Different price classes - Sony STR-AN1000 costs roughly 1.7x what JBL MA510 does. Expect it to lead on paper; the question is whether you will hear the difference through the speakers you own.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | B | Sony STR-AN1000 has more power - 100W against 75W into 8 ohms. That is about 1.2dB, which is a small step in loudness but real headroom on peaks. |
| Speaker load rating | A | JBL MA510 is rated down to 4 ohms against 6, so it is the safer partner for a low-impedance speaker. |
| Analogue inputs | B | Sony STR-AN1000 takes more analogue sources - 3 against 2. |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Built-in sources | depends | Sony STR-AN1000 has a radio tuner built in. That is one less box if you still play discs or listen to radio, and dead weight if you do not. |
| Amplifier class | depends | JBL MA510 is D and Sony STR-AN1000 is AB. Class D runs cool and draws almost nothing at idle; Class A/B runs warm and is the long-established mainstream choice. Modern examples of both measure well - judge by the rest of the page. |
| Price | A | JBL MA510 costs less - $660 against $1,148 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | A | JBL MA510 is the cheaper watt - about $9 per watt against $11. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A JBL MA510 B Sony STR-AN1000
depends neither is better in the abstract - it turns on your room, your system or how you will use them. Only specs published for both amplifiers are judged; anything missing on either side is left out rather than guessed.
Which should you choose?
Neither runs away with it - they trade advantages. Let the "depends" rows and the speakers you already own settle it. Think about the whole system: the roughly $488 saved by taking the cheaper one would buy better speakers or a subwoofer, which does more for the sound than the difference between two competent amplifiers.
What a spec sheet cannot show: how either sounds with your speakers, how the controls feel day to day, and what the app is like to live with - which is where most all-in-one amplifiers are actually won or lost. Power figures are the manufacturers' own and are not measured to a common standard, so treat small differences as noise. If you can hear both, that will tell you more than any row above.