2. speakers
  3. 190534-166623

speakers and cables

this is about me being a loser and problem creator.

I finally got a 2nd subwoofer and I was excited to hook it up. Well, not too excited. I knew it would be a pain to hook it up. I was excited to hear it. I spent over 90 minutes connecting the speaker wires to my power amp. When I turned it on, the left channel was gone. It blew the fuse. I disconnected everything, replaced the fuse, hooked it up again. It worked for 10 seconds, blew the fuse again.

The way I hooked them up was I went from the sub speaker out from both subwoofers, rolled the left and right side wires together so I had 4 wires that I connected to the left and right plus and minus channels - speaker binders on the power amp. What are my options? My preamp has no sub out. Nor my amp.

Stupid question: should I just go from left to left on one sub and right to right on the other sub?

grislybutter
mitch2
3,969 posts
 

I didn’t read every post but if not already recommended, why not use rca splitters from your single rca output then let the internal amplifiers in your powered subs do the work? Parden please, if I am somehow missing the issue.

mashif
242 posts
 

Why not just use a Y cable on your preamp outs?

grislybutter OP
2,994 posts
 

@mitch2 yes I did mention the splitter. How many splitters would I need for two subs?

grislybutter OP
2,994 posts
 

@mashif

 I don't have preamp outs as I wrote many times

audio_guy_uofw
42 posts
 

The purpose of having both channel inputs on the sub is so that they can be summed to mono. If you are using the two subs adjacent to your left and right main speakers, you could consider left channel to left sub and right channel to right sub. If they are not adjacent to the mains, you should run both channels to the subs and sum to mono.

Regarding blowing fuses, I suspect the fiddly insertion of all those wires into your power amp resulted in a loose strand that was shorting to the adjacent connector. Have a close look. You might be better to make a y connector, assuming you are using standard speaker wire. A short length of wire, then solder the mains and sub leads pos to pos and neg to neg, using shrink wrap or electrical tape to insulate the connections. There is very little current flow into the high level sub inputs, soyou are not overloading the single y connector wire to the amp. Hope this helps.

More to discover