Second Subwoofer Setup? (1 Viewer)

[NathanL]

I was wondering how much does having a second, passive subwoofer in the back add? I generally listen to music and 5.1 movies.

I got this idea reading through my receiver manual and noticed it had setup instructions for adding in surround back speakers along with an optional setup for a second sub. It says to wire the second sub from an output on the L surround back and the opposite output of the R surround back. It also labels it as "Subwoofer (Passive)".

Any thoughts on it's purpose, performance, etc?

 

[NathanL]

...Anyone...?

 

[Jonathan T]

I'm going to do the same thing. From what I've read, placing the EXACT SAME SUBWOOFER in the right spot can yeild magical results. You'll have to deal with things like phase but as long as your amp or amps has phase adjustment then your good. That's all I can say without talking out my butt so I'll let someone chime in here.

 

[RickMo]

After buying an SV sub, I wanted to keep my old Polk sub and use it in conjunction with the rear surrounds. After much testing, I found that currently the way the sound is mixed, there's not much low frequency info being sent to the back speakers. So, I'll probably end up selling the Polk. I had wired the Polk "in front of" the rear speakers, and configured my receiver for "large" rears. I also fiddled with the mains as well as the subwoofer setting. The sound from the Polk was minimal at best. (Even in 5-ch stereo mode.) There was so little sound coming from the Polk that I thought it was defective. I'd be interested to see how you fare.

 

[John Parker]

I currently use 2 smallish and cheap 8-in "subwoofers" in the back. I like it because it gives much more of a large speaker feel to the back. It also gave me a convenient perch for the surrounds Your right about there not being much material to exploit it though. One huge exception is Independence day. I find it most useful for parties when the receiver is just set to 5-ch stereo and every decibel counts.

 

[Andrew Pezzo]

I am planning on doing something similiar. I currently have Def Tech speakers with all front 3 having built in subs. I want to add some punch in the rear channels so I am going to make a small sub to connect to the surrounds. Since I dont have a stand alone sub I feel this a perfect situation to try this. And if I dont like it I can always connect my DIY sub to the sub output on my rec.

I think you will find more and more movies are adding more effects in the rear speakers. There may not be a whole not now but that should change.

 

[RickMo]

I agree with you, Andrew. I think we'll find more and more DVDs with more info being sent to the rears. But I can't help but think the DVDs will still send most of the valuable low frequencies to the subwoofer, in essence "splitting" some of the info to the rears and to the sub.

 

[NathanL]

Thanks for your responses!

 

[RickMo]

Nathan. If you do use your passive subwoofer in conjunction with the rears, it'll be interesting to know your results and if you think it's worth it.

 

[Eric_Strickl]

I currently have 2 pw2200 subs and i wish i didnt!!! Sure having two subs would seem like it would be nice but it is more hastle than its worth!! It took me days to get them setup and I am constantly having to move them and tweak them. Save your money and buy 1 real nice sub like a b15 instead of two okay subs.