hooking up an amp to bose system (1 Viewer)

[joe pfeifer]

Hi Guys,new to forum so forgive me if this like a stupid question. I have a older bose acoustimass 10 with the non powered sub. The system sounds ok but lacks bass. I have a JBL powered sub I would like to hook up. My only problem is that my reciever does not have a sub out. So my question is, can I hook the JBL using the in and out levels of the sub. How would the connections go. To the sub first or the acoustimass. Do you hook it to the front or rear speakers.Or am I about thirty minutes from setting my house on fire. Thanks Joe. Great forum.

 

[Andy_Chin]

Welcome to the forum Joe!

This is the basics area - no questions are stupid.

I take it that the "in" and "out" levels on the JBL sub that you are talking about are the speaker level line in and line out. If I am wrong, then clarify. If I am right, here's how the connection should be:

Receiver Front Left and Right -> Powered Sub Line In Left and Right

Powered Sub Line Out Left and Right -> Front Speakers

Word of wisdom.... after you hook up the sub, let the receiver know that you have "Large" front speakers so that it sends most of the bass signals through the front speaker lines.

Hope this helps!

-Andy

 

[John Garcia]

With a Bose setup, his speakers should already be set to large. The only problem with what you suggest is that there is typically a fixed highpass on the speaker outputs from a sub. This will limit what is sent to the Bose setup. Since the sub is just looking for signal, you could probably get away with just splitting the signal to both the Bose and the sub and manually dialing in the x-over for the sub relative to the bass module's drop off so you don't overlap bass (potentially causing cancellation), which would be somewhere around the mid 30s-40Hz.

To me, the real answer is a new receiver that has a sub pre-out. Next would probably be put the Bose up on eBay and get some new speakers.

 

[Andy_Chin]

I guess it's time to justify what I have suggested....

The question was if the speakers can be hooked up to the sub speaker lines and how to do it. I thought about suggesting to parallel the sub off the front speaker signals instead, but decided not to. Here's why - If there is a fixed highpass filter on the subwoofer speaker outputs, it would probably be set to 200 Hz worst case. Theoretically, it would limit the signal going to the cubes, but I have not heard any Bose accoustimass systems that can accurately go down that low without the sub. Probably because they only contain 2.5" drivers. That being said, I don't think that the highpass filter would affect the Bose system at all, so I just gave the "textbook instructions" on how to set up the speakers through the sub to make things easy and similar to what the manual would state.

And, sure, getting a new receiver and speakers would be ideal, but not everyone has the $$ waiting to be spent. We need to work with what we have until we save up enough to get the good stuff. I'm still waiting to upgrade the Sony bookshelf speakers that I'm using for my surrounds....

 

[joe pfeifer]

Thanks guys for the input.I will give it a try.When money permits I will upgrade my old but faithful kenwood reciever.Joe