/genres. My styles of music have always, to my ears, focused more on mid range. On my older EQ for example, the mid controls were almost always higher than the bass or highs. I can also kind of understand having subs that do nothing but lows, instead of having them crossover with the mids. I notice some woofers have single voice, where some have dual coils. Probably how they managed such proportionately smaller mid range speakers in these 'all-in-one' tower speakers with huge woofers.

As far as weight; that's more to do with the equipment from the same era. Most of the weight of this amp is transformer. It's huge compared to my other amps for only having a 50w difference. It seems like Scott spent some money on this amp for the time. Some of the crappy stuff that looked like performance equipment in skin, was really light weight.

Are stand alone EQ's still fashionable, or is it all done with software these days? I run Linux. I don't know how many sound management choices are available with it. I'm sure it's probably all Mac and Windows with my luck.

 

[ski2xblack]

Despite the large-ish woofs on your JBLs, a sub would reproduce bass frequencies better and dig deeper. Also, and this is an acoustics thing, the best placement for smooth bass response is seldom the same location as that of your mains for proper soundstage/image.

There's a lot to digest, but this site is a BS-free zone for the most part, so stick around, read up, and keep asking questions.

 

[MrBoat]

Here's the JBL's in question. Maybe seeing the layout of the cabinets, ports etc may help without ppl having to look them up. The room averages 20x12 with 7'6" ceiling height. Essentially, the room IS a speaker. You really don't get any diminishing of sound from one end to the other. In some areas, like the adjacent hallway, the sound seems to actually be amplified more. Even in the bathroom around the corner you don't really notice any drop in sound or bass for that matter. Probably because of the concrete floors. The only dampening really, is the drywall.

 

[ski2xblack]

Those old JBLs undoubtedly bring a respectable amount of dynamic range to the party. JBL may stand for "junk but loud" among the audiophools, but they are well engineered products. For 75 bucks, I think you did alright.

 

[Dargent0628]

From some quick research, it seems that neither the amp nor the speakers are considered "junk" so if you're digging the sound, the thing that stands out to me is your description of your room, which is going to have reflections all over the place. The best thing you could do is put some rugs and drapes around to start. The fact that you describe hearing the speakers from inside your bathroom tells me you really need to try to deaden that room a little bit at least.

 

[MrBoat]

Those old JBLs undoubtedly bring a respectable amount of dynamic range to the party. JBL may stand for "junk but loud" among the audiophools, but they are well engineered products. For 75 bucks, I think you did alright.

You can almost hear the moment of separation and closing of the high hats to know that's what they are, Jeff Beck's and Mark Knopfler's effect on the strings with their unique pick-less style of playing, etc. The little subtle honks between notes some use when playing the sax and even when they take a breath at times, even in spite of the bass presence. That can't be too bad.

 

[lovinthehd]

I can agree about bass management. Not so much for more, there's plenty. It's holding it back sometimes on certain tracks/genres. My styles of music have always, to my ears, focused more on mid range. On my older EQ for example, the mid controls were almost always higher than the bass or highs. I can also kind of understand having subs that do nothing but lows, instead of having them crossover with the mids. I notice some woofers have single voice, where some have dual coils. Probably how they managed such proportionately smaller mid range speakers in these 'all-in-one' tower speakers with huge woofers.

As far as weight; that's more to do with the equipment from the same era. Most of the weight of this amp is transformer. It's huge compared to my other amps for only having a 50w difference. It seems like Scott spent some money on this amp for the time. Some of the crappy stuff that looked like performance equipment in skin, was really light weight.

Are stand alone EQ's still fashionable, or is it all done with software these days? I run Linux. I don't know how many sound management choices are available with it. I'm sure it's probably all Mac and Windows with my luck.

Bass management is the management of the bass frequencies, not a tone or eq control, but rather a way to determine what frequencies are handled by the speakers vs subs; i.e. a crossover, an implementation of a high pass filter for your speakers in combination with a low pass filter for your subs. Dual voice coils in a sub's driver is for different wiring schemes for the impedance/amp combo desired.

Weight has a lot to do with the amp classification (A, A/B, D, etc) and whether active or passive cooling is involved.

Stand alone old style graphic equalizers like you have have been pretty much pushed to the side by more modern parametric eq's. Software works to an extent (jriver comes to mind) or you can use a stand alone unit like a miniDSP 2x4.