jbl-l36 decade

oneputt

Active Member
Picked up a pair of jbl-l36's and am now looking for a receiver to pair with it. Looking for vintage equipment and am partial to Sansui, Kenwood, Concept and Yamaha. Need some ideas on what would work best, what kind of wpc should i look for. Thanks for any info
 
I have a pair that I have pushed with many different amps.Love the sound,so called west coast sound.Not a real efficiant speaker which has nothing to do with sound quality but they perform better with higher wattage.
I've ran them with Marantz 2275,2285B,Sansui 9090db and even the nimble Sansui AU-555A which is about 30 watts if memory serves and they performed very well.
What kind of shape are yours in? Do they need new surrounds on the woofers? What amp have you tried them with so far?
 
I have a pair that I have pushed with many different amps.Love the sound,so called west coast sound.Not a real efficiant speaker which has nothing to do with sound quality but they perform better with higher wattage.
I've ran them with Marantz 2275,2285B,Sansui 9090db and even the nimble Sansui AU-555A which is about 30 watts if memory serves and they performed very well.
What kind of shape are yours in? Do they need new surrounds on the woofers? What amp have you tried them with so far?
I just inherited them so i haven't evaluated them yet but they are supposed to be 100%., will be picking them up this week. Have seen pics and they look very good. Would consider any of those amps you mentioned but wouldn't the 9090db be a little too powerful for those speakers? I have a pair of l100's so i love the sound of jbls.
 
It takes a lot to over power L36's. I'd be more concerned about under powering them. I have a pair and they can take anything you can throw at them.

I agree with checking the woofer surrounds. They usually need replacing by this time.
 
Years ago I had a pair of L36's driven by an AU517. That was an excellent match.
 
My advice would be to not get too set on any specific piece of gear before knowing what is actually available. Just keep an eye out on craigslist, local thrift stores, local flea markets, local garage sales, etc. When seeking out a specific piece of gear, you will be lucky to ever find it, and if you do, you will probably end up paying a price premium for it. If you just keep an eye open and keep checking around, eventually a good piece will find you.

One thing I would suggest is looking into separates. Their modular nature makes things very flexible. For example, you could start out with a lower-end receiver, and then add a power amp to it, using the receiver as a preamp.

As far as recommended WPC for your L36 speakers and whatever you end up powering them with, that can be a complicated question. It depends a lot on the content for one. The 125a woofers in the L36 aren't terrible, but they aren't sub-woofers. It can be fairly easy to push the woofer beyond it's limits with low-frequency content. If you are talking about clean power and content that doesn't reach too low they should be able to handle a fair amount of power. Overall too much power is better than not enough power. A receiver or amp doesn't just hit it's limit kindly and softly when it runs out of power; it begins to clip. Clipping can cause damage to a speaker more easily than overpowering it with clean power. It should not be much of an issue either way as long as you use common sense and turn the volume down if/when you hear distortion.
 
Look for a 40 watt or better, many available, back when I sold them, it was Marantz 2240 or Harman Kardon 730, but many good choices. My son's L-26s sound good with an NAD 7240PE
 
L36's are not overly power hungry but at least a 40 wpc amp is recommended, by me anyway. :D HK 730 is a great match as would be the NAD above.
 
I know this is an old post, but I have a question regarding the same topic.
What do you guys think of the marantz 2238? Would it be enough for JBL L36s? I’m thinking it should be fine because I’m betting marantz was modest with the 38watts rating and I’m betting it’s really around 40watts. I never need to put the volume past the half way mark since I live in a condo. So there’s no clipping or distortion, it’s sounds amazing to me. What do you guys think?
 
JBL originally suggested limiting to 50 Watts of continuous program material, and they go on to say the peak power capacity is much more, and suggest amps from as low 10 Watts to 100 Watts RMS for optimum performance. They are not a real sensitive speaker at 76dB @ 1W/1M.
 
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JBL originally suggested limiting to 50 Watts of continuous program material, and they go on to say the peak power capacity is much more, and suggest amps from as low 10 Watts to 100 Watts RMS for optimum performance. They are not a real sensitive speaker at 76dB @ 1W/1M.

Oops. You have a typo on the sensitivity you may want to revise. Sensitivity should be around 87 to 89 at 1w/1m.

In regard to the older posts above, the older alnico woofers from JBL do have a power limit to consider with high powered amps. Very high current drives can do some damage in the form of degaussing the alnico.
 
Due to their sensitivity the 36s do need sufficient power. Mine are being driven by a Sansui G-8000, which for me has gobs of power. I have to do a refoam on mine, which was premature for them. I got on a bender of watching Babylon 5 from top to bottom every night. Unknown to me, Babylon 5 has a very high power bass track during battles and fight scenes that hit very hard on the woofers. My left woofer basically split right down the middle. My right one actually vibrated itself right off the glue on the cone. I have never seen such a thing before and never knew it was possible. The glue used was Allene's tacky glue. I think before doing the new refoam, I am going to abrade the foam a bit with sandpaper to make a more rough surface to adhere too. The surface of the foams was slick and smooth.

I think the G-8000 is rated around 120wpc and really seems to be the sweet spot for the Decades. I think if I had used a lesser receiver with the L36s, I would be replacing the drivers, not the foams. Good luck on your search and watch out for Babylon 5.
 
JBL originally suggested limiting to 50 Watts of continuous program material, and they go on to say the peak power capacity is much more, and suggest amps from as low 10 Watts to 100 Watts RMS for optimum performance. They are not a real sensitive speaker at 76dB @ 1W/1M.
Back in the day that was a common pairing. 2230, 2235,2238, 2240, 2245 were all paired with the L26, L36. Good sounding combinations!
 
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