setting up a sub woofer

by mike4862 Oct 10, 2009 12:00AM PDT

I have new sub woofer which I am setting up to my surround sound system. It offers 3 options for set up.

Option 1. Use the LFE source from my receiver.
Option 2. Use front left/right speaker level source.
Option 3. Use the signal output from my HDTV monitor(connects to the sub LFE).

I am currently using Option 3 and it works good.

My question is, can I set up my sub with both Option 3 and Option 2 simultaniously?

This way if I don't want to use the receiver, only the HDTV, the sub will operate. But, if do use the receviever the sub will have two sources. Will it pass one signal and block the other to work properly?

Discussion is locked

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Not Recommended

by sunwatcher Oct 10, 2009 5:31AM PDT

If I understand correctly, you want to feed 2 outputs (HDTV and receiver) to one input on the subwoofer...correct?

That's something you're going to want to avoid doing for a number of reasons. One big reason is that you're likely to introduce some distortion since the signals won't be matched, not to mention there will be an electrical impedence mismatch. The subwoofer won't automatically block one signal and pass the other. Also the signal from one output would be fed into the output of the other, and you could end up damaging a component.

So unless you have some kind of switch for each output, keep just one LFE input to your subwoofer.

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Setting up sub woofer

by mike4862 Oct 10, 2009 10:13AM PDT

Not comepletely like that.

I would connect the hdtv to the lfe and then connect the receiver speaker output to the speaker level inputs on the sub.

So that would be two separate sources to two separate connections on the sub.

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I wouldn't recommend it

by ..ben Oct 13, 2009 3:07AM PDT

Ignoring the question "Why would you want to bypass the receiver?", I'd say theoretically your setup is possible, but as sunwatcher mentioned, inputing two signals simultaneously is likely bad news for your gear.

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Setting up woofer

by mike4862 Oct 13, 2009 5:37AM PDT

Thank you. I will not do the double set up.

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keep it simple

by jesseberg Oct 29, 2009 4:35PM PDT

if your still monitoring this the first reply was correct. i smoked a sub, and the sub output on my amp. when i was getting the amp fixed being it was still under warrenty they said it was most likely an impedence issue, to many cross signals and they gave out.a good receivers crossover is all you need.

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keeping it simple

by mike4862 Oct 31, 2009 8:10AM PDT

Thank you for your message.

I seem to get more volume out of the sub when I connect to the 'audio out' from my HDTV than I do when I connect at the speaker level from my receiver.

Would you know why?

setting up a sub woofer

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