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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
3,002 posts
 

@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.  

immatthewj
1,914 posts
 

@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.

grislybutter OP
3,002 posts
 

@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...

immatthewj
1,914 posts
 

@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.  

mswale
77 posts
 

 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.  

Yes, that is what I suggested, it should work just fine, as you want all the power to do to the mains first, then fed the subs. 

Now comes the "hard" part, setting up the subs. Would start with both sub gains in the middle, and crossover at the main speaker low cutoff. You don't want both main and sub to be pumping out the same frequency, you want the subs just below the mains to fill, not add to. If you think it's too much, most likely they are in phase. Out of phase it can sound hollow.

On the volume, listen to a good bass song, and try to dial in the sub volume to match the mains. It will MUCH lower then you think. My subs on my HT are set to around 3 o-clock and 60hz XO. 

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