Re: Sub wiring - Line in 0r speaker

[ACEGuy]

Hi All,

I'm a newbie to this forum and by no stretch of the imagination an audiophile I am trying to put together my HT after a move and have been reading this post for some clues about my sub. It is a powered sub with only screw posts for right & left Hi Level In and High Leve Out. My amp has an RCA Jack for the sub. I know that I can run wires thru the sub to the speakers but the house is pre-wired and only a single pair of wires run to the sub location. It has an OnQ panel at the equipment location with a sub jack which has 2 wires coming from the female end thru the walls to the sub location. How do I go from an RCA jack at the amp/panel to the sub without a lot of fishing of extra wires?

Please respond in simple language for the uninitiated. Many, Many thanks!

Bob

[salvasol]

Can you post a couple of pictures of the sub and panel???

I assume that you can just remove the RCA and use the bare wires ...but I (and I'm sure others too) need to see how is connected at the panel

[bobgpsr]

Seems like that must be an older sub. Sorry, for hi level inputs & outputs that sub needs to be connected with heavy gauge (#14) speaker wire - two pairs from amp L/R speaker outputs to the sub hi level inputs. Two pairs from the sub hi level outputs to the Left & Right main speakers.

Not a good situation for hiding the wires.

Might be worthwhile in your case to buy a newer sub that can be connected with a simple low level RCA audio interconnect cable. Otherwise a capable electronics tech could modify your subwoofer power amp to add a RCA input jack.

[ACEGuy]

Thanks for the reply guys.

I was afraid of that answer. I bought that sub about 10 years ago and the way you described the wiring is how it was wired in the past. I can reach the rear channel wires in the crawl space but the front channel wires are inaccessable. Would I get any kind of satisfactory results at all if I re-direct the rear channel wires to the sub and then run new wires to the rear speakers from the sub?

Cheers,

Bob

[bobgpsr]

ACEGuy wrote:

Would I get any kind of satisfactory results at all if I re-direct the rear channel wires to the sub and then run new wires to the rear speakers from the sub?

Very little bass is sent to the rear channels for most soundtracks. So your sub would not get very much bass input in that case.

[salvasol]

I agree with Bob ...and you also need to consider the LFE signal on the movies; those are sent straight to sub, and to be able to redirect that signal when not using RCA from sub out; you'll need to connect them through the front speaker terminals

On the bright side ...this is a good excuse to upgrade and get a new toy

[ampire]

As others have said, likely your bass won't be very loud if you use high levels because typically in a modern system the LFE channel has higher gain than the others, so if you were to run it off the front channels it would not be loud enough to be audible over the main's. Then you could buy a new sub plate amplifier like a 500 watt Parts Express one or something and use the two high levels in the wall as rca by making one wire hot and the other ground and soldering connectors to it. I dont know how feasible this is.