Alternatives to JBL Control 1 Pro

[Thomas1987]

Hi folks,

 

Looking to install some background music speakers in a bar. My initial thought is for something that makes a fair bit of noise, and fairly robust - its not needing to be top quality, sadly budget and practicality win out on this one.

 

So initial quotes are for JBL Control 1 Pro, offering 150w RMS, and I know from experience are fairly pokey. Budget only goes to around £150 per pair, so not sure I'm going to get anything with more power, but if anyone has any wisdom to share, greatly appreciate it.

 

Would love to get some little Adlib boxes in there, but design is for unobtrusive, and there units start at 12" really.

 

Cheers

[GaryNattrass]

I had control ones in my bar and they were superb and allowed all sorts of background musak, quizzes and even disco nights to be put thru them.

They are certainly not £150 a pair and I think I paid £60 a pair for mine, look in richer sounds and they often have the white ones on offer.

I also had a yamaha 1204 mixer and an intel four channel amp so I could control two stereo zones.

Sadly I closed the pub four years ago as I got sick of bailing it out every year to an ungrateful community but I still own it and now use all the kit for my av hire.

[Thomas1987]

I *believe* there are two types of Control one - the standard and the Pro's which I believe have a slightly higher power handling.

 

I'm hoping to up it to Control 25's, but again budgets tight...

 

Good to hear my memories are not confused though- punchy and robust... cheap and cheerful if you will! They don't need to handle the disco side, as theres a fairly nice set of bigger Turbosounds which handle that. Its literally small infills.

 

Thanks

[GaryNattrass]

I just bought the cheaper ones and they were fine, when I said disco nights they did a similar thing filling in the bar area to my main yamaha 115 speakers.

Just had a look on e-bay and you can get two pairs new for £145, I have used these as PA speakers in my TV work too and they are bomb proof and can take an awful lot of hammer without breaking up.

The titanium hf unit is ideal for bar installations as it allows a good full range coverage without having to go too loud, my customers always commented on the hifi qualoty of the bar and lounge installation.

[TomHoward]

My experience is with lower end wooden box units as with the exception of Control 1s I tend to avoid the low end plastic box units.

 

Budget units we are using LD Systems Sat82 and Sat62. They also do a 4" and a 2x4" but I haven't got any experience with those. I have also ordered up some wooden box Vector Audio 8s (the Batmink brand which are also available as 6") as we can't get our hands on any Sats at the moment and the next step seems to be Apart Mask8 (the lower size of the Mask range are plastic box) but Mask8 will be an increase in budget. Citronic CX-8086 are a 6.5" wooden box just over budget again but haven't used these.

 

I think all of these units with the exception of the Vector Audio come with the brackets in the price as well, as do most installation speakers.

 

Sat42s, Sat62s, Vector 6s should be within £150/pair budget, Sat242s and Vector 8s should be less than £20 over, Sat82s are around £200/pair and Mask8s are well over. Also been recommended IMG Stageline PAB-308 but also quite a bit over budget.

 

If you wanted to consider plastic box there's the smaller Mask units and no end of stuff from Adastra/AVLS.

[J Pearce]

The Apart Mask stuff is really rather good for the money and comes with some nice install brackets.