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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
immatthewj
1,872 posts
 

@immatthewj

Frequency response ( 3dB): 40Hz 23kHz

my subs’ dial start at 80Hz so I can’t go below that.

Hmmm . . . if I am understanding the last sentence correctly, your sub is going from at least as high as 80 hZ and down? And that means that if your mains are actually making it down to 40, there is a lot of overlap. . . .

grislybutter OP
2,971 posts
 

@immathewj there is overlap but i don’t think it’s down to 40Hz, the mains have 5” woofers, their lows are flimsy

mswale
71 posts
 

This is becoming the most consisting thread. 

Your 2 subs start at 80

Your Mains go down to 40. 

Why did you get 2 subs in the first place? Your bass is going to be muddy, that is a lot of overlap. Might need to put a low pass filter on the mains like this

low pass filter

But then you would need to rewire the subs. frown

grislybutter OP
2,971 posts
 

@mswale

I guess you meant "confusing". Yes, I am often confused and I am very good at confusing others.

I had read for years here how a sub makes a difference before I looked into buying a sub. And then I read that one sub is almost meaningless, you need at least two.

My bass isn’t muddy but "reverby" at times.

I don’t mind adding a low pass filter and reconnecting my subs. You linked an 80Hz filter - would it be OK to add a low pass filter for a higher frequency to let my subs go higher, like 100Hz?

I will measure the frequencies of the mains today if I find a decent app.

mswale
71 posts
 

@grislybutter Yes, confusing. 

Normal sub cutoff is 60-100 hertz, your mains go down to 40, and the lowest your subs can cut is 80, maybe try 100? There maybe a variable lowpass XO out there for you, that way you can dial it in. 

One sub can work just fine, usually you add another to balance it out, and fill in the bass holes one sub can create. A lot of that can be cured with sub placement. I have found with 2 subs, that you can great bass, but it can easily overpower the mains, becoming the focal point. 

This entire setup is starting to feel like a compromise. As nothing is really working with each other. This has me thinking, does your amp, have a speaker A/B switch? Not sure why no one talked about it. You can just wire the subs to the B connections, then put the low pass filters on the A speaker, both with will get full power.

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