Gainclone type amps good enough to power studio monitors?

[Lowfreq]

Hey all,

I'm on my monitor hunt at the moment, and I've been looking at the usual suspects: Focal solos & twins, dynuadio BM6a & bm12a, Adam A7x & A8x.
New Zealand is not the best for trying to get hold of monitors, and there's lots of brands that aren't available here. Sucks to be on the arse end of the world sometimes.............

I am flying to Melbourne on monday, to meet my wife on her way back from Africa and have a few days together, with the advantage of being able to go check out a few of these monitors that I can't back in NZ.
Now i know it's all about hearing them in your own studio, but that's just not realistic option. Ideal, but not realistic. And also before anyone asks, my room is treated..... always room for improvement, but it's not bad.

I'm currently using some passive Alesis monitor I mkII with a gainclone type amp kit that I built from JLM http://www.jlmaudio.com/shop/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=18        &    http://www.jlmaudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=21.
The JLM amp has been great so far, no hiss or noise & lots of grunt. I hardly go past 1/2 way on the monitor controller, but I'm aware that my crappy Alesis monitors are probably colouring things more than the amp ever will.
So I can only assume that the amp has a good flat response.

Now, if I continue to use my amp, it opens up my options to other passive speakers, such as Proac studio 100, & PMC TB2+S. But from what I've read on the internet, both the proacs and the pmc are fussy about needing good quality amps. Where do the gainclone amps stack up in the heirachy of power amps? I know the jlm is only 60W, but it's cheap enough to get another couple of kits and bridge em to 120W

The advantage for me is both cost and the weight of shipping to here in New Zealand, is generally going to be lower with passive speakers, and I can get everything going with my existing amp for now, but in the long run, is the cost of upgrading to a better quality amp later on going to out way the extra initial cost of an active speaker?

 

[jensenmann]

Most cheaper active monitors use the same ole hybrid chips as poweramps. I´ve never heard anyone complain about Genelec amps or any other brand since there´s no option anyway. If it´s good enough for the major players, why not for you. The advantage of having very short speaker wires may compensate some of the advantages discrete poweramps may have.

check kubi here: http://audio.kubarth.com/pico_rucksack/

 

[tv]

The solution to continued use of passive monitors would be very simple and not overly expensive - build your gainclones as monoblocks. Then, you could use speaker cables as short as possible.

Also, for better power either use "parallel" chips - or simply make some tda7294 amp which is somewhat stronger than lm3886. Google is your friend, schematics in abundance.

 

[abbey road d enfer]

Generally, the amp's performance will be several orders of magnitude better than the speakers: frequency response errors 0.1dB vs. 6dB, THD 0.1% vs. 10%,...
Changing speakers also generally improves performance much more than changing amps.
So I would say select your speakers and worry about the amp later.
If you're on a budget, I can recommend the Alesis RA amps. I've used an RA300 for years on my main monitors, and still use it for ancillary duties.
Caveat: these amps have a reliability problem! The connectors become faulty after some time, making operation intermittent. I just hard-wired them and never had to touch them again.
For this reason they have bad reputation, and thus can be had second-hand for handful of peanuts. But they sound great.

OTOH, active monitors offer another level of performance improvement, not only because of the short leads, but mainly because the response is perfectly tuned and the power of amps optimized for the transducer they drive.

 

[Lowfreq]

Cool, I must add that the JLM amp kit has been much better than what I had before, which was a crown d150, and at one stage a lower wattage yamaha pa poweramp.
And surprisingly enough, I've actually got some ok mixes at of those Alesis monitors.

I just figured that after having all these lovely diy toys, and now my conversion is good, it's time to do something about my monitors....... prob should've been the first thing, before all the cool toys, but oh well :
I'm looking forward to hearing some of these monitors, as I've really only had a chance to check the adam a7x & a8x, and I didn't really like em. Kinda low mid congested, and smeary top end. Even comercial mixes that I really like the sound of the production, sounded like that............... yuck........
I'm armed with a collection of my mixes that I've had translation issues with outside of my studio, and some commercial mixes that I love, and some that I hate........

But from just reading up on the good ol interenet, the idea of some PMCs with my amp are catching my eye, and maybe my wallet at this stage........

Surely it can't be too hard to beat the Alesis monitors.......

 

[Lowfreq]

Oh, and a friend recommended these as the next step up for when I wanna upgrade the amp side of things later down the track.
http://www.aussieamplifiers.com/modules.htm

 

[Ilya]

Excuse me if this will sound like off-topic. I'd like to comment on those monitors mentioned.
I'm using Adam S3A +Sub12 as my main control + ns-10 + fostex (small 63-something, IIRC). If I have to buy the monitors now, it will be ns-10 hands down. They need to get used to, but you can achieve good and predictable results.
Adam A series - haven't checked them out, but if they are comparable to my s3a than they should be very good. Check the pmc out, their monitors are quite good. Focals are nice, but I haven't listened to them in the studio.
Didn't like the Dynaudio, both BM6A and BM12. Stay away from BM6A mk2 and Airs - they are very strange and edgy. Forget about Genelecs (the new ones, old are somewhat decent).

Just my 2 cents...