Adding sub to a hi fi amp with no sub out?

SHAXOS

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Hey guys! Ive just brought the tannoy arena package with TS500 sub and from the higher arena package. Apparantly the sub is quite good so i would like to give it a try with my stereo amp. How would i connect it? I have pre outs and tape outputs on the back of my kw550. Would they work? if so which one?
Cheers guys!
 

aliEnRIK

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I dont have a sub myself and only 'played' with the odd one. But my dad has the awesome Wilson Benesch 'taurus'. Connected to his Musical Fidelity amp we had problems and ended up buying a 'floating earth' gizmo which we had specially wired with some chord cable (And theyve now robbed our idea and sell them exclusively ~ we want some profits from these
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). Its connected directly to the speaker outlets and not only does it work perfectly, it seemingly helped the wilson benesch speakers work better to ('opened out' the sound to what they were before)

Im saying simply because (if the sub can be used this way) it may well sound better overall plugged in this way rather than using the pre-outs.
 
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Anonymous

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Get a Y cable to feed L/R into a single. At least this way you won't lose any bass sent to one channel only. Or buy a second sub
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Andrew Everard

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Agreed on igglepoint 1. On igglepoint 2 it's probably worth a try, but you'll have to do some juggling to get the set-up right, and you still may not like the effect.
 
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Anonymous

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igglebert:Get a Y cable to feed L/R into a single. At least this way you won't lose any bass sent to one channel only. Or buy a second sub
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You have to be very careful about connecting L-preout and R-preout with a Y-cable with some amps. This is because if the preouts are not separate and buffered from the circuit that feeds the active gain stages then connecting L+R will bleed the signal from one to the other and the speaker outputs will be Mono i.e. both speaker outputs will be both the Left and Right signal. So you can either plug it in so and test, and make sure you're still getting stereo, or speak to MF first (recommended), or see if the Sub does have pairs of speaker level inputs to use instead (or 2 subs!).
 
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Anonymous

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Maybe I'm being a little ninny. I'm sure the Pre-outs are properly buffered on a KW500 !
 

Big Chris

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Shoulda got a PV1. I have it connected via phono to my A/V amp, but also via high level inputs (using the supplied cable) to my Hi-Fi amp. Works it's magic in both systems.
 

SHAXOS

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Cheers for the advice.
I got the speakers today and it turns out that the sub has both left and right imputs not a single one as Andrew suggested. I only experimented with the stereo sub combo and to be honest i dont like it. However there is still an issue with my cinema set up. I have a single length sub link. My onkyo has a single sub out. Will i lose bass as iggle suggests if i connect my sub from the sub out (onkyo) to the left (or right) input on the sub? Or should i get that Y splitter thing?
 
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Anonymous

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SHAXOS:Cheers for the advice. I got the speakers today and it turns out that the sub has both left and right imputs not a single one as Andrew suggested. I only experimented with the stereo sub combo and to be honest i dont like it. However there is still an issue with my cinema set up. I have a single length sub link. My onkyo has a single sub out. Will i lose bass as iggle suggests if i connect my sub from the sub out (onkyo) to the left (or right) input on the sub? Or should i get that Y splitter thing? No worries there. Take the single output from the Onkyo to the left input of the sub (usually the left). There is no need to use a splitter in this case because either the sub has a switch on it saying use left and right inputs, or just left -- or if there is no switch it'll handle it automatically. You only need the splitter when the AMP has no sub-out, and the sub has 1 input only.
 
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Anonymous

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Shaxos, I'm sure you know this better than me but you need to spend £1+ on a sub to be at a good enough level to sit in your hifi.
 
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Anonymous

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SHAXOS:Pre outs? But my sub link is a single wire? Does it matter which channel of the pre i use? Left or right?

Most bass information is on both channels, but if it bothers you get someone to make you a Y lead with resistors in.
 

SHAXOS

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Iggle i completely agree! The sub i have from the moment is from the highline tannoy arena systema and that retails at quite a fair bit. But yeah, its not good enough for music. Unfortunantly i only had 1000 pound budget and i wanted a full cinema system including amp so blowing it all on a sub was a no go. However i feel that should i need more bass i will just change speakers as its just to complicated to get the sub to integrate correctly. Cheers all for the imput!
 

Overdose

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Alec Trickle:
SHAXOS:Pre outs? But my sub link is a single wire? Does it matter which channel of the pre i use? Left or right?

Most bass information is on both channels, but if it bothers you get someone to make you a Y lead with resistors in.

Not Diodes?
 

Sabby

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Andrew Everard:The preouts are the ones to use.

Sorry to butt in here, but my amp doesn't have preouts. How do I then connect the sub?
 

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