My sub trouble

[DanielHull]

I have two subwoofers, and your basic center, 2 front and 2 rear speakers. I don't know what receiver to get, and I'm not sure in what way to hook everything up. I would like to hook up both subs to the same receiver. Both subs have only L&R High & Low level input and output. Does anyone know what type of receiver I need, and how to go about hooking it up. I'm not even sure what the high level and low level are. Can anyone help?

 

[Adam]

Hey there, Daniel. Welcome to the forum.

The high-level inputs are for feeding speaker wire (say, for one of the front speakers) to the sub, and then you'd run more speaker wire from the sub to the front speaker. The low-level inputs are for use with a subwoofer output on a receiver, and those are the way to go almost all of the time. The high-level inputs don't allow you to do bass management (letting the receiver decide which speakers should have the low frequencies sent to them), but the low-level inputs do allow that.

You'd want to get a receiver with a subwoofer output, and just about every (if not every) receiver that you'd get for surround sound will have one of those. To run two subs, you'd just use a y-splitter to split the subwoofer output signal from the receiver into two lines, and then you'd run one of those lines to each of your subs.

Does that answer your questions?

Adam

 

[AVRat]

Welcome Daniel, Adam pretty much summed it up. It would also help to know the make & models of your speakers and subs, the volume of your room or dimensions, how much you are willing to spend, and the features you're interested in.

 

[DanielHull]

Hi, Thanks for your reply. I have one other question. How do I hook up the sub if all I have are left right input and output, but the receivever has a single jack for the sub output? Thanks

 

[MDS]

A subwoofer is mono and will sum the left and right inputs to mono anyway.

You can either use just one (usually Left) or use a Y adapter to split the single subwoofer output from the receiver into two - doing so will simply increase the volume slightly so it is not necessary.

To use both subs at the same time you can either:
1. Use a Y adapter from the receiver sub pre-out with one end of each going into each sub.
2. Run the cable from the receiver to one sub's input and then another cable from that sub's output to the input on the second sub.

 

[j_garcia]

You'll have to check the manual to see what it says for your subs - if using a single connection it may matter which one you connect to if not feeding it through both L&R. Some subs DO benefit from using a Y splitter in that they "see" a higher input voltage (which can depend on your receiver's output voltage and the input sensitivity of the sub). Some subs may turn off after a few minutes of little or no bass activity while you are using the system and using a Y splitter can sometimes help prevent this from happening.