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Hooking up a passive sub woofer (1 Viewer)

Andrew O'Brien

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I hope to set-up my new surround sound receiver today. I have an old passive 12 inch sub woofer that I was planning on using until my budget permits picking up a new powered sub-woofer. In reading the instructions with my new receiver, I note that it has a specific connection , actually a cable with connector for a powered sub-woofer. I assume that I cannot connect my passive sub-woofer there. I have not used my sub-woofer for a couple of years and have forgotten how it hooks up. I'll look at it later but I seem to recall that the connections actually went in series to the Left and Right front speakers, does that sound correct?
 

Mike_J_D

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No you cannot use the sub out connection for a passive subwoofer .....unless you have a amp like a NHT SA3. Which is intended for sub amplification. But hears how you can...Assuming your sub has the right amount of connections, you can run the speaker cable from your reciever to the FR and FL of your sub. From your sub you should have to corresponding outputs, FL out and FR out. Use those outputs to run speaker cable to your front speakers. Hope this helps somewhat.
 

Brian Fellmeth

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There is a second option. Any old stereo amp or receiver can be used to power that passive sub- doesn't have to be "specially designed" for a subwoofer. Run a single RCA cable from your HT receiver's sub out jack to any input in any old stereo amp or receiver that is laying around the house (but not phono). Run speaker wire from the anp/receiver to the sub and your up.
 

Andrew O'Brien

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Quote:
There is a second option. Any old stereo amp or receiver can be used to power that passive sub- doesn't have to be "specially designed" for a subwoofer. Run a single RCA cable from your HT receiver's sub out jack to any input in any old stereo amp or receiver that is laying around the house (but not phono). Run speaker wire from the anp/receiver to the sub and your up.
Hmm, interesting. By coincidence I just dug out my 24 year old Pioneer SX-650 yesterday(it had a mic in jack and I needed to test a a karaoke mic, Santa delivered the kids a non working Karaoke machine !!!) ). My Pioneer still works fine.

Let me see if I have this right...the signals destined for the subwoofer from my new surround sound receiver would be routed to the Pioneer and then amplified and sent to the sub-woofer. I assume that to control the level of the sub-woofer, i would then need to play around with the volume setting on the Pioneer and the sub-woofer settings on the new receiver. Find some sound of balance beteen them ?
 

Brian Fellmeth

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By George, I think he's got it.

The volume control on the Pioneer would play the same role as the level knob on the sub amp. Since you will be using one channel of a stereo pair, make sure the R or L that you pick for the RCA jack matches the R and L of the speaker terminals. Pin the balance knob all the way to the appropriate side. Keep the bass tone control in neutral position. I suggest starting with the volume level on the pioneer about 1 third the way up then trim from the receiver to get the right total output.
 

Andrew O'Brien

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Quote:
There is a second option. Any old stereo amp or receiver can be used to power that passive sub- doesn't have to be "specially designed" for a subwoofer. Run a single RCA cable from your HT receiver's sub out jack to any input in any old stereo amp or receiver that is laying around the house (but not phono). Run speaker wire from the anp/receiver to the sub and your up.

Okay, I missing something basic here. My passive subwoofer has connections on the back labelled amplifier/receiver IN and SPEAKERS OUT. So, I take the signal from my new amplfier subwoofer output and connect to an input on my old amplifier. Then I take an audio OUT jack from the old amplfier and connect to what on the passive subwoofer ? The SPEAKERS OUT ? Something is not computing in my brain
 

Johnny Ayala

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Go from you sub-output on the first reciever to an input on the 2nd reciever, then from there,you take speaker wire to the "in" of the passive sub. All the 2nd reciever is doing is acting as the amp like on a powered sub.
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The "out" on the passive sub is for connecting satellite speakers.
 

Andrew O'Brien

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I did as you suggested, I'm getting nothing from the subwoofer. I can get a signal if I turn the amp powering the subwoofer to radio but nothing from the new receiver that is providing the Dolby digital signal. Is it possible that the subwoofer out jack on the new receiver is not working? Not producing a signal? I am taking the subwoofer outsignal from the new receiver and connecting it to the CD input signal on the old amp.
 

Johnny Ayala

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Have you checked to make sure you have the sub-output on when you have the reciever on other selections besides the tuner? On my reciever, I can choose different settings for different selections (tuner, DVD, VCR, Cable). Johnny....
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Rogozhin

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does the pioneer have preamp loops so you can bypass the pream and just use the output from the new reciever (using a y adapter) to go to the amp in on the pioneer.

I'm doing the same thing but I have a NAD 219THX running my sub-I run the sub out (one rca) to a Y cable splitting it to a RandL rca to the 218thx bridged mono and then hook up the speaker leads to the 218thx-I then adjust crossover through the H&K 225.

It relatively straight foward-good luck ;)

rogo
 

shankar

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After reading this post, I went home and set it up. I have a passive Optimus sub and a 11 year old Technics SA-GX35 prologic reciever.

My current reciever is a Pioneer 511. I took the sub out from the pioneer using a Y adaptor. I then connected an audio patch cable (both channels) to the Y adapter and fed it into the L-R inputs fo CD in the Techniques.

I then took speaker cables from the L-R speaker outs from the Technics and connected them to the L-R speker IN for the subwoofer... Put the amp in stereo mode. Turned up the amp volume control. I then started the DVD player with Independence Day..... :frowning: Nothing happened....

I was so disappointed :angry: and then it hit me. I had A-B speaker output selection control on the Technics and it was off. I selected Speaker A and then BOOOOOM!!!:star: :star: :star: :star: :star: :b

I had forgoteen that the DVD was running and the bass hit me in the stomach like a bomb....

I took the AVIA disc out, rebalanced the speaker and sub levels... I then played the Pink Floyd SACD and WOW!... Now I get it....

Thanks to all of you for saving me some dough!!
 

AL.REBEL

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There is a second option. Any old stereo amp or receiver can be used to power that passive sub- doesn't have to be "specially designed" for a subwoofer. Run a single RCA cable from your HT receiver's sub out jack to any input in any old stereo amp or receiver that is laying around the house (but not phono). Run speaker wire from the anp/receiver to the sub and your up.
Glad I ran across this....thanks. I just got a Pioneer VSX-530-k amp and a Pioneer BDF-80FD Blue-Ray player. Been racking my brain all day to figure how to get my )Home Built) twin 10" subwoofer station to work with my system. It's a passive system. The amp has a pre=out jack but, it doesn't quite work that way with my sub. So...... I have a Pyle PT3300 amp I was going to sell before I read about this. WOW !!! The subs are working great !! The other speakers I have work fine with the Pioneer unit. Now, My only dilemma is, I can't figure out how to get my Blue-Ray player to put out the sound I want through my system. Any suggestions ? Got it hooked up like they recommend but, the Blue-Ray only plays through the TV speakers.
 

Stephen_J_H

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When you say, "got it hooked up like they recommend", can you describe your connection? Is the BD player hooked up to the receiver or to your TV? If it's the latter, is the TV hooked up to your receiver via the ARC HDMI port? Can't answer the question without further details.
 

AL.REBEL

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When you say, "got it hooked up like they recommend", can you describe your connection? Is the BD player hooked up to the receiver or to your TV? If it's the latter, is the TV hooked up to your receiver via the ARC HDMI port? Can't answer the question without further details.
I did finally get some good results today. I called Pioneer and the guy walked me through the set-up. I had all the connections right .... it was just a matter of programming the AV Receiver the correct way. Thanks anyways. BTW, My DVD player is connected to the Av Receiver, then out of it to the TV via HDMI. The HDMI going out of the Receiver is the only one connected to my TV The other components all go directly to my receiver. I was really happy to be able to utilize my two 10" subs by using my old Pyle amp instead of buying one to mount on my sub box. Got my sound the way I wanted now......HAPPY !!! Thanks for your reply though !!
 

Stephen_J_H

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Good to hear that Pioneer customer service was helpful. The programming of a receiver can be tricky, especially when it comes to the audio outs.
 

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