Connecting The Subwoofer To Your Audio System; Connecting Home Theater Equipment - PSB HD8 Owner's Manual

IX. Connecting The Subwoofer To Your Audio System
There are several ways to connect a subwoofer into a system. For best results
overall, we recommend using Low Level (line level) connections.
When making a Low Level (line level) connection, be sure to follow the coding on
the cables to maintain left-to-left and right-to-right. Use high quality, well-shielded,
low capacitance RCA cables of minimal necessary length, to avoid picking up noise
in the cable runs. When making a High Level (speaker level) connection, in addition
to maintaining left-to-left and right-to-right, be sure to use the coding of the pair of
wires in each speaker cable to maintain phase—+/red/rib/writing to +/red/rib/writing
and -/white/smooth/clear to -/white/smooth/clear. We recommend minimum 16
gauge wire and, for longer runs, larger (lower gauge number) wire.
A. Connecting Home Theater Equipment (see Figure 2):
You can use a single RCA cable to connect the Subwoofer Output of your receiver,
integrated amplifier, or preamplifier to either right or left side of the Low Level Input
on the subwoofer.
Home Theater receivers, integrated amplifiers, surround sound processors, and
preamplifiers usually have a special Subwoofer Output to provide the optional
(Dolby Digital 5.1) Low Frequency Effects (LFE) Channel present on many movie
and other programming sources. To reproduce these deep-bass effects (when they
are present), supplementing the bass information in the main channels, this output
must be connected to the subwoofer.
The subwoofer output/LFE signal is filtered by most receivers/processors. The
subwoofer's variable low pass filter is usually redundant with filtering within an AV
receiver/surround processor and should be bypassed by connecting to the LFE
Input. (Connect in this manner only if the receiver/processor subwoofer/LFE output
is low pass filtered.)
With some Home Theater electronics, on certain settings, connecting the
Subwoofer Output does not provide the low frequencies from normal stereo music
through the subwoofer. To assure that all bass is sent to the subwoofer you should
use processor settings such as: "Front Speakers, Small". Consult the manuals of
your other equipment to be sure.
An LFE Output jack is provided. It sends the LFE Input signal directly to this jack and
allows multiple subwoofers to be daisy chained.
B. Connecting Stereo Equipment Using Low Level (Line Level) (see Figure 3):
If your receiver or integrated amplifier has preamplifier outputs, or if you are using a
separate preamplifier, the preferred connection is from the Preamplifier Output of
the electronics to the Low Level Input of the subwoofer. If not using an AV receiver
or multichannel processor with a dedicated Subwoofer output, this is the best way to
connect your subwoofer. Use a dual RCA audio cable and take care to preserve
proper right and left connections.
Note that signal must go from the preamplifier to both the subwoofer and the
amplifier (or amplifier section of your integrated amplifier). This can be
interconnected in 2 ways; a pair of stereo cables can go to the subwoofer and then
return to the amplifier, or "Y" connectors can be used to simultaneously send signal
from the preamplifier to both the subwoofer and the amplifier. These two connecting
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