A question for those who use receiver as a pre/pro (1 Viewer)

[Van_H]

When you use an outboard amp in a receiver, the amp will be connected to the pre-outs of the receiver and speakers will be driven by the amp's power via its speaker terminals. Since the receiver has a built in amplifier, I believe the receiver is sending signals to its pre-outs (unamplified) and speakers outputs (amplified) simultaneously.

Since the receiver is still sending signal through its speakers terminals, would it cause any harm to use the receiver's now unused L/R speaker outputs to drive a powered sub for stereo listening?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Dennis B]

Van_H,

I don't know about other receivers, but my Marantz 7200 won't allow you to do that. It senses both outputs are connected and shuts itself down for protection.

 

[Van_H]

Dennis,

Thanks for the response. I too use a Marantz (SR7000). Interestingly, I'm using both outputs in the opposite manner currently without any problem. The front L/R speakers are connecting to the receiver's L/R speaker ternimals as usual and the L/R pre-outs are connected to the powered sub.

The reason I asked this question is that I'm waiting for an outboard amp to arrive and was wondering the reverse would work as well.

 

[Rick Radford]

>Since the receiver is still sending signal through its speakers terminals, would it cause any harm to use the receiver's now unused L/R speaker outputs to drive a powered sub for stereo listening?<

That's a good question and one I'd like to know the answer to as well.

Seems I've read somewhere that it's not a good idea to have the amp powered up (receiver, as well?) if there's no load (speaker) connected to the output. But it that's true, I don't know why.

There are many testing scenarios when you may want to have some or all speakers disconnected with the amp/receiver powered up. (such as running EQ tests on your sub)

Is this a problem? If so, is there a good way to overcome it?

 

[Ron Alcasid]

Actually it's the opposite, when there are no speakers connected, the load is infinite. Usually, the high level inputs on powered subs are designed to have a high impedance in the range the sub operates. That means the sub will draw less current from the receiver.

 

[Martin Fontaine]

Although I don't do this, reading that thread gave me an idea.

I have a Kenwood VR-509 which doesn't have pre-outs (Well, the VR-510 does) but I believe that what I'm about to say would work on most receivers (I think)

On the front panel, I have 2 buttons to toggle between the A and the B speakers. The thing is, I can enable one, or both or none at all (Useful when using headphones or sending it to my PC - I used the Tape-Out to the Line-In of my sound card)

So I think that if you disable the A and B speakers, then there should be no problem.