Another question about subwoofer hookup.

[RunOutGroove]

Just bought a subwoofer from someone in my hood off of CL, a JBL S120P II for all of $50. I was going to hook it up the same as my old Energy sub with the stereo pair if speaker wires routed into the thing and then out to the speakers. I wonder though if since I'm using just one of the two sets of speaker outs from my Marantz receiver, if I could just run one of the outs to the sub (and turn on and off the sub with the "speaker B" button). I know that this will work, but is there any disadvantage in going this route rather than the kind of pass through arrangement that I was using before?

 

[the skipper]

No disadvantage.

If your old sub stripped out the lows from the main you will lose that though.

 

[whoaru99]

The only disadvantage is if the receiver happens to put A+B in series rather than the more common parallel. In cases where A+B is in series then it won't work with speakers on A and sub on B.

The easy test is connect speakers only to A. leave B with nothing connected. Play some tunes with just A selected then engage B so you have A+B. If the music keeps playing they're in parallel. If it goes silent then A+B is series.

A+B in series is not too common, but I mention it because I've watched several threads over the course of time where it happened and people went off on all sorts of tangents trying to fix it.

 

[JoeESP9]

Some vintage Kenwood amplifiers connect multiple speakers in series.

 

[RunOutGroove]

Ok... I finally got the new sub hooked up. I went back and fourth on whether I was going to hook it up on the "B" speaker selector or in a pass through configuration like I had my old sub hooked up. Though the pass through means that whenever I have that set of speakers on (I have my receiver powering another set in another room through a speaker switcher box, so that I can use its speaker protection circuit) the subwoofer that goes with them automatically comes on - and I like that. Still, having it on a separate speaker switch means that I can toggle it on and off to see what effect it's having and that's kind of nice too. Ultimately I ran it through the "B" speaker switch rather than doing it the pass through method just because of the fact that since I was not only changing subwoofer, but changing the placement (to something close to the middle) and this meant that I would have been short a cord that I would have needed to do it. I was apparently too lazy and too cheap to run to the stereo shop to get another length of speaker cord (I've been using the 4 lead ones). The operation though was a success as everything seems to work the way that it should. I have to say though that all of the configuration was really a PIA! I really need some sort of patch bay thing. I can't really be moving furniture because all of the stuff that the stereo (and TV) sits on is loaded up with LPs and Cd's so it's too much trouble to move to get really easy access. I took me a couple of hours to get everything hooked up the way that I wanted to...

What about he sound, you ask? I have no experience with real audiophile level subwoofers but this new bigger JBL S120P II definitely adds something that my old 8" Energy lacked. I that some subs can sound pretty muddy, but when I tried out the new JBL with a few kinds of music, including stuff with string bass and it all sounded pretty crisp. Would a $1k sub sound even better?, likely but the JBL seems like a nice upgrade for the $50 I spent on it. It being an older model, I was a bit worried about the condition, but the surround on this one is rubber rather than foam and everything else seems to be just about perfect with it. The guy I bought it from said it got very little use and it sure looks that way...