The subwoofer wont connect to my hifi?

Question

i have a sony str-de497 hifi and i have put a 100 watt mico subwoofer into my hifi but it wont work when i go on the settings it wont let me change it for a subwoofer because it says i dont have one. the mico subwoofer was from a dvd set im not sure which one it was old though does anyone have any ideas to what might be wrong or do you just think the subwoofer is broken or it wont connect because it will only work with the dvd it came with

Answer 1

Look to your hi-fi manual and see if the subwoofer should be active or passive.

Active means subwoofer is self powered, you just need a low voltage bass signal.

Passive means subwoofer is a speaker and the hifi will provide all power (voltage and current) to make sound.

I guess there is a protocol, circuit or lock that lets the hifi identify if it has the right subwoofer connected.

Answer 2

I looked up the specifications on your Sony str-de497 and it said that the subwoofer connection is a pre-amp output only.  That means only the POWERED sub-woofer type would work.      Usually, micro-subwoofers are too small to hold amplifiers.  So, I assume the DVD hometheatre was powering the whole set.