JBL Control 2P
A $249 pair of powered mini-monitors that gives up deep bass so you can hear your mix in a truck, a booth, or a closet-sized edit bay.
Overview
The Control 2P is a compact powered reference monitor system. It's two speakers, and one of them carries the amplifiers for both. JBL's own advertising at the time billed it as accurate performance in a compact form factor, with internal 35-watt amplification and a pro feature set aimed at desktop production, A/V and broadcast work, and monitoring of electronic instruments. The advertised suggested retail was $249.00 for the pair. This was never a luxury product, and it was never priced like one.
The layout is the classic master/extension arrangement. The master speaker houses the amplifiers for both channels, plus every connection and control on its back panel: power for both amplifiers, the DC power input, a high-frequency adjustment offering either -2 dB or +2 dB of high-frequency roll-off, and both balanced and unbalanced inputs. Balanced input comes in through a Neutrik combo connector. The extension speaker, which is the "left" in the system, connects back to the master over a 1/4-inch to bare-terminal cable and ends at red and black spring-loaded bare-wire connectors. It's a simple, unglamorous link, and it's also the system's practical limit. The two speakers are tethered, so placement only goes as far as that cable does.
The drivers are a 5.25-inch low-frequency unit and a 0.75-inch dome tweeter, crossed at 4.2 kHz. The transducers are shielded throughout, which mattered a lot in the CRT era, when a pair sitting beside a monitor could not be allowed to paint the screen green. Each cabinet stands roughly 9 inches high, 6 inches deep and 6 inches wide. The master weighs 5.5 pounds and the extension 4.5 pounds. That's light enough that the supplied snap-on pedestals do the real work of aiming them at the listener on a desktop. Combined output is quoted at 115 dB SPL with a frequency response of 80 Hz to 20 kHz. That range deliberately gives up the bottom octave and a half. For broadcast voice-over booths, production trucks and engineering-room monitoring, that's the point.
The back panel also carries the practical hardware of a monitor meant to be installed. Both cabinets have mounting points threaded for 1/4-20 TPI fittings, compatible with the optional MTC-2P wall bracket, and each speaker carries a safety bar for an optional safety cable or lanyard, which is sensible when the things are hanging overhead. The front is covered by a black metal grille that protects the LF and HF drivers, the port tube, and two LEDs. The red LED flashes when the system is overdriven and nearing thermal protection. A continuous red light means shut it down and let it cool. The white LED confirms power. There's also an internal peak limiter for overload protection, and a 3.5 mm headphone jack on the side of the master speaker with a volume dial beside it. Plugging in mutes the speakers, which is what anyone mixing late at night wants.
Mix (September 2008, p.81) noted that the Control 2P uses the same transducers and crossover as the Control Pro, packaged as a two-way powered system with one speaker carrying the onboard electronics. The observation is a useful one for understanding what JBL was doing: this was not a fresh design so much as a known driver complement and crossover repackaged into a self-amplified desktop format.
The most detailed contemporary assessment came from the broadcast trade rather than the hi-fi press. Radio magazine ran a field report by station engineer Chris Wygal. He laid out the problem the Control 2P solves: voice-over booths, production trucks and engineering rooms all demand precise evaluation of audio, full 20 Hz-to-20 kHz extension is not actually necessary in those settings, and oversized speakers plus a separate amplifier make the job harder than it needs to be. His verdict on output was blunt. The pair generates SPL well past 100 dB and is, in his word, simply loud, which makes it viable in spaces with ambient noise and less-than-ideal acoustics. He singled out the thermal-protection LED as a genuine bonus, a warning that the user is abusing the speakers, and the headphone jack as the feature that lets the thing do double duty for private listening.
The honest caveats are structural rather than incidental. At 80 Hz on the bottom, there is no low bass here and no pretending otherwise; anything requiring real bottom-end judgment needs different tools. The extension speaker's bare-wire tether and the single master cabinet mean the pair is effectively a fixed installation once placed. And the Control 2P is a powered monitor of the 2000s, not a collector's artifact — the fact sheet records no production years, no service history, and no market data, so anyone buying today is buying a tool rather than an investment, with all the usual questions about the condition of two-decade-old internal amplifiers left unanswered until the unit is in hand. What it offers instead is a specific, well-executed answer to a narrow problem: accurate referencing where space is tight, the source is a computer or a console, and 80 Hz to 20 kHz is genuinely enough.
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