I played in a rock band and we had a large PA. Our mains are JBL's w/ 2 15's and a 2" horn per speaker. We have a Crown 500 watt power amp. I was wondering if there is anyway to hook these speakers up to my tv/cd player and let them take over as my main speakers for my surround sound.
G-Man
Posted on
PA Amps and PA speakers generally perform poorly in home theatre audio--the speakers aren't designed to be accurate, but to play loud. Like a semi truck transmission on a car. All torque--bad action :-)
Jerry
Posted on
I disagree. First, Crown makes exceptional amps that just all around kick butt. I have heard of many people using Crown amps in their home systems and love them. JBL also makes nice speakers, but I can't speak on whether your models will sound great in a home or not. I personally love the sound of a horn but I know most people don't, but if you are in a rock band you've probably come to enjoy that all around forceful sound that professional speakers give. Last summer I bought a pair of Eminence 8" Betas, which are basically PA mid-basses, to use for a wedding that I was volunteering to do music for a friend for. I put them in carpeted boxes and hooked them up to my home stereo just to check them out, and while there was little bass, I was blown away by the clarity of them. They sounded absolutely beautiful! I plan on using them as mids in a full Eminence speaker set I wish to build some time in the future. I prefer the "Live" sound that professional equipment gives, and the more I replace home equipment with the pro stuff, and the more my system sounds "Live" the happier I am.
The only issue you may have is going from your preamp to your Crown amp. If you don't have one you'll need to get one. If you have a high end receiver it may have preamp outs. Also, the Crown probably has TRS or 1/4" inputs, which can be adapted with RCA to 1/4" or RCA to TRS adapters. Radio Shack will have them. Or if your soldering skills are up to spec you can make a cable with an RCA on one end and the appropriate plug on the other. Chances are that the Crown has balanced inputs (3 conductor) which means you will need to jumper the negative input to ground. I run commercial audio amps for my mains and subs, and this works just fine. Lots of luck, I hope it works for you. Feel free to ask if you have any more questions.