speakers and cables

I need an aspirin...

@thecarpathian,

It’s really not that complex, and I guess I just did a poor job of describing it. My fault.

Instead of the speaker wires going from the amp to the L & R speakers, instead the speaker wires goes to the L & R subs. Then from the L sub to the L speaker, and from the R sub to the R speaker.

(So each speaker is sort of an extension of each sub.)

I am pretty sure that’s the way @grisly is now wired.

I only have one sub, and since I am using the balanced circuit from my preamp in to the balanced circuit of my amp, I used the RCA OUTs in my preamp to go to the L and the R RCA INs in my sub. I've been thinking about it since this thread started, and I think I can see where speaker wire connections from amp/to sub/out to main speakers MIGHT be desirable for myself. But the thing is, I was also thinking, the quality of signal that might give me to my speakers (which is the termination of that signal) MIGHT be affected by the quality of parts in the sub which I am sure is affected by the quality of the sub . . . and my sub is pretty much obsolete.

@immathewj

I think this is a @thecarpathian suggestion:

 I don't think there is such a smart crossover inside this cheap sub that would split the signal. I think the full signal goes out, but that's just my assumption. I will post a question on the polk forum, it's always very active. 

One thing I have read was about the wiring was strong advice about parallel wiring. The Y splitters should arrive tonight, will be interesting how it sounds.

At this point I am embarrassed about a number of remaining questions, so I will just keep them to myself and play with it to try to confirm my assumptions...

@griz, going back a few posts--I don’t claim to be a bright light on this. But to me it just makes more sense to go from the L speaker post of amp into the L sub and from there in to the L speaker and then the same for the R side.

I don’t think there is such a smart crossover inside this cheap sub that would split the signal. I think the full signal goes out, but that’s just my assumption. I will post a question on the polk forum, it’s always very active.

Please post your findings; at this point I am quite curious and interested about this.

The Y splitters should arrive tonight, will be interesting how it sounds.

I am also curious about what you are going to hear when you experiment with that. Please post your feelings about what you hear. But I also think that your sonic perceptions may change as the new sub breaks in.

At this point I am embarrassed about a number of remaining questions, so I will just keep them to myself and play with it to try to confirm my assumptions...

I can relate to that myself (being embarrassed about some of my questions, that is), but a long time ago someone once told me that, "The only stupid question is the one you didn’t ask." But I am still frequently inhibited anyway, and people still make fun of questions that they perceive as being stupid. So I understand where you are coming from. However, I actually learn a lot from threads like these, so I personally benefit from these questions, so I personally hope you ask your questions here on A’gon.

Here is an example of a question I didn’t ask because I thought the answer was obvious and I was sure that some one would say it was a stupid question: whenever  there was a T’storm threatening, because when I put my system circuit in, the best place for me to put the outlets turned into a bit of a PITA, I used to just trip the circuit breaker for my system, but I was always wondering if a big enough surge could jump across a tripped breaker, but I thought, "Nahhhh, so I am not going to ask because I don’t need the derision." Then there was a "surge protector" thread on misc and that came up, and @JEA confirmed that a big enough surge certainly could jump across a tripped breaker. Now I unplug in bad weather, no matter how much of a PITA it is. But that’s just an example of a question that I should have asked but didn’t because I thought it was stupid.

As I often say: Ramble On. . . .

@immathewj one quick test: I unplugged the subs from wall, sub stayed dead, speakers still worked. Does it mean there is no crossover? Just wires? Active crossover requires electricity I assume....

No budget sub or expensive sub i’ve torn into has ever had anything for ’bass management’. If your sub has both speaker level in and speaker level out terminals, it is just a straight passthrough.

In a hi-fi application, you don’t want to use that lousy pass through terminal on a subwoofer into a speaker. You also don’t want to use a y splitter on any line stage analog interconnect. For low-fi, mid-fi and ASR-fi, anything goes.