How to Connect a Subwoofer to a Receiver

Subwoofer is a big low pressured powered air pump that pumps low base frequencies whether they are for orchestral music, rock & roll or low frequency effects, to enhance dynamics, explosions and other special effects. Larger the subwoofer or rather the larger the room you’re trying to fill with the low bass the bigger the subwoofer you need because subwoofer are kind of dumb object it doesn’t care where you sit in the room it just sees the total volume of space in front of the sub that it has to fill.

To connect subwoofer to receiver you need to have a subwoofer cable which has a positive and negative end , a cable to connect your phone (or any other device to put on the music), a receiver, speakers and subwoofers.

Here’s how to connect subwoofer in 5 easy steps-

Step 1- Placing the woofers.
Keep the subwoofer opposite to the main listening position as depicted in the picture. Set it at an odd numbered partition, such as 1/3 or 1/5 of the length of the wall and opposite to major openings like windows and doors.


Step 2- Connect your subwoofer to your receiver.


With the help of cable connect the receiver with subwoofers.

1. There are three main connection possibilities.

LFE signal


LFE means “low frequency effects”. These effects are used by movie makers to enhance the sound effects. It is recorded independently. If you are using LFE, do a sound check to determine if your processor is sending a signal for two channel use. Simply play a two-channel recording and see if any sound comes from subwoofer. if yes, then you don’t have to connect the left and right line inputs. If there isn’t bass coming from subwoofer then either you need to change the settings of your processor or you’ll need to connect left and right line input.

2. The two channels - left and right line inputs


Generally, in music there’s no such channel. By using the pre-amp right/left outputs of your processor you’ll be able to pass that bass information that’s naturally in your stereo channel to your subwoofers and enhancing the full range response of your speakers.

3. Both


Step 3 – Set the initial woofer settings

1. Set the level to 4


2. Put the low pass filter to 70% of your main speaker’s low frequency extension.


3. Phase equal to 90.


Step 4- Final placement
Playback a recording and roam around to listen the bass response in different places where you’ll put the subwoofer. You may find places where the subwoofer seems almost out of control. Once you find the sweet spot, move and keep the sub-woofer to that spot. Double check it.


Step 5- Final woofer integration
For left and right inputs connected set the low pass filter first turn it up slowly and then set it to proper setting. For LFE connected signal set the controls in processor using user manual. If both LFE and left and right are connected, then set subwoofer mode to “Both/Ultra” this will allow 2 channel bass to go out to the right/left connections and LFE out to LFE output. If your speakers cannot handle much bass, then set it to small. Then choose the best settings keep moving between high and low and set your favourite one.


‘You can now easily connect your receiver to your subwoofer by following the above steps’ just spend some time, and once it is integrated, you’ll have a much fuller range with much greater sense of dramatic impact for both music and movies.