Powering a home theatre sub?

Question

hey yall...

i wanna hook my sub up to my new onkyo receiver...but the receiver only has a sub pre out. I have my other yamaha amp, but when i run that off the sub pre out i don't get any noise from the sub.

what is the simplest / cheapest way to power my sub for one night? Just looking for a temp solution for tomorrow night (new years eve). I have the onkyo 5.1 reciever, and a yamaha 4 channel amplifier...

thanks ;)

Answer 1

The sub should be powered (has a power amp built in), so you should be able to connect an RCA cable from the receiver to the sub.

If not, it's probably passive, which means it should have a whole bunch of speaker inputs and outputs. You would have to connect the speaker wire from the speaker output for the front two speakers (left and right) to the speaker inputs on the sub. Then you would connect the speaker outputs on the sub to the inputs on the speakers,

Chances are your sub has both options, so go with the RCA cable for surround sound.

Answer 2

I will re-phrase what Jack pointed out:

Run L/R speaker wire from the Onkyo to the sub inputs.

Run speaker wire from the sub outputs to the L/R speakers.

Go to your receiver's setup menu and tell it you DO NOT have a subwoofer, and that your L/R speakers are LARGE.

Good luck with the party.