Adding subwoofer - possible?

A

Agent47

Dismember
Ok, I know dick about subwoofers as you'll now see...

This is for a little non-audio side project.

I have an old Sony 'midi' stereo hi-fi system, which includes two wired (passive) speakers. My sound source (DVD video - stereo) going into the system is going in on RCA phonos.

Is there any way I can add a subwoofer to this? Would my RCA phono source be able to pass through a subwoofer which then feeds the speakers? Or would I need another box of tricks?

Sorry if I'm wasting everyone's time!

A.
 
You can attach some sort of distributing cross over (with or without delay) and additional speakers to pretty much any source. And there can be myriad reasons, other then merely irritating neighbors, for adding a subwoofer. With gear you mentioned easiest way is probably to try to buy a stand alone active (powered with integrated cross over) (something like the Panasonic SC-HT930 (not a recommendation merely representative part number and one that should not be too terribly expensive (less then $100)) . . .

Typically these units are set up for bare wire interconnects so you either remove your RCA connectors or manually configure sub to accept RCA input.

you then route signal from amplifier, typical at pre-amp stage, something like Aux or tape out since you will be driving speakers from the subs amp, to sub then attach left/right speakers to the sub . . .

variously you can route l/r like normal and simply drive the sub from the aux/tape out

if you already have sperate amp and speaker to function as sub cross overs come in a variety of flavors and price points . . . basically a cross over is a resister that functions as a crude filter, building one typically uses speaker load as resistance and inserts capacitor in line, rough formula is .159/(c X rh) = F (c is farads (or micro farad) capacitor value, rh is resistance (typically 8, 4, or 2 for home theater) and F is xover frequency) Actually construction tends to be a tad more complicated but if you already have amp & speaker, are marginally handy with soldering iron, hitting radio shack for a handful of cheap parts can produce interesting results

good luck
 
Very interesting. You obviously know your stuff!

So it looks like I'd run my RCA phonos into the sub and use it as an amp for the stereo speakers.

Thanks!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top