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

@mswale , if OP hooked up to both of his subs from amp + to + and - to -, and then he went from his subs to his speakers in the same manner (+ to + and - to -) is there any reason that his subs (or speakers) would be out of phase with each other? That is a serious question; OP did report that he felt that things sounded "thinner."

@immatthewj not always the case. My HT subs are hooked up LFE to my receiver. Only other plug is the wall outlet. When I swapped out my HT receiver, and was doing the room correction. It was telling me my subs are out of phase. Checked the phase switch, both pointing up. Then I flipped one, and they were in phase, but out phase with the front channels. So swapped them the other way, and was good to go. Same went for one of my Dolby Atmos speaker, it's wired internally backwards, been listing to this way for years with out knowing. 

You never know, and they need to be tested, it's easy....

Turn on the subs, play some bass...

Then turn your balance to the R, listen, then to the L, listen, back to center. 

If the bass is loudest at center they are in phase, if not, they are out of phase. 

 

@immathewj I ended up with this, it has more (too much) bass for sure but I will play with it, check the phases as advised above and figure out the right settings. It did push me to dislike my amp as it has connection issues, I almost have to hit it with a hammer when I turn it on.  

@grisly, that's interesting.  I think that is the one method that has not been suggested by anybody in this thread:  L speaker output from amp to L speaker and L speaker to L sub.  And then the same for the R side.

@immathewj

that's exactly what I did, what you described. My diagram is fuzzy, sorry. On to finding a new power amp. 

Bob Dylan sounds great so far, M. Ward not so much. Van is next...

@griz, I didn't find your diagram to be fuzzy.    

On to finding a new power amp. 

An integrated might be the way to go at this point--particularly if you could find one with a pair of RCA outs in the preamp section for the subs.