Subwoofer Amp or Receiver Amp? (1 Viewer)

[Andrew_G]

Hi guys,

I am starting a home theater in our house and basically the only thing left I have to purchase before it is "complete" is a subwoofer. My budget is a little low this time, however, and I have a question.

I am planning on buying a Dayton 100 Watt powered sub for this cause. So, do I plug in my two front speakers into the amp on the subwoofer or the Receiver?

My Receiver is a Pioneer 514K and it does 100 watts per channel (five channels in total). The subwoofer, however, only does 50 watts, obviously, because it is 100 in all and splitting that to two channels gives 50.

Will it benefit my front speakers in any way to be hooked up to the subwoofer instead of the receiver?

Thanks in advance for any help!
Andrew Grathwohl

 

[Drew_W]

The subwoofer doesn't have an amp for those speaker terminals. Those are high level inputs that enable you to connect a sub to something that doesn't have a line level (RCA) subwoofer connection.

Since you can't hookup your speakers at all to your sub and have them powered, hook up all your speakers to your receiver with speaker wire, and the sub to your receiver with a mono RCA cable.

 

[Andrew_G]

Thanks for the quick response Drew!

Does that RCA cable go to the yellow connection on the back labeled "Subwoofer Pre-Out"?

Also, what if I wanted to get two of these Dayton subwoofers? I only have one output.

 

[Andy Goldstein]

you could either use a splitter (y-cable) at the preamp output, or, if the sub has a line level output, use that to get the signal to the second sub.

ag.