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

 

[Delsol]

On Apr 14, 3:21 pm, mrdarr...@gmail.com wrote:

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

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.

 

On Apr 14, 10:02 pm, Delsol <Aaronofk...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Apr 14, 3:21 pm, mrdarr...@gmail.com wrote:

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

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.

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