Running dual subs?

[Deadhorse]

Right now I have a Yamaha YST-SW215, I'm upgrading to a Klipch SUB-10 with the intention of selling the Yamaha, if I can get a decent price for it. I believe my receiver only has one subwoofer output but just had the thought that I could run the rear speakers through the Yamaha and the Klipsch through the sub out.

Is this a far fetched Idea, I've never run the rear speakers through a sub and don't want to compromise the signal to the rears?

 

[Halon451]

The speaker outs on the sub are for the front channels (the mains). Why exactly are you wanting to run the rear speakers out of the sub anyway?

If you wanted to run dual subs, you could run the Klipsch from the sub out, and run speaker wire from the receiver to the Yamaha, then from the Yamaha to the front channels. I believe that would work a lot better than what you're trying to do. Or split the sub out with a Y-adapter and use both subs and run the front and rear channels off the receiver as intended.

What kind of receiver do you have?

Hope any of this helps.

 

[Deadhorse]

It's a Pioneer VSX-515 and I thought I read somewhere that it was the rear speakers that you had to run through the sub if your receiver didn't have a sub output but the fronts make more sense as there no low frequency's run to the rears.

The more I read about doing this the more difficult it sounds unless you have identical subs. The Yamaha is 120 watts and the Klipsch is 200 watts so I don't know if it'll work. You'd probably need a PhD in sound engineering to be able to set the crossovers and volume levels up to have them work correctly.

 

[Halon451]

If you wanted to run dual subs, I would split the signal out of the subwoofer jack on your receiver to both subs, set all speakers to "small" in your receiver, adjust the crossover on each sub to its max setting (or disable it if you can). Match the sub's level's as much as you can (if you have an SPL meter, this is really easy to do), and balance it with the rest of your system.

Your Pioneer's default internal crossover setting is 100Hz, and doesn't appear to be able to be adjusted lower than that. It has 150Hz, and 200Hz setting beyond that. If you're using small satellite or bookshelf speakers, this setting will need to be adjusted according to their low frequency response (higher than the lowest speaker frequency, if you will). Make sure all speakers (regardless of size) are set to small, and your receiver's crossover will be directing the proper low frequency signal to both subs at the same time. This avoids "cascading filters", which could introduce phasing issues, and simplifies having to adjust each sub independently.

Try it out and see if it works for you.