Passive Subwoofer question Canton Plus C

TellMeWhy

TellMeWhy

Active Member
Hi all. I have a Canton Plus C passive subwoofer that is designed to be only used with dedicated Plus S satellites. The crossover is wired internally with a 120hz crossover (would like to change that to 80hz) and results in a 4 ohm load when the sats are connected. I would like to be able to use the sub without the satellites! The sub has 2 voice coils of 2 ohms each, normally wired in parralel but possible to wired in series for a normal 4 ohm load. Then the sub is wired in series with the sats to give the 4 ohm total (or something like that!)

My options are:
1- Disconnect the dividing network and run the series wired woofer directly to an amp, after having instered a line level frequency divider on the phono cable such as: https://goo.gl/GUZRYl
Are these line level filters any good?

2- Insert an 80hz 4 ohm passive crossover before the speaker

3- Re-route the crossover to bypass the sats output HPF section. See pic of similar crossover with some wires removed below!

I have plenty of amps to drive it with!

If I were to bridge the inputs as shown in order to run the voice coils in series would the sats HPF have any bad effect on the sound, or would I have a reasonable usable sub with a 4 ohm load?

Any ideas?
Cheers,
Jon

Canton Plus C modified 3.jpg
Canton Plus C modified 2.jpg Canton Plus C modified 5.jpg
 

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FWIW. I have one of these, and wanted to do something similar. I found that the best method was just to remove the crossovers from the circuit entirely and wire the voice coils in series, then out to one set of inputs. I'm currently driving it with the extra surround channel from an older Pioneer 6.1 receiver (which, fortunately, is designed to run a passive subwoofer this way). Of course, if you don't have an active crossover (or an A/V receiver with same) then I'd probably do it with an 80hz passive low pass crossover before the sub.
 
Jon_Bawn said:
Hi all. I have a Canton Plus C passive subwoofer that is designed to be only used with dedicated Plus S satellites. The crossover is wired internally and results in a 4 ohm load when the sats are connected. I would like to be able to use the sub without the satellites! The sub has 2 voice coils of 2 ohms each, normally wired in parralel but possible to wired in series for a normal 4 ohm load. Then the sub is wired in series with the sats to give the 4 ohm total (or something like that!)

My options are:
1- Disconnect the dividing network and run the series wired woofer directly to an amp, after having instered a line level frequency divider on the phono cable such as: https://goo.gl/GUZRYl
Are these line level filters any good?

2- Insert an 80hz 4 ohm passive crossover before the speaker

3- Re-route the crossover to bypass the sats output HPF section. See pic of similar crossover with some wires removed below!

I have plenty of amps to drive it with!

Any ideas?
Jon
Click to expand...

Jon, you certainly have a creative and confusing problem. First off, I don't understand this: The sub has 2 voice coils of 2 ohms each, normally wired in parralel but possible to wired in series for a normal 4 ohm load. But the when ...The crossover is wired internally and results in a 4 ohm load when the sats are connected.

If the sub is a 2 ohm load in its frequency band, adding satellites will NOT change that. A two ohm load, as you know is a terrible load for any amp.

Next your first option talks about adding a line level low pass filter. So how will this work? You will dedicate an amp just for the sub? Then take a "split off" full length signal to put through another amp for what ... full range speakers? This would work.

On your 2nd option where you use a passive low pass speaker level filter, this will work and simultaneously allow you to insert a high pass filter on a set of speakers.... powering everything with a single amp.

Option 3 is essentially identical to option 2 only you are using the passive low pass filter that came with the sub. Since you don't know the what is in the high pass or if there even is a high pass, with this option the safe play is to have a separate amp to power your other speakers.

Hope this helps...
Regards,
Jerry
 
onplane said:
Jon, you certainly have a creative and confusing problem. First off, I don't understand this: The sub has 2 voice coils of 2 ohms each, normally wired in parralel but possible to wired in series for a normal 4 ohm load. But the when ...The crossover is wired internally and results in a 4 ohm load when the sats are connected.

If the sub is a 2 ohm load in its frequency band, adding satellites will NOT change that. A two ohm load, as you know is a terrible load for any amp.

Next your first option talks about adding a line level low pass filter. So how will this work? You will dedicate an amp just for the sub? Then take a "split off" full length signal to put through another amp for what ... full range speakers? This would work.

On your 2nd option where you use a passive low pass speaker level filter, this will work and simultaneously allow you to insert a high pass filter on a set of speakers.... powering everything with a single amp.

Option 3 is essentially identical to option 2 only you are using the passive low pass filter that came with the sub. Since you don't know the what is in the high pass or if there even is a high pass, with this option the safe play is to have a separate amp to power your other speakers.

Hope this helps...
Regards,
Jerry
Click to expand...
Hi Jerry, Thanks for the reply. I know it's confusing, sorry.
You have largely understood correctly however! It seems the sub and satellites are connected in series to give a 4-8 ohm load. Without the sats connected I have been told the sub on it's own is only 2 ohm! But when the sub voicecoils themselves are wired in series that gives a usable 4 ohm.

The existing crossover have a 120hz LPF connected to a HPF for the sats. I was wondering if I used the sub, on it's own, and connected in series, whether the HPF circuit meant for the sats would have an adverse affect on the sound. Alternatively I could fit a replacement passive LPF on the series wired sub.

I have tried rigging my full range speakers to the sats output but the series wiring cuts down the sound quality quite a lot.

So yes I am planning to run the sub on a separate power amp with volume control. Will be fed from a split feed off my receivers line out, hence the logic of trying a variable line level filter on the line signal feed. Just not sure if those cheap LPF devices meant for car hifi would sound awful or not.

I'm thinking of giving one of these a try, wired directly to the series wired sub driver, powered by the external amp:
https://www.conrad.de/de/subwoofer-weiche-sinuslive-cr-1100-372552.html

Or would I be better off with an active crossover?

What do you think?
Thanks again for the help!
Cheers,
Jon
 
Jon_Bawn said:
Hi Jerry, Thanks for the reply. I know it's confusing, sorry.
Your have largely understood correctly however! It seems the sub and satellites are connected in series to give a 4-8 ohm load. Without the sats connected I have been told the sub on it's own is only 2 ohm! But when the sub voicecoils themselves are wired in series that gives a usable 4 ohm.

The existing crossover have a 120hz LPF connected to a HPF for the sats. I was wondering if I used the sub, on it's own, and connected in series, whether the HPF circuit meant for the sats would have an adverse affect on the sound. Alternatively I could fit a replacement passive LPF on the series wired sub.

I have tried rigging my full range speakers to the sats output but the series wiring cuts down the sound quality quite a lot.

So yes I am planning to run the sub on a separate power amp with volume control. Will be fed from a split feed off my receivers line out, hence the logic of trying a variable line level filter on the line signal feed. Just not sure if those cheap LPF devices meant for car hifi would sound awful or not.

I'm thinking of giving one of these a try, wired directly to the series wired sub driver, powered by the external amp:
https://www.conrad.de/de/subwoofer-weiche-sinuslive-cr-1100-372552.html

Or would I be better off with an active crossover?

What do you think?
Thanks again for the help!
Cheers,
Jon
Click to expand...


Jon, the confusion comes from the idea that the addition of satellites INCREASES total impedance. This makes no sense. What everyone must remember is that impedance is a measure that is frequency dependent. That is, your speakers might be a 4 ohm load at 100Hz, but at 5,000Hz could be an 8 ohm load. This is not a particularly a good situation, but easily possible. Full range speaker manufacturers strive to get impedance consistent over the audio spectrum, but even with their best efforts, impedance will vary with frequency.

You sub appears to have a built in 120Hz low pass filter. Further, that filter from what I see, is a fairly standard 1st order filter. That is, a coil in series with the woofer, with a cap + resistor in parallel. So, if you disconnect the satellites, you can measure the DC resistance. If you measure 3.2 ohms and higher you can use the sub (with internal LPF) with no modifications on any amp capable of handling 4 ohm loads.

Further, if you do this, you WILL want a separate amp for the sub. Reason is you want to be able to balance sound with your other speakers. If you tried to do this with a single, I can guarantee that either the sub will dominate the other speakers or that other set will dominate the sub. Chances they will be perfectly balance is very, very low. The separate volume controls will be used to balance everything.

The only remaining issue will be phase/polarity. Most commercial subs come with a phase switch. You'll need to check phase/polarity manually.

Hope this helps...
Jerry
 
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onplane said:
Jon, the confusion comes from the idea that the addition of satellites INCREASES total impedance. This makes no sense. What everyone must remember is that impedance is a measure that is frequency dependent. That is, your speakers might be a 4 ohm load at 100Hz, but at 5,000Hz could be an 8 ohm load. This is not a particularly a good situation, but easily possible. Full range speaker manufacturers strive to get impedance consistent over the audio spectrum, but even with their best efforts, impedance will vary with frequency.

You sub appears to have a built in 120Hz low pass filter. Further, that filter from what I see, is a fairly standard 1st order filter. That is, a coil in series with the woofer, with a cap + resistor in parallel. So, if you disconnect the satellites, you can measure the DC resistance. If you measure 3.2 ohms and higher you can use the sub (with internal LPF) with no modifications on any amp capable of handling 4 ohm loads.

Further, if you do this, you WILL want a separate amp for the sub. Reason is you want to be able to balance sound with your other speakers. If you tried to do this with a single, I can guarantee that either the sub will dominate the other speakers or that other set will dominate the sub. Chances they will be perfectly balance is very, very low. The separate volume controls will be used to balance everything.

The only remaining issue will be phase/polarity. Most commercial subs come with a phase switch. You'll need to check phase/polarity manually.

Hope this helps...
Jerry
Click to expand...
Hi Jerry, Thanks again, that is helpful.
I think maybe it was an incorrect assumption (based on impedance figures I was told by Canton) that the sub and sats were connected in series.
I will try what you suggest with the ohm meter, and have a separate amp (with volume control) lined up to drive it.

My concern is that as my main speakers go down to 60hz the 120hz LPF is not ideal. So I was wondering about a line level LPF before the amp, and then driving the bass speaker with no crossover network in place. Something like this:
https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B00HRKL3F2/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=AONS7HEF348I5

Any thoughts on whether that would retain high audio quality and let me tailor the LPF cutoff point?
Cheers!
Jon
 
swechsler said:
FWIW. I have one of these, and wanted to do something similar. I found that the best method was just to remove the crossovers from the circuit entirely and wire the voice coils in series, then out to one set of inputs. I'm currently driving it with the extra surround channel from an older Pioneer 6.1 receiver (which, fortunately, is designed to run a passive subwoofer this way). Of course, if you don't have an active crossover (or an A/V receiver with same) then I'd probably do it with an 80hz passive low pass crossover before the sub.
Click to expand...
Great info! Thanks a lot. Yes that makes sense to me...
What about instead of an 80hz passive crossover (hard to obtain in Europe it seems) putting a line level adjustable LPF filter before the amp input? Something like this:
https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B00HRKL3F2/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=AONS7HEF348I5
Thanks again, very helpful!
 
I'd consider this $12 TPA3116 mono sub amp which features an adjustable crossover. With a $10 24V laptop power brick it should have plenty of power.

-font-b-Mono-b-font-TPA3116-font-b-Subwoofer-b-font-font-b-Amplifier-b.jpg
 
Poultrygeist said:
I'd consider this $12 TPA3116 mono sub amp which features an adjustable crossover. With a $10 24V laptop power brick it should have plenty of power.
Click to expand...
Actually I've order one of these for 20$. Should do the job of filtering down to the correct frequency on line level, then I'll output from a regular power amp to the bass driver, without crossover...
quarterback.jpeg
 
Jon_Bawn said:
Actually I've order one of these for 20$. Should do the job of filtering down to the correct frequency on line level, then I'll output from a regular power amp to the bass driver, without crossover...
Click to expand...

Remember, Jon, the passive xover has coils in series with the drivers. When you make measurements with the xovers in place you will get higher readings due to those coils. If you remove the xovers, you had better measure again to make sure the impedance doesn't drop dangerously LOW.

Regards,
Jerry
 
onplane said:
Remember, Jon, the passive xover has coils in series with the drivers. When you make measurements with the xovers in place you will get higher readings due to those coils. If you remove the xovers, you had better measure again to make sure the impedance doesn't drop dangerously LOW.

Regards,
Jerry
Click to expand...
Hi Jerry, In the end I opted for a different kind of active crossover connected in the line path to a separate amplifier. However, mysteriously, when I connected the bass driver without crossover to this, or any directly to any signal source for that matter, I got little or no output from the speaker, certainly no sub bass. I tried all kinds of set ups and the dual voice coils independently but still no result. So I gave up and reconnected the crossover as it was, and it works perfectly (only with the crossover set to 120hz). I can't see a reason for this, but the Canton bass driver only seems to work when connected through this crossover circuit. Or is that insane?
 
Jon, you have an "unusual" speaker with those two voice coils. The idea here is that each voice coil is powered by its own amp (either the Right or Left amp). Notice this guarantees if the bass line is only in either the left or right channel, your sub will reproduce It! (This actually happens a lot in jazz trio recordings.)

Now, if you removed the passive xover and hooked the two voice coils in series, there are two potential problems:

1. Polarity of the voice coils - if you wired the voice coils in series, but reversed the polarity the signals would cancel each other out resulting in no sound whatsoever.

2. When powered by a single amp, you would be guaranteed to miss some bass. Supposing you were listening to a jazz trio with the double bass on the right side of the piano and drums. If sent your "new" series wired sub the signal from the left channel, you would never hear that bass that's on the right channel.

Now, the way to use this sub correctly is to feed it an amplified audio signal from both the left and right channels.

If you want it to do less work and only reproduce frequencies below 80Hz, you have two options:

1. Change the coil and cap to alter the xover frequency.

2. Add an active xover in front of the amp to limit it's frequency exposure to 80Hz and lower.

Hope this helps...
Regards,
Jerry
 
Hello!

I just have to appologies in advanced for my lack of knowledge about audio stuff but I am very intrested about speakers and audio in general so im gladly learning anything.

So to the problem,

Ive just got a Canton Sub Plus C and as I understand it, its supposed to be wired togheter with the smaller speakers, i think they are a 2.1, not a 100 tho which I don't have.

And i have a coil that is broken so im thinking of just ripping out the old thingy, same thing that is on the first post, and replacing it with a direct output (don't really know the name but I think you get what I mean) so that the speaker itself is just connected to the out to a external amp. Ive seen that a few subs are wired like such and im thinking if this would work in this case aswell.

If not, feel free to give me options that are on a totally beginner level since I barely know any fancy terms or whatnot.

Thanks in advanced!

Cheers from Sweden by Niko!
 
Noviic said:
Hello!

I just have to apologies in advanced for my lack of knowledge about audio stuff but I am very interested about speakers and audio in general so im gladly learning anything.

So to the problem,

Ive just got a Canton Sub Plus C and as I understand it, its supposed to be wired together with the smaller speakers, i think they are a 2.1, not a 100 tho which I don't have.

And i have a coil that is broken so im thinking of just ripping out the old thingy, same thing that is on the first post, and replacing it with a direct output (don't really know the name but I think you get what I mean) so that the speaker itself is just connected to the out to a external amp. Ive seen that a few subs are wired like such and im thinking if this would work in this case as well.

If not, feel free to give me options that are on a totally beginner level since I barely know any fancy terms or whatnot.

Thanks in advanced!

Cheers from Sweden by Niko!
Click to expand...

What is the rest of your equipment?
Knowing this will help in providing a solution.
 
opnly bafld said:
What is the rest of your equipment?
Knowing this will help in providing a solution.
Click to expand...
Well the Canton sub is as ive understood a hifi sub and while my "system" if youd like to call it that, is not.

I have a Samsung MMD36I Reciever and the monitors and sub that comes along with it but i will change things up a bit by starting at the breaking point which is the reciever itself since it doesnt support a whole lot of room for upgrades along the way. So im wondering aswell, like what reciever or amp should i get or how i could hook everything up.

Im planning on getting another Canton sub allthough it may be a bit useless but i feel like I need it, or want it... :)
And im either gonna build a set of 6,5s or buy it secondhand since i cant afford a whole lot.
And im probobly gonna try to set up a allround sound in the room but thats basically miles away at this point but just so that everyone knows my idea.

Im wondering aswell if im able to recycle the monitors that I already have since they are on the better side of things. It would be quite nice though.

The usage for this system would be mainly musical.

//Niko
 
My bad i misspelled it, Samsung MMDG36I is the right one.
And no not really to be honest but I can kind of do in a sense
The amp that you sent seems to be good but im poor :( is there no like cheaper and more "shorr time for now" type of solution? Since i was thinking to maybe do a direct connection of the speaker to the output and then hook it up, i prefer to have a external amp over a inbuilt one.

And it is 3:38am by the time im writing this
 
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