Need help hooking up subwoofer

Tagg

Tagg

Audiophyte
Hi, I just bought a subwoofer to go with my current 5.0 surround setup but I can't quite figure out how to hook everything up. Any help would be much appreciated!

This is a picture of the back of my receiver (VSX-821-K):


And this is the back of the subwoofer I just got (PSW108):


Do I connect the RCA cable on the subwoofer to the 'SURR BACK/FRONT HEIGHT' PRE OUT? I don't really understand what is meant by "Speaker Level Output", but perhaps I need to connect these ports on the subwoofer to the 'B' left/right outputs on the receiver? Note that I currently have speakers hooked up to the front, center, and surround outputs on the receiver.

I've perused the receiver manual and I'm still not sure. Thanks in advance!
 
Adam

Adam

Audioholic Jedi
Welcome to the forum, Tagg!

You just need to connect an RCA cable from the "SUBWOOFER PRE OUT" on the back of your Pioneer to the "LINE IN" on the Polk sub. I'll take a look at the sub manual in a second to see if it matters which jack (left or right) that you use on the sub.

After you get that connected:
1. Set the "LOW PASS" dial on the sub to the highest setting (160 Hz) to effectively disengage the filter in the sub because the Pioneer will take care of that
2. Rerun MCACC on the Pioneer, making sure that it detects the sub
3. After you run MCACC, you can go into the settings and check the crossovers, readjusting them if you want to

We can help you out with the crossover settings, too, if you'd like. We'd just want to know what your speakers are.
 
Adam

Adam

Audioholic Jedi
I just checked the Polk owner's manual, and you can use either the left or right input jack. You can also get a y-splitter to connect both, but you don't need to do that.
 
Tagg

Tagg

Audiophyte
Wow, thanks so much for the quick reply. I'll hook it up and let you know if I have any more questions.
 
Tagg

Tagg

Audiophyte
Everything is working great! Thanks again.

I have some really shitty speakers at the moment (Precision something). I just looked up the specs for them and they show system frequency response at 40Hz-20kHz. Should I set the crossover to something like 50Hz, then?
 
Adam

Adam

Audioholic Jedi
Glad it's working! For the crossover, I'd start with 80 Hz (the THX recommendation and a typical setting), and then play around to see if any other settings sound better to you. If the speakers are rated down to 40 Hz at -3dB (or similar), then you could set it at something like 60 (or maybe even 50). If the rating just says 40 Hz, then I'd definitely play around because if they don't say how far down the volume is at that frequency, it might be pretty far down.
 
A

Aldorado888

Audiophyte
I know thìs might be outdated, but i am having an issue connecting same receiver to the same speakers. i connected sub to receiver out and speakers directly to receiver , but i only have speakers working, but not the sub. audio system is new, but receiver i got used. i connected receiver to tv through optical cable. i am wondering if receiver sub out is cooked. you mentioned runing mcacc to make sure it detects the sub, but how do i do that?
Thanks!
Glad it's working! For the crossover, I'd start with 80 Hz (the THX recommendation and a typical setting), and then play around to see if any other settings sound better to you. If the speakers are rated down to 40 Hz at -3dB (or similar), then you could set it at something like 60 (or maybe even 50). If the rating just says 40 Hz, then I'd definitely play around because if they don't say how far down the volume is at that frequency, it might be pretty far down.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
I know thìs might be outdated, but i am having an issue connecting same receiver to the same speakers. i connected sub to receiver out and speakers directly to receiver , but i only have speakers working, but not the sub. audio system is new, but receiver i got used. i connected receiver to tv through optical cable. i am wondering if receiver sub out is cooked. you mentioned runing mcacc to make sure it detects the sub, but how do i do that?
Thanks!
Sometimes you want to reset a used receiver (p.46 of the manual), provides a clean slate to start setup with.

Did you tell the avr you were using a sub? You're using a source with subwoofer content or a sound mode that creates such? Speakers set to small with a crossover?

MCACC setup is on p.22 of the manual....
 
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