QuestionMy receiver is a Kenwood VR-615.
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Followup To
Question -
I had recently purchased the Athena Micra 6 system and have a question about hooking up the subwoofer to my receiver. In the Athena owner's manual they specify to either connect the sub to the receiver from the 'RCA input jack' on the sub to the 'subwoofer out' jack on the receiver (if you have one, which I don't, I only have a subwoofer input jack). The other way they say to connect is through a pair of left and right speaker terminals on your receiver to that of the subwoofer. If you only have one set of speaker terminals on your receiver then how would you connect the satellites to the receiver and then to the sub? It seems to me you would have to "piggyback" the cables, meaning connecting two sets of cables into one terminal (one set going in and one set going out-from the same terminal). Is this safe to do? The rep at Best Buy told me "piggybacking" increases your ohm load on the receiver to about 6 ohms instead of 8 ohms? My workaround I found out, and I want to ask if this is o.k. to do, is, next to my left and right speaker output terminals on my receiver I have a Subwoofer terminal in which to connect speaker wire to. I decided to connect speaker wire from that terminal to the left input on back of the subwoofer. There was nothing connected to the right input on back of the subwoofer. My satellites by the way were still connected to the receiver. Then I did a sound test, and it worked. There was good bass. Can I use this route, or do I have to be connecting to from the right and left on the receiver to the right and left on back of the sub? Is both of these ways the same or does one have an advantage or disadvantage over the other? Is this subwoofer terminal on back of my receiver mainly used for this purpose? Also, even though I can't connect to it, does connecting to the 'RCA Input Jack' give you better sound then connecting to the High Level Line Inputs? I appreciate all the help and advice you can give. Thanks very much.
Answer -
Dear Dave,
What kind of receiver do you have? Make, model, etc. That information would be most helpful.
Kindest regards,
Kevin
AnswerDear Dave,
According to the Kenwood VR-615 user's manual, there is a "subwoofer speaker out" (L/R terminals) in the right hand speaker output array with the surround sound speakers. Connect the subwoofer to this. Connect the surround sound speakers to the surround output.
You don't need to do anything special, like connecting the front channel or satellite speakers through the subwoofer. All the connections you need are on the VR-615.
The Athena manual is a bit misleading because it assumes that a subwoofer output is necessarily a preamplifier output, which the VR-615 doesn't have. So the Athena manual then talks about wiring the sub through the front channel speakers, which is the pre-subwoofer out method for connecting a subwoofer. What the VR-615 has is dedicated high-level subwoofer speaker outlets, a circumstance the Athena manual doesn't/didn't anticipate. So instead of either method the Athena manual suggests, you simply connect the VR-615's subwoofer speaker outputs to the subwoofer. What could be easier?
You don't have to connect anything exotically or take any short cuts. Simply wire the each speaker to the appropriate speaker outlet (front left, front right, center, surround left, surround right, and subwoofer) on the back of the VR-615, and you're in business.
Good luck. And thanks for choosing allexperts.com!
Kindest regards,
Kevin
