passive subwoofer to AVR speaker OK?

[jackedup]

In my home office I do not have room for a proper powered subwoofer. I would like to improve the bass, it is totally out of the question to do that.

I am thinking of installing a 100watt passive in-wall subwoofer (the passive sub I have in mind has a good crossover). It will use 14 gauge speaker wire to connect to my unused "Surround Rear Left" speaker terminal. I will use "Mono" or "All Channel Stereo" listening mode.


The Surround Rear Left outputs 100 watts RMS, and the passive subwoofer I had in mind handles 100 watts RMS, so it seems like a perfect match.


If I wire the passive sub to my "Surround Rear Left" speaker terminal will the sound from the passive subwoofer be OK?

I want to make sure I am not losing any audio signal if I do it like this?? Would I be losing the "Surround Rear Right" bass signal? Would it be better to install 2 passive subs? That way I could wire one to "Surround Rear Left" *and* "Surround Rear Right".

I realize that if I changed the listening mode to "surround sound" that it would not work at all.

Is it wrong to assume that the bass frequencies are the same for both Left and Right channels in "All Channel Stereo" listening mode?

 

[bandphan]

Id suggest a small form factor amp, not the AVR. The hook up you suggest has a few flaws and depending on the sub reduce your overall quality of sound.

 

[markw]

You may get some sound from that sub but there are several issues.

1) You'll be feeding the subwoofer a full-range signal and this will sound like arse. Input to a subwoofer should be limited to 80 hz or as close as possible.

2) A surround channel doesn't produce the full range signal of the mains or LFE channel. It's not asked to by the soundtrack of the movies.

If possible, look into an inexpensive mono amp that will operate off of a real LFE output and the receiver could handle the low-pass situation itself. ...like Bandphan suggested.

 

[Knucklehead90]

Why not mount a small plate amp below the in-wall sub? Its been done before.

Check out the Foster plate amp here. Its small and has enough power for up to a 12" driver.

 

[highfigh]

In my home office I do not have room for a proper powered subwoofer. I would like to improve the bass, it is totally out of the question to do that.

I am thinking of installing a 100watt passive in-wall subwoofer (the passive sub I have in mind has a good crossover). It will use 14 gauge speaker wire to connect to my unused "Surround Rear Left" speaker terminal. I will use "Mono" or "All Channel Stereo" listening mode.


The Surround Rear Left outputs 100 watts RMS, and the passive subwoofer I had in mind handles 100 watts RMS, so it seems like a perfect match.


If I wire the passive sub to my "Surround Rear Left" speaker terminal will the sound from the passive subwoofer be OK?

I want to make sure I am not losing any audio signal if I do it like this?? Would I be losing the "Surround Rear Right" bass signal? Would it be better to install 2 passive subs? That way I could wire one to "Surround Rear Left" *and* "Surround Rear Right".

I realize that if I changed the listening mode to "surround sound" that it would not work at all.

Is it wrong to assume that the bass frequencies are the same for both Left and Right channels in "All Channel Stereo" listening mode?

If you set the subwoofer to 'ON' and connect the in-wall to the surround channel output, you won't hear any bass at all unless the sub output is set to LFR+Main and in that case, the sub will receive full-range audio, which you don't want. The small amp or plate amp is a good way to get this to work without jumping through a bunch of hoops. Either way, you would run an RCA cable from the receiver's sub out to the amp's input and set the crossover frequency/level and rock yourself to oblivion.