Help hooking up a passive sub to an old reciever (1 Viewer)

[Milord]

I have what is now a passive sub. It originally had a 500W plate amp. It is the B&W ASW CM. It is a 10" driver. I have a Denon 3300 receiver sitting there doing nothing. What would be the best way to hook it up to power the sub?

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

You’ll have to connect the receiver directly to the sub’s speaker. This means running the speaker wire out of a port, or if it doesn’t have one, you’ll have to retro some speaker terminals, probably at some vacant spot on the plate amp. If there isn’t one, you can ditch the plate amp and cover the hole with a piece of wood, and mount some speaker terminals to that.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[Milord]

Thanks for the reply, I should have been more clear. It has speaker wires coming out of the back. Where the plate amp was the sub is still sealed so no worries there. I am currently running a single RCA out of my main receiver to the left DVD input on the Denon receiver. Then I run a single pair of speaker wire from the front left speaker outputs on the Denon to the sub. This setup is working but I'm wondering if I can split the signal and run it to the left & right DVD inputs and then left and right speaker wire to the sub and join the positive and negatives together there? Will this mess up the impedance and make it difficult for the amp's or will this just not work?

 

[Philip Hamm]

If you're lucky it will trip the protection circuit in your receiver. If not, you'll probably destroy it. What you're describing is "bridging" the two channels of the receiver to make them operate as one amp with double the power. I'm fairly certain the amp has to be designed specifically to do this.

My suggestion is to sell the Denon 3300 on craigslist, ebay, or here, and get yourself a proper amp for the sub. www.partsexpress.com and others have lots of options for you to choose from. I'm using a circa 1974 Crown DC300A for my infinite baffle sub and it completely kicks ass.

 

[Milord]

Hmm, I was thinking that might be the case. That kind of sucks. :frowning:

Thanks for your help.

 

[Philip Hamm]

Here you go. Bridged mono = 200 Watts for $200. Exactly what you need and should be sufficient power.

 

[Milord]

Thanks, I'll check that out. I was also thinking about the Behringer A500.

 

[John Garcia]

A500 doesn't have an auto on/off feature or a 12v trigger, so it doesn't make a great sub amp IMO. You can get a plate amp for less.

Check Rythmik for their 250w plate amp that is on sale now for $109! It has the basic controls that you need for any sub. I use the A350 for my sub and it is an excellent amp. The only problem is, it isn't a self contained unit, so you will need a box to put it in, or mount it in your sub's current spot.

 

[Philip Hamm]

As a semi-pro musician, I would strongly recommend avoiding any item with the Behringer name on it.

 

[Milord]

I've heard Behringer used to have some serious quality problems but they have taken care of that?