Question about Passive Bose Subwoofer, Please Help

[Cytomax]

Hello all I am trying to setup a 5.1 channel system in my room and hook it up to my computer.

Components

Receiver: Harman Kardon AVR 310
Speakers: Bose Acoustimass 10 Series II Home Theater Speaker System (All speakers connect to the subwoofer and then the subwoofer connects to the receiver I think this is called a Passive Subwoofer)
Sound Card: Audigy 2 ZS Gamer Edition (Set to 5.1 analog)
Cables: I am using 3 1/8 inch (3.5 mm) to 2 rca from my soundcard to the back of my receiver where it says 6 channel analog input

Problem: When I run the speaker test from my Audigy 2 I get all the channels correctly minus my center. When my center speaker is supposed to sound the subwoofer sounds instead saying what the center is supposed to say. When it’s my subwoofers turn to sound it sounds fine.

Things I have tried: I tried to switch out the speaker with a known working speaker. I tried looking at the cables to verify everything is working fine. I tried flipping the 2 rca cables in the 6 channel direct input in the receiver. I tried banging head against keyboard. I tried the RECEIVER's sound test and the center worked fine.

Possible Reason: I think this is because I have a passive subwoofer and I think there is no fixing this problem unless...

Solution: Is it possible to just hook up all the Bose speakers directly to my Receiver and just buy a new subwoofer? Or will this damage my speakers and or receiver?

I tried to be as thorough as possible if you have any questions or are confused about anything just ask please.

Thanks in Advance
Eddie

 

[j_garcia]

You were very thourough, though you cannot connect the tiny cubes directly to the receiver unless you have the ability to set a 150Hz or higher x-over. The crossover for the cubes is in the bass module, which is why they are hooked to it.

The definition of a passive sub is that it does not have it's own power, so if you don't plug it into an outlet, it is passive.

Does that card have a digital out? You would do much better to use that than the bastardized version of analog you are currently using, and the problem you describe would seem to be directly related; are the output for the sub and center on the same cable?

 

[sh0]

It sounds like you've eliminated the following problems:
* a bad center speaker
* a bad connection between the receiver and center speaker

That leaves:
* a bad connection between Audigy and receiver (could be the cable, the jack on Audigy or the jack on receiver)
* Audigy setup

You could eliminate the possibility of a bad cable by switching one of the "3 1/8 inch (3.5 mm) to 2 rca" cables that is working (for example, the one you're using for L/R) with the cable you are using for the Center/Sub.

It could also be a problem with the Audigy setup. You could also try flipping Left RCA part of the L/R cable with the Center RCA part of the Center/Sub cable into the receiver to see if it says "Left" out of the Center speaker and "Center" out of the Left speaker. Not sure that makes sense in writing though ... If it says "Left" out of the Center speaker and not "Center" out of the Left speaker (and it's not a cable problem), maybe something is messed up in the Audigy config.

Regarding using the digital instead of the analog outputs:
The primary reason you may want to use the analog out is if you are using this for games. Most soundcards will not encode the multi-channel game sound into Dolby Digital (some newer cards can do this I think but the Audigy 2 doesn't). However, if you're justing using your PC to play DVDs, the digital output is a much better option. Another reason you may want to use the analog out is if you want to use some of the Audigy's DSP but I can't imagine it's any better than the HK receiver.