[swpcap580]

I was given an RCA RT2870 Subwoofer and would like to attach it to my system.

I hooked it up as a speaker and it worked fine, but now I want to hook it up as a subwoofer, but not sure how to power it. It has a control wire and appears that it is powered though those wires, but not sure what voltage it needs. Does anyone know what the specs are on it, so I can get it powered? It has an on/off switch on the front.

Thanks,
Steve

 

[Mike P.]

The sub is from RCA all in one 5.1 system. You'll need a wiring diagram to figure this out. Do you have the users manual?

 

[swpcap580]

The only manual I could find was on the RCA website. It is the user manual, but does not have a wiring diagram. Any ideas on where I could find one?

Thanks,
Steve

 

[Mike P.]

The manual shows the sub connects by speaker level inputs, the RCA receiver must have the crossover built in to it. I'm not sure what the Subwoofer Control is for.

 

[swpcap580]

good eye. I saw the control connection and overlooked the connection to the speaker inputs. There is a power button on the front, so some power must be coming from the control connection, but not sure what that button turns on.

I guess it only works connected to a speaker input.

 

[Mike P.]

Do you have the "Subwoofer Control"?

 

[swpcap580]

The wires are there, but no, I do not have anything to plug it in to.

 

[tonyvdb]

It looks like the "subwoofer control" is a level and crossover control and without that I doupt that it will work.
This is one of the main reasons I always say to people to stay away from Home Theater in a Box systems because of the strange connections.

 

[HomeCommandCenter]

the remote wire is just that, a wire from the remote "on/off" switch on the front of the sub cabinet to the head unit that tells the head unit to turn the power to the 167w sub channel on and off. you don't need the remote wire for anything.

the woofer is a basic "theater in a box" type bandpass box rip off of a Bose "Acoustimass" box.

we have a Stillwater Designs Kicker 10" car audio bandpass "canon" style sub and it works fairly well and creates more coupled bass in the living room than the small home theater box created.

I am looking for another one of the RCA subs to match the one I currently have as it works pretty well off the 50w rear channel outputs of our beater car's stereo. I'd like to hook a second identical one to the other rear channel so I can adjust the front rear bias in the cars stereo further to the front and still have as much bass as we do now. I know this is jacked up, but it's a beater and if it breaks down in a place we can't afford a tow from, I don't want to lose a car stereo amp and proper sub setup. the home sub in the trunk is mounter with an l bracket and one phillips head screw so it would be no problem at all to take loose if the car breaks down and the setup avoids having to run battery wires for an amp.

My question is this, is there a different number for the sub as a stand alone or would I just look for one with the home theaters model number? because I'm not having a lot of luck in my search

 

[Mike P.]

There's one currently on eBay, have you tried craiglist?

 

[HomeCommandCenter]

I've seen the one on ebay, but for one, I've had some bad experiences with ebay. a scammer bought some Rogers LS3-5A's from me and then tried to get me to under declare the value, which I couldn't since I had them insured for $1500, so he got mad over the customs fees and blew out the woofers, stole the crossovers out of them, and mailed them back to me. he had a front in Canada but on further research from a personal email he insisted on speaking to me over, I found out he was located someplace in Korea... both places being out of the US, I had no legal recourse and now I have a pair of vintage cabinets and tweeters and no reliable source for matched keff drivers OR original crossovers. all that is available are knock off repair parts that don't do the originals any justice. Secondly, I have no use for 4 more of those awful rattly plastic satellite speakers. as it is I have 5 that I'm in the process of slowly replacing with better speakers. craigslist has a whole RT2870 system for 80 dollars, but then what would I do with the duplicate components again? All I need is the sub unit.

I wouldn't expect the sub unit by it self to cost much more than $25 + shipping, but I'm not sure what the sub unit is called as a stand alone. that was really my question. thanks for pointing out the ebay listing though!

 

[Mike P.]

If the part number is what you you need the I suggest you contact RCA support. They should be able to help you out.

 

[mturley73]

I was having an issue with the sub channel not playing hooked up to a regular speaker. To solve this problem I took an old fan connector from a video card, lopped it off and twisted the wires plugged it in, no modification to the head unit required. You can hear a relay close and the sub channel is turned on.

Thanks to HomeCommandCenter for pointing me in the right direction.

mt