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General discussion

Q re: connecting passive sub to DD ready receiver...

Sep 14, 2005 1:51PM PDT

About 6 years ago I bought a Technics digital ready receiver with powered subwoofer output that I used for a while and then gave to my brother-in-law when I upgraded to a JVC 5.1 RX 9000 receiver. Later I gave him a 3 disk pioneer dvd changer with integrated DD decoder. Next Christmas I gave him a cerwin vega passive sub with left and right inputs.

Question is... the receiver has a single channel powered sub output. The CV 12" sub has a left / right input (so I assume it is a dual coil driver). What is the appropriate connection,,, wired from single output to dual input in series or parallel ? This hasn't been hooked up since I gave it to him so I want to know.

grim

Discussion is locked

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Don't ask me why, but...
Sep 14, 2005 4:34PM PDT

I would go with parallel.

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Passive sub
Sep 14, 2005 11:19PM PDT

If it is a passive sub, it has to be powered by the receivers amplifier, so the back of the sub should have right and left speaker type inputs, and usually right and left speaker outputs. Thus your right and left speaker leads go to the sub first, it takes care of the bass frequencies, and passes the rest through to your main speakers.
If it's a powered sub, they often have both right and left inputs, yet most surround receivers only have one sub output, the owners manual should tell you which input to use if you only are using one rca, you can buy a Y connect and split the rca cable so it plugs into both, some say this will make the sub sound better.

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let me be a bit more clear...
Sep 15, 2005 2:14PM PDT

the receiver is a DD ready receiver... this is old school so let me explain.

The receiver has a 6 channel amplifier like a 5.1 receiver but does not have the dolby digital decoder built into it. On the back of the receiver, it has 5 channel discrete inputs and one dedicated subwoofer input that is meant to be connected via RCA cables to a external decoder.

The DD decoder is built into the the 3 disc pioneer dvd player. The player connects to the receiver via 6 separate RCA cables. The decoder in the dvd player separates the signal and feeds each of the 6 line level inputs in the amplifier a single discrete digital audio channel.

The receiver then feeds power to the 5 speakers for the main left/right... the surround left/right and the center channel speakers. Since this is a 6 channel amp there is one powered speaker output for the subwoofer. This is then the dilemma !

How do you hook up a single powered subwoofer output with one +/-connection to a passive subwoofer that has 2 +/- inputs ?

grim

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stuck
Sep 16, 2005 1:26AM PDT

If I have followed all this, you want to hook up a CV "passive" subwoofer which has both a right/left speaker type input, to a Technics DD ready receiver. In your first post you say the Technics has a sub out that would go to a powered sub, now you are saying it also has a 6th channel speaker output to power a passive sub. If so then hook up the speaker wire to the speaker input that says mono, or look up in the owners manual, usually they state which input on the sub should be used for a single lead. Sub frequencies are Mono, so it typically won't matter which one you use, if you want to use both inputs on the sub, once again I would check with the manual, they may recommend either parallel or series connections based on what they are doing with the signal behind the connection plate. My guess would be parallel connection, just run 2 leads out of the amp and plug one for right and the other for left. A series connection often gets used for multiple speakers.

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LOL
Sep 16, 2005 2:25AM PDT

I guess you can read

"digital ready receiver with powered subwoofer output"

two different ways. I should have stated "with a powered output for a passive sub" although the receiver does have a line level sub output as well. I think one can see the confusion caused by the early dolby digital equipment which sometimes used separate decoders.

I wish I could refer to the instructions for the sub but those are MIA. What I'm wondering is...

can you hook up just one side and still have the sub perform properly ?

But then again hooking both sides up takes care of that issue... then the issue becomes parallel or series connection ? Which one puts less impedance load on the amplifier ? One way doubles the ohm load... the other way halves it... but which is which ?

Maybe this is more of a car audio issue. I need to do a google on speaker building I guess. Or contact Cerwin Vega directly.

thanks for the input.

grim