surround sound systems and subwoofers

Surround sound receivers have an output for a Powered Subwoofer.

For those of us who don't have a Powered Subwoofer, but have regular Unpowered subwoofers, would connecting these to the Speaker Out connections (Front Left, Front Right, for instance) give similar performance?

Is the Subwoofer Out optimized somehow for the lower frequencies? Or would subwoofers simply ignore the higher frequencies?

Thanks,

Michael

Reply to
mrdarrett
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Yes, the output for the Power Subwoofer is designed to specifically output only the lower frequency sound. This is since the receiver will be using a lowpass filter to allow only the lower frequencies to pass. Often this crossover is controlled by a setting in the receiver setup, so as to 'tune' all the speakers together. Basically if you want good separation of sound the way the receiver designers intended, find a power amplifier for your subwoofer and plug it in that port.

Of course, that port is outputting a line level signal that cant power anything.

For your situation, connecting up the subwoofer to the speaker output will indeed power the subwoofer, but you will be getting all those pesky frequencies >200 Hz the subwoofer is not designed to carry (all the way up to 20,000Hz!) As such, performance will seriously deteriorate (for the bass), and you may run the risk of damaging your speaker. What you need to do is include a crossover in the line between your receiver and your speaker so that your subwoofer does not get any of those high frequencies.

Also, what's the situation you're working with here? Typically home stereo subwoofers are powered. If it's a pretty small sized subwoofer you're fine hooking this up to the regular speaker outputs.

Reply to
Delsol

What's my situation... I found a good deal at Big Lots a year ago for two car 10-inch subwoofers, then put them in enclosures. They sound great. But they're rated at 4 ohms apiece... they're powered by my Onkyo TX-2500, about a 20-30 year old unit, but it sounds excellent, even though the specs say 30W per channel RMS only.

To get the high frequencies, I use a couple of 8-inch speaker boxes that also have tweeters. (subwoofers wouldn't produce any highs, really.)

Then we just bought a new house that has surround sound 5.1 pre- wired.

I've never been one to waste money, or buy stuff I really don't need if I can get my old stuff to work. (Hence the 30-year-old Onkyo... haha)

Thanks,

Michael

Reply to
mrdarrett

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