Hooking up B&W ASW CM Sub to Pioneer VSX-1016TXV-K Receiver

[Ground Beef]

I recently acquired a B&W ASW CM Sub (it's a powered 500W sub) and the back looks like this:



It has a left and a right LINE IN.

I'm trying to hook this up to my Pioneer VSX-1016 AVR. The back of that looks like this:


You can see it has a single subwoofer pre-out. I purchased one of these:

Amazon.com: Mediabridge Ultra Series - RCA Y Adapter - 1-Female to 2-Male for Digital Audio or Subwoofer: Everything Else

and one of these

Amazon.com: Mediabridge 6 feet Ultra Series - Dual Shielded Subwoofer Cable - RCA to RCA Gold Plated Pro Grade Connectors: Electronics

I was thinking I could connect the Y-adapter to the left and right LINE IN to the sub and the single RCA cable from the SUB WOOFER PRE-OUT to the Y-adapter.

I wasn't able to get a bass signal with this scenario (I did go into the speaker setup menu on the receiver and set the subwoofer to 'YES'), in fact, I set it to 'PLUS' to get more bass out of it. Still nothing.

HOWEVER, I am able to get the subwoofer to work if I use a normal red and white (left/right) RCA cable and connect it to the Left/Right LINE IN on the sub and the subwoofer pre-out AND center pre-out on the amp. I'm wondering if I just have a bum subwoofer pre out on my receiver and am getting low frequency signal from my center pre-out.

Any suggestions? Do you guys think I'd get the same lows from the center pre-out that I would from the subwoofer pre-out in this setup as it doesn't look like the subwoofer pre-out is labelled LFE or anything like that. Am I losing anything by not being able to hook up specifically to the subwoofer pre-out?

Are the cables directional and that's why I can't us the Y-adapter? I'm at a loss. Thanks.

GB

 

[Jeff R.]

Are you shure you plugged into the Subwoofer Out Plug. It appears you have an input and output for a subwoofer. It appear from the picture that the top one with the white box around it is the output, the lower middle plug is for an alternate input from an external decoder.

I have made this mistake in the past.....as other do. Make sure that you are on the right plug first.

Second, I would rerun the auto room correction that your receiver has available with the sub hooked to the LFE Output. Your receiver could have the output signal so low your sub never even turns on.

Start there and see where you get.....

 

[Ground Beef]

Thanks Jeff, I'll definitely give that a try. I'm sure it's I have it connected to the pre-out, but I do have to re-run room correction.

 

[ParadigmDawg]

You just need to run one RCA cable to the sub's Left or Right amp input if you are using an AVR.

For two-channel preamps that do not have (or do not use) any digital management, the typical
connectivity scenario would be to use both the main channel Left and Right inputs.