Best Sounding Adapter - Making RCA into Banana or Spade? Thanks!


Thanks in advance for your thoughts / suggestions - much appreciated! :-)

128x128vinylfun

I'm not a subwoofer guy. Is there a sub with RCA inputs on the market that is designed to be connected to speaker output connections (that's a lot of current for an RCA type)? I would recommend that you send an email to the sub maker include all the information on your amplifier, make, model, power output, speaker impedance, type of terminations, etc. There is a possibility, and I hesitate to mention it for liability reasons ;) but is your sub a powered unit specifically designed to use the tape monitor outputs on your amp, or a line-level output? Perhaps if you give the forum information on make and model of sub and amp, someone here has saved the instruction book, or go to hifi engine for user and service manuals. The amount of current in a line-level, or RCA circuit compared to the current from a speaker output from an amplifier, is like the difference between a yard sprinkler and Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls, very dangerous, lawn sprinkle safe for kids and dogs. Please contact the sub maker or the place of purchase.

To do this, you need a "preamp out" section on the back of your amp.  Otherwise it is a no go.

Line level converters are super simple to build even with super basic soldering skills. Get a little plastic box off Amazon, a set of speaker binding posts (4 total), a set of female rca connectors (2ea), 1K 1/4 watt resistor (2ea) and 10K 1/4w resistor (2ea) and a pinch of wire. Drill your holes in the case, mount your rca and binding posts, then solder the 1K resistor across ground to + on the rca. Next wire the - binding post to the ground rca, then finally connect the 10K resistor from + binding post to + rca connector. Taaadaaa, you built a fantastic line level converters. Basic binding posts and rca will give great results, but upgrading to WBT or my favorite being KLE connectors, you’ll get even better performance. All in all, basic setup should be $30 and an hour of time. When I ran converters, I even did away with the binding posts and just hot glued the speaker cables into the case and wired straight to the rca.

 

Also on these, since it’s all 1/4w resistors, there is no extra power draw from your amplifier so unless you’re running a flea watt amp, there’s no worries about headroom. And if you need to lower the signal even further, just up the value of the + leg resistor from 10K to 15K, 20K etc until you get the value where your sub blends using 40-50% volume. I tried loading a photo but it's not wanting to cooperate. Sorry.

 

Hope this helps,

-Lloyd