Connecting powered subwoofer to an older receiver with a passive subwoofer connection?

Question

Hello i have an older receiver that doesnt have an LFE sub preout and i was wondering if i would be able to splice an RCA cable and hook it up this way. The receivers subwoofer connection was for a passive (non powered) subwoofer. Would i be able to hook it this way without damaging my powered subs amp? Right now i have it hooked up with my front L/R speaker wires with Fronts set at LARGE and subwoofer OFF. Sounds great but i want more control of the subwoofers bass from my remote. thanks

Answer 1

yes you will damage the sub... The active subwoofer can only accept low level inputs in the format of LFE. Those components in the subwoofer were not meant to receive power.

Answer 2

Except for getting an amplifier to vigor the subwoofer. You might purchase a plate amplifier made for particularly for subwoofers, used by hobbyists within the DIY market. The advantage of the plate amps is that they're mono, have all the line degree (rca) and speaker inputs, an digital crossover (most with variable settings) and are to not pricey. It might require some cupboard mods or simply make a case for the plate amp. I might advise leaving the common cabinet alone and constructing a "box" to mount the plate amp into, even supposing it can be unsightly which you can hide the amp/box out of web page and nonetheless experience your sub. You will see less expensive powered subs than the plate amps, however I do not know what form of sub you currently have. Few hyperlinks under: Edit #three (sorry): so far as hooking it up to the new receiver you would wire the sub in with the core channel speaker. I say core as a substitute of the front mains due to the fact with ultra-modern encompass sound a lot of the signal goes to the core channel, at the same time the mains only get "encompass" alerts. One situation with what i'm about to describe is that when you listen to track in stereo (without the surround channels lively) the sub will not receive a signal. Additionally the sub wired with the core channel may be too taxing for the receiver to control, almost certainly over heating the amp and causing it to shut down (or even harm permanently). There are two approaches to wire multiple speakers together: series & Parallel Wiring in sequence will half of the impedance the amplifier "sees" the place as wiring in parallel does the opposite, it doubles the impedance. For instance two 8 Ohm audio system wired in sequence will end up "one" 4 Ohm speaker so far as the amp is concerned. Or sixteen Ohms in parallel. What this does to the amp (more often than not) is expand the output energy for series and half of the power for parallel (a generalization - but shut adequate to get my point throughout). Most receivers are designed to handle 8 ohm audio system. In fact the RMS scores furnished by way of the manufactures is for an 8 Ohm load. Many can handle 4 Ohms as well, investigate your manuals necessities part (you may even see power output listings for both impedance masses). I'll focal point on wiring in sequence. All it's, quite, is "daisy chaining" you possibly can take the confident (+) lead from receivers middle channel and run it to the (+) enter on the center channel speaker. Now using an additional speaker cable, join the (+) result in the (+) enter of the middle channel and run it to the (+) enter for your passive sub. Do the same with the bad (-) aspect of matters. Receiver - middle channel - subwoofer. You could additionally run TWO speaker cables from the same output on your receiver, one the the center channel and one to the subwoofer. Once more there might be no sign to the sub unless the middle channel is being used within the aforementioned established. All said, i'd put money into a plate amp or new powered sub. Hope that helps and excellent success!

Answer 3

To hook speaker outputs to a sub input with no speaker inputs, you want to use a speaker to line level converter.