Hooking up subwoofer to receiver front speaker terminals (1 Viewer)

[RCPJohn42]

I have a brand new Pioneer VSX30 and an B.I.C. F-12 sub-woofer. I am having issues with the sub-woofer preout on the receiver. My question is if I run the front speaker cables to the sub-woofer speaker terminals and then from the sub-woofer to the speaker terminals to the front speakers, will the sub-woofer work the same as if I was using the one sub-woofer preout from the receiver? I don't want to go through sending it back for repair/warranty if the sub will work the same by using the speaker terminal inputs/outputs. If so, how does this work? Does the front speaker signals pass through the sub-woofer and the sub-woofer extracts just the bass? Will the receiver need to work any harder or will the sub-woofer amp handle the power to the bass sound on its own, since it is self powered. Do you loose anything from hooking them up this way. I heard if you hook up the sub this way, I need to turn the fronts to "large" in the receiver programing and turn off the crossover on the sub, as the receiver crossover will take over. Do I need to adjust anything on the receiver with regards to crossover? thanks in advance. John

 

[gene c]

I've never hooked a sub up this way before but as I under stand it you would set the fronts to Large (or Full Range) , the center and surrounds to Small choosing an appropriate crossover (so any bass sent to them will be transferred to the fronts), and the subwoofer to None or Off. You would then use the crossover in the subwoofer to extract the bass tones and the rest of the signal would be sent to the fronts. This is not the best way to do it but if the sub out isn't working then you may have no choice. You should also find a way to make sure the receivers Sub Out is the problem and not the BIS's sub input. I'm not sure how you would do this but there must be a way. If any of this isn't correct I hope someone will chime in!

 

[Robert_J]

I don't know how this will work on 5.1 channel information. I know that the center channel can be set to NO and send the information to the left and right speakers. But sending LFE information to the speakers can be hazardous to their health. What if you had extremely small speakers and sent the 7hz pulses from Black Hawk Down? I assume there is something in the receiver to keep this from happening.

 

[gene c]

I think the way I described it, setting the center and surrounds to Small in the receiver, and using the crossover in the sub would prevent any low tones from reaching any of the speakers. But again, I've never tried this myself.

 

[RCPJohn42]

I went home at lunch and wired up the sub with the front speaker wires. Seems to work pretty well. I set the fronts to "large" and left the center and rears at "small". I spoke to B.I.C. tech dept. and they said to turn the crossover off at the sub and let the receiver handle the crossover. Need to do some research to see if there are some settings I need to change on the receiver side regarding the crossover. I haven't run the auto calibration program yet. Thinking of doing this tonight to see how it sounds. I am no expert, but out of the box, everything seems to sound pretty good. It's got to sound even better once I calibrate. Below are my components, for reference. Pioneer VSX30 (receiver) B.I.C. F-12 (sub) Energy C-20's (fronts) Energy C-10 (center) Energy Bipoles (rear surround) OPPO-93 (BLU-RAY) Epson 8700 projector

 

[gene c]

"I spoke to B.I.C. tech dept. and they said to turn the crossover off at the sub and let the receiver handle the crossover." That doesn't make any sence to me .. Hooking up the sub with high-level speaker wires, that's the time to use the crossover in the sub. When you use the low-level sub woofer output from the receiver is when you would shut off the crossover in the subwoofer. With the way you have it hooked up, shutting off the crossover in the sub is effectively running your fronts as Large. I must be missing something.

 

[RCPJohn42]

Yes, they said to switch the fronts at the receiver to"Large" and leave the center and surrounds to small. It sounds fine to me this way. Could it harm the front speakers or sub in anyway? I don't here much bass coming out of the fronts. (Energy CB-20's). I have plenty of bass coming from the sub. I have the volume dial on the sub set to about half way. Rattles the dishes in the Kitchen.

 

[gene c]

I hope not. But do you follow my reasoning? If the Fronts are set to Large in the receiver and the crossover in the sub is turned off then a full range signal is leaving the receiver, passing through the sub un-touched, and heading straight for your Energy CB-20's. Do you see the look of horror in their eyes . If the crossover in the sub was in play it would remove the bass from the signal and send a proper crossed signal to your front speakers. That's the way I see it anyway. But if you're not getting much bass from the CB-20's then maybe somethings going on that I simply don't understand. Like I said, I've never done this myself.

 

[spankmaster]

hey, i think i might be able to help! haha, i was having a similar issue with my pioneer 519k (which i was using until about 20 minutes ago, just got a sony DH520 form best buy }. My problem was that using the sub pre-out i was getting a very weak signal :/ So after getting some great advice here and doing some thinking of my own I can up with a couple solutions. With my set up now, since i only have 1 input to the receiver (my xbox360) instead of using the preout on the amp, i hooked up a direct full range signal (red and white) to the sub straight from the back of the 360 and BAM, there was my power! only problem with this is that the volume of the speakers and my sub had to be changed individually now, so that was lame.... Then i had a brain blast. My receiver, and hopefully yours, has multi-room support (speakers A-B in my case)! So once again, instead of using the preout, i set A-B to both me on, and sent the full range signal for speakers B from the back of the amp to the sub and Viola! I hope that helps you, good luck!