Newbie - Subwoofer Hookup

[INDRUCUL]

Hello All,

Purchased my first Home Theater System the other day. I picked a Pioneer receiver with some pioneer speakers and subwoofer. Now, I am not a fan of the subwoofer because it is not magnetically shielded, so I am looking at purchasing another subwoofer. The current subwoofer connects to the receiver via speaker wire. The subwoofer that I am looking at has an RCA imput. Now, the question that I have can I hook up the new sub with the RCA input to the receiver? What I have on the back of the receiver is the following: AUDIO RL IN and AUDIO RL OUT. You help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Adam]

Welcome to the forum!

We'll need some more info to answer your question. In particular:

1. Does the subwoofer that you are looking to purchase have a variable crossover dial on it?
2. Are the audio outputs on the Pioneer receiver fixed or variable?

If you let us know the model numbers for the Pioneer and subwoofer, we can help you with that if you don't know the answers.

 

[INDRUCUL]

Hello Adam,

I hope the info below helps:

The subwoofer that I am looking at is the Yamaha SWP270. There is not to much info on this model out there. All it has on the the back is a volume control, RCA input and an ON/OFF switch.

The receiver is a Pioneer SX-218-K. I am not sure if the the audio outputs on the receiver are fixed or variable. I know my TV gives me the option of setting the audio to fixed or variable. Rght now the way I have it hooked up (keep in mind this is just temporary), I have an AUDIO cable to from the tv to the reciever and a fiber optic cable going to the reciever to the HD box. I can control the volume of the reciever from my HD box remote. Maybe you can tell me how I can check if the audio outputs on the receiver are fixed or variable?

Just a side note, the current subwoofer is not powered.

Let me know if you require more information.

Nick

 

[markw]

My source of user manuals (Retrevo) doesn't offer to much in a manual for this. It lists only one card with rudimentary operating instructions.

So, going by what you say, that it only has a speaker-level output for a subwoofer, I'd say you should be looking at subwoofers with a speaker level input.

 

[Adam]

Nick,

Unfortunately, there's no good way (that I can think of) to couple that receiver to that subwoofer without spending a few more dollars. To explain, there are a few things working against directly connecting the two:

1. The subwoofer doesn't have it's own crossover, and the receiver doesn't have any line-level outputs that are affected by the internal crossover. So, the receiver would only send full range audio to the sub, and the sub would play as full of a range as it could. The result would likely be that you'd have an overlap in frequencies between what the sub was outputting and what the speakers were outputting.
2. The receiver doesn't have variable analog outputs on the back (the ones listed for CD-R/TAPE/MD are fixed outputs). So, the subwoofer output wouldn't be controlled by the volume on the receiver. You can, however, use the headphone jack on the front and a cable that converts a headphone jack to RCA cables. That would allow you to control the volume on the sub using the volume control on the receiver, but the problem there is that the headphone jack outputs a left channel and a right channel, but the sub only has one RCA input. The headphone jack is also not affected by the receiver's crossover.

You could buy a piece of equipment that converts speaker-level signals to line-level signals (like this one from Crutchfield for $20, and there are others). You would connect the speaker-level outputs for the sub that are on the receiver to that device and then connect one of the RCA outputs (based on which speaker-level input you used on the device) to the subwoofer's RCA input. I think that would let you run the sub just fine, with the volume being adjusted by the receiver like normal, as well as having the receiver's crossover being applied.

 

[INDRUCUL]

Thanks Adam.

Or I guess I could buy a receiver with line level outputs which would be alot more expensive.

 

[Adam]

Has the lack of magnetic shielding on your sub caused an issue for you, or do you just not like that it isn't shielded? It's pretty common for subs to not be shielded. Neither of my two subs is shielded, and I don't think that it's ever caused a problem for me. I've used both in close proximity to my CRT television (which does exhibit effects if I move them right next to it), within three feet of my hard drives, within about two feet of VHS tapes, and they haven't hurt anything.