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
grislybutter OP
3,105 posts
 

@immathewj I have the splitter arriving tomorrow so yes, I will try it out. 

This is the carlsbad2 method:

immatthewj
2,049 posts
 

Okay, that’s as described previously and what i was thinking and looks like pic 2 of your picture post (except that you didn’t have the speakers in that diagram)::

speaker wire out of L speaker post in amp into L sub and speaker wire out of L sub out to L speaker & repeat for R side.

But, MORE IMPORTANTLY: how do TWO subs sound?

 

 

grislybutter OP
3,105 posts
 

@immatthewj I need to find the right gain but they sound good. A bit shaky/buzzy on their flimsy legs so I should find a better platform. 

I listened to a pair of $60 Celestion F3s for 6 weeks and I just switched back to my Evoke 20s, they sound extremely bright, suddenly.  

I like the Celestions overall better but I am going to give them a week. 

What I like about the subwoofers is that they very subtle. (Unlike others I tried they wanted to crack the ceiling.) I don't need a lot of bass, just that little extra the bookshelf speakers can't fill.

carlsbad2's avatar
carlsbad2
1,623 posts
 

I would stay away from y splitters.  Y splitters hook 2 sets of drivers in parallel, which halves the inductance.  So the amp current doubles going into the low impedene load and it  trips.  You are lucky your amp has a breaker and does't just fail from the high current.

Never hook 2 loads up in parallel to one set of speaker outputs.

Jerry

grislybutter OP
3,105 posts
 

thanks @carlsbad2! I didn't know this. Also noting the parallel - serial difference, I am a slow learner but I don't forget :)

 

More to discover