Old Pioneer receiver with JBL as mains and Bose AM as surround...suggestions please (1 Viewer)

[Andre Barros]

A friend of mine has an older Pro Logic Pioneer VSX-511S receiver with a set of Bose AM 5 (2 cubes plus bass module). He decided to get a center and 2 extra speakers for surround and so he did. He got a JBL N-center and a pair of N-24s. He hooked-up the 24s as mains and the Boses as surroumd. He complained that the sound wasn't good (I later found that he was running the 24s through the bass module) so he moved the 24s to the back and left the Boses as mains. I suggested that he move the 24s back to the front WITHOUT running them through the bass module and leave the Boses for surround. Now the question, where should he put the bass moudule? He told me that his receiver has 4 outpus (2 left and 2 right) for the mains in the A zone (is this possible?). If so, could he hook-up the bass module on one of the A zone speakers and the 24s on the extra 2 outs of the same A zone? If he's mistaken and there are not 4 speaker outs could he connect the 24s to the mais and the base module to the zone B outs and leave A and B zone running to together?

Thanks and best regards,

André

 

[Andre Barros]

SORRY, I MESSED UP. HE BOUGHT N26 NOT 24S AS STATED ABOVE.

 

[John Garcia]

The Bose cubes should not be used without the bass module, since they cannot handle a full range signal and I believe the crossover is inside the bass module.

The A and B speaker outputs produce identical signal = front left and right, and will give you NO SURROUND.

I agree with you that N26s should be used as the mains all by themselves, but for the rear, the Bose should be run off the surround outputs.

 

[Andre Barros]

Thanks John. The Bose are already as sorrounds, what I was wondering was if he could run the bass module on the B zone without the Bose satelites in it. This way the A zone would be the mains (26s), the B zone would be the "sub" and the cubes would say as surrounds.

 

[Juan M]

I think you want him to connect the Front R/L speaker outputs from the receiver to the N26s, Center to N-Center, then connect only the R/L surround outputs from the receiver to the "acoustimass" module, which then connects to the cubes via the acoustimass surround outputs.

All of this occurs in the A zone. B zone outputs are generally used for a second room.

 

[John Garcia]

As I said before, the cubes should not be used without the bass module, since they cannot handle a full range signal without the x-over in the module. Now, on a prologic system, the rears are bandwidth limited, but it is still not going to be a good thing for them. The bass module itself, while capable of decent impact, is NOT a sub and I would not recommend running off the B zone.

 

[Mike_J_D]

Ummmmmm, I would tell your friend to save up and buy another pair of JBLs and trash the Bose. Then buy a digital surroud reciever. The a sub.... and not mess with the Bose anymore. But thats what I would do. He'll be much happier. Mike D