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Connect a passive subwoofer to receivers powered output

7K views 11 replies 3 participants last post by  Wharfe 
#1 ·
Hi,

My brother has been living with me for a month now and tonight he decided to hook up his HTIB speakers which contains a passive subwoofer to my old Sony receiver which only has a powered subwoofer output.

We found out that the Sony receiver only has a powered output so I thought if we take an RCA cable and connect it from the Sony receivers powered sub output and connect it to the HTIB receivers RCA input (red or white - tried both) we may be able to power the sub that way.

I thought we had it working because we did the auto calibration mic thing and my brother claims he heard the subwoofer rumble during the test yet when we tested it with my DVE disc and selected the LFE test there was no sound, same goes for dvds and tv.

Is it possible to hook up a passive sub to a powered sub output on the Sony receiver? OR do I have something wrong with the connections?

I saw an ad in the paper this week for powered sub for 249.99 which seems like a good deal so I may just buy him that if we cant connect a passive sub to the receiver.

CONNECTION: Sony Receiver Sub Out > HTIB RCA IN > Only Sub hooked up

Thanks to everyone for helping me in the past and hopefully with this question.
 
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#4 ·
That's the crossover where the frequencies go to the sub instead of to the other speakers (assuming that the setting in the AVR is set for sub only, instead of "both" and that the speakers are set to "small") It's usually best to set this about 20 Hz above the lower frequency spec for your other speakers.
 
#5 ·
Hi 57,

Thanks for your replies on this and other posts.

This may be a stupid question but how do I find the frequency spec for the other 5 speakers?

I looked on the back but all I found was 6 ohm and 95 watts (there small).

EDIT: Found some info in the manual about the speakers and passive sub:

Satellite speakers: 6 ohm independence, Frequency Response: 160 - 20,000 HZ

Passive Sub: 8 ohm independence, Frequency Repose: 65 - 1,500 HZ

So does this mean I should set the cross over frequency to 40 HZ?

Thanks
 
#7 ·
Shoot, I am not sure if you saw I updates my post I added:

Satellite speakers: 6 ohm independence, Frequency Response: 160 - 20,000 HZ

Passive Sub: 8 ohm independence, Frequency Repose: 65 - 1,500 HZ

Which I got from the manual, so I suppose I should set the crossover to 180?
 
#10 ·
Are you getting any sound out of the sub??

If I am understanding this correctly, there's no way this can work.

A passive subwoofer NEEDS an amplifier to power it. The powered sub output on the receiver is very low power, because it's supposed to be connected to an amplifier which will take the signal and boost it. If you're just taking that very low power signal with no amplification and hooking it to an unpowered/passive sub, there's simply no power coming from anywhere to drive the sub.. it can't work.

Sorry if I read the post wrong, but if I understand what you're asking then my post is correct.
 
#12 ·
Thank you for clarifying! I was reading the line "CONNECTION: Sony Receiver Sub Out > HTIB RCA IN > Only Sub hooked up" and couldn't make sense of it, but now I understand completely. I didn't realize the HTiB amp was being used..

Sorry to interfere.. just ignore me :p
 
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