Using Old reciever to power passive sub (1 Viewer)

[Juan Castillo]

I have spent a considerable amount of time in the last couple months reading up on this wonderfully gratifying hobby. From the basic information to the DIY stuff. Grant it, most of the stuff I have read, either on other forums, magazine web articles, or personal DIY help pages, does not directly help me in any way, since you "true" HT buffs out there, have way more to spend than I do and therefore better equipment. Albeit, that does not stop me from dreaming, or planning for that one day awesome HT setup. For now, some older equipment purchased before I learned to plan ahead will have to do. My question is this:

I have a new DD, DTS reciever ( I won't mention brand name since I don't want to embarrass myself ) and will be using it with a low end htib speaker set (once again, brand name for speaker will be left out) .. What I want to do is , using the LFE output, apply a spitter or a single rca male to dual rca female , and a standard sheilded rca cable and run to an undetermined channel on a stereo reciever that will for the time being act as an amp for my Passive sub. The subwoofer utilizes a dual voice coil woofer with speaker level inputs, hence the splitting of the mono signal to a stereo one for the reciever. And please if you guys have a better suggestion that does not involve me buying a powered sub, or a better amp right now, please tell me.

Will I need to disable the internal low pass x-over in the sub to bypass any problems with x-over stacking. ( I ask this because I assume the DD reciever already only puts out a low pass signal to the LFE output). And secondly , since my stereo reciever does not have a remote, will turning the volume down on the DD reciever also turn the volume down on the sub???? I am confused .. Please help...

I read alot of information in the forum, but no one seems to have my dilema. Please assist me if you can.

 

[ColinM]

And secondly , since my stereo reciever does not have a remote, will turning the volume down on the DD reciever also turn the volume down on the sub????

Yes.

I bought a passive SV in Dec. I ran a single RCA from the sub out to the left channel CD in on an old receiver, turned the balance all the way over left, and set it to mono. (Anal, but hey.) With the sub 'trim' in my DD rec at 0, I got the test tone (VE DVD) to play and brought the vol control up on the sub's amp.

You would do the same, only use a splitter, and do it in 'stereo'.

Good Luck!

PS - Don't be ashamed. Anyone who flames anyone else due to equipment level is an arse.

I have

 

[Juan Castillo]

Thanks for the info. Everyone hear seems to think that if you are satisfied with what you have, or at least happy, than that is all that matters. I feel the same, except for not truly being satisfied. It just seems that no one here, admittedly owns or has owned the level of equipment that I do. So.. regardless...

It is a non adjustable x-over. The sub was bought from a friend that stored it in its original, never opened box for quite a few years. It is a Cerwin Vega SW-12B I think. Anyway, it has Low pass input (speaker level) and High pass outputs for satellites, as most passive subs do. But that is all. I guess I will have to tear into it and do some cutting and soldering. The only reason I wouldn't wire the speaker for a single 16 ohm input to utilize one mono signal, is because even though the reciever can handle that impedance, I believe my reciever will have problems if only one side of the speaker channel is used. Not sure of this, but much easier to use both left and right and not have to rewire the sub. : )

Once again. Thanks for your help

 

[ColinM]

Try it as-is. If you like it enough, maybe you can save yourself the work.
I like to tweak, though. I'd tear it apart.

 

[CRyan]

Whoa. I want to welcome you to the forum. I want you to know that you should not be embarrased to reveal the brand of your new receiver. Entry level is where almost all of us started. Most of us are just glad you got into this hobby and bought something you felt you would enjoy. You are the only one that can decide how much money you want to throw into home theater.

The cheapest solutions can give you much enjoyment in the world of 5.1 audio. IMO, many of us don't have the rooms sufficient to reproduce what some of the more expensive equipment can actually obtain.

Have fun. Now back to the regularly sheduled thread.

C. Ryan

 

[CRyan]

Oh, and there are a vast number of HTF'ers that are at entry level, so you are not alone. I guess I would consider my system somewhere in the middle, but it took me many steps to get there.

C. Ryan

 

[Christopher Collins]

When I started off with my first HT I had excess of old car audio speakers and amps. I think most of it was radio shack brand and some stuff you could get from mail order catalogues like JC Whitney. I don’t think I owned a piece of speaker wire longer than 3 foot, but I hat allot of pieces! I found an old Sherwood receiver and a 4 head hifi VCR at the local pawnshop. I think it was a Magnavox or something. Armed with an AC/DC converter, gobs of electrical tape, wood glue, a handsaw and some deck screws I went to work. By the end of the week I had what had to be the rattiest jury-rigged home theater ever. Every couple of feet there was a nice black wad of electricl tape where the speaker wire was patched together. Most of it did not even match. My whole room smelled like wood glue and saw dust.

I didn't care though...It worked and all my speaker boxes were custom! My 27inch TV didn’t even have the knob on it to change channels. You had to stick a flat blade screwdriver in it to change to channel 3 for watching movies or playing Nintendo, then 32 for NBC or something.(it only got those 2 channels if you can call channel 3 a channel) You didn’t change channels often, not because you didn’t want to, but because it was dang hard.

When I upgraded my system with a subwoofer I had no knowledge of box design. Bigger had to be better right? I had a 4x4x4 foot box with 2 8inch subs in it...it was probably the sloppiest bass you ever heard in your life. It was underpowered so we bridged the amp and blew it up. (speakers were ok though they were radio shack dual voice coil or something) In my quest for bass some guy said you gotta port that thing. So we ported it. Then someone suggested you need to put insulation in it. (no one told me to wear gloves when handeling that stuff either) Boy it was absolutely horrible until it hit this one note and the whole house would shake. Eureka! I don’t know what frequency range I managed to tune that thing to, but I was like a proud father when I heard that single note of ecstasy. From that moment on I was addicted.

It’s taken me a while to get to where I am now and I have a long way to go. You should never worry about comparing your components to everyone else. We are all here to get the most out of what we have now and will get in the future.

So there you go, someone who had it worse than you ;o)