Powered subwoofer wiring for 2.1ch

A

AndrewB&W

Audiophyte
Hi, I am wondering how I should wire my velodyne dd10+ subwoofer to my Yamaha a-s1100 integrated amplifier. It is currently running off the B channels to the hi level input, with gain on subwoofer turned to max. I'm not sure if this is the best way to do this?
Other options are to wire rca's from the pre out on the amplifier to the low level input on sub, OR velodyne says that you can use BOTH hi level and low level at the same time. why would we do this???
 
S

shadyJ

Speaker of the House
Staff member
Use the RCA pre-outs. Not sure why you would want to use both high level and line level inputs unless maybe you wanted to connect the sub to two different systems at the same time.
 
A

AndrewB&W

Audiophyte
Why use pre outs over hi level? What is the difference? And what should I do with the gain controls on the back?
I had the gain turned all the way up and master volume down low, sounded good. But then turned the gain down and master up to achieve the same output, and the sub became out of phase with speakers and was lacking bottom end...
 

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S

shadyJ

Speaker of the House
Staff member
Using pre-outs makes for a simpler setup and should give you more control over the sub. If you had the gain turned all the way up, that means something went wrong somewhere. The sub gain and master volume should have no effect on the phase as well. Getting the sub in phase with the speakers will not be easy without measurement equipment. You will just have to 'tune' the system by ear. Integrating a subwoofer in a setup like that is a pain in the neck, sorry to say. What you are trying to do is not something I would normally recommend for those who do not have a lot of experience in setting up audio systems. Sorry I don't have better news for you than this. If you want to make it easy on yourself, ditch the integrated amp and get an AVR with modern room correction equalization.
 
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AndrewB&W

Audiophyte
I have auto equalisation on the subwoofer, and it shows the results on my laptop, then I can further adjust the curve to be perfect, but that really pin points the listening position.

I prefer to tune by ear, so I use a tone generator, and I have found that using large dB/oct roll off's, that also puts the subwoofer out of phase at different frequencies, which makes sense, using inductors creates phase shift.

This is a sophisticated subwoofer, retailing around $6000au, so I expect it to perform, it's just learning all of it's idiosyncrasies first.

So generally speaking, where would you normally set the gain/master volume, as in, should the gain be set to zero, and master volume used alone?
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
Does your integrated amp have the ability to work with the sub's high pass filter feature so as to implement a crossover between sub and speakers?
 
A

AndrewB&W

Audiophyte
It doesn't, just a full range pre output. I don't crossover my speakers to sub, just use sub to fill the bottom end. I think if I did use a crossover, I wouldn't have phasing issues.

The sub does have a crossover for a pre-amplifier and power amp set-up, using rca input and output at 80/100Hz.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
It doesn't, just a full range pre output. I don't crossover my speakers to sub, just use sub to fill the bottom end. I think if I did use a crossover, I wouldn't have phasing issues.

The sub does have a crossover for a pre-amplifier and power amp set-up, using rca input and output at 80/100Hz.
Problem with this sort of 2ch gear without bass management or circuits to use external help. I don't usually bother using my old 2ch gear with subs.
 

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