Why does my woofer have speaker outputs?

Insomniator

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Oct 23, 2002
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Ok so I have this woofer which is part of an old budget Sony home theater system. I want to connect it to my new flat panel TV (which has a sub woofer out, don't even know if that's what it means).

The woofer in addition to line in also has outputs for 4 satellite speakers. I've never had anything connected to them because the speakers are supposed to connect to the receiver.

I don't want use that 10 year old receiver but does this woofer allow you to connect just the speakers to it and by pass the receiver all together?
 

CallMeJoe

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Jul 30, 2004
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Are there also speaker-level inputs? A lot of home theater subwoofers have a built-in crossover; you feed the speaker-level signals from the receiver to the subwoofer, which filters the input, The lows are amplified and drive the subwoofer, while the highs are fed out through the "speaker out" terminals to the satellite speakers.
In this arrangement the receiver's amplifier drives the satellite speakers (through the subwoofer's high-pass filter).
 

Soundmanred

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Oct 26, 2006
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Like the above poster mentioned, the speaker outputs are just pass throughs that provide a signal for the powered subwoofer that are used if there is not a line out on your source to connect to the line in on your subwoofer.
They do not provide power, so you'd have to have some type of amplifier/reciever to power your satellite speakers.
 

Insomniator

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Oct 23, 2002
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Turns out the woofer is a Sony SA-W303 as seen here

Currently I'm just using the old amp that it came with connected to the woofer and two of the satellites (they sound better than the tv speakers)

I'm going to buy new fronts before upgrading to 5.1... not sure which maybe monitor 30's or 40's.

Does anyone know if I would aslo benefit from one of the basic $100 Dayton subs? The sony seems to do a good job but I don't really have a way to test if it would be much better with a newer woofer. The room is 16x12... the thing certainly makes the room rumble i suppose..
 

YOyoYOhowsDAjello

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Aug 6, 2001
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I do think the often recommended $100 sub options would be an upgrade from that. At the same time, it's possible that $100 spent elsewhere in the system might give you more overall performance than replacing that subwoofer.

Note that one that sub, two of the speaker level connections are "inputs" and two are "outputs". The posters above went over it already, but that kind of connection is generally for people who have a receiver with no subwoofer pre-out. It doesn't allow you to do anything fancy with the subwoofer.

What's your whole budget for the project and what are you planning on buying?
Maybe 3 speakers for the front (re-use the existing speakers as surrounds / rears)
New receiver
New subwoofer?
 

Insomniator

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Oct 23, 2002
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After reading your guide (thank you btw) and thinking about it, I don't think 5.1 will work well for the way my room is setup and I can't change it in the foreseeable future.

I was going to buy the onkyo 607 for $400 and use my current speakers... mainly i wanted an HDMI repeater to make source switching easier and faster than it is on my tv right now. However I think that is kind of stupid to spend that much on a receiver just to do 2.1 with crappy old speakers, especially when I already have an old receiver just fine for 2.1.. minus the hdmi switching.

So for now I think I want to get a good pair of bookshelf speakers and possibly a woofer if if would be helpful. Down the road will be receiver + center. This is mainly for gaming and movies but I want an upgrade path and I don't want to waste money on a pair of very cheap speakers (r150's) because my old speakers can be used as the rear if I ever go 5.1.

I'm leaning towards Audio Monitor 40's but if anyone has any suggestions for less than $150 I'm open. I hate to say it but I walked into a Best Buy a few days ago and Bose 201's were the best sounding speakers there despite me reading 100 articles about how much bose sucks. 225 is a little out of my range though.


 

YOyoYOhowsDAjello

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Getting a receiver with Audyssey (like the 607) wouldn't be a bad idea.

I feel like there are two semi-similar threads running in parallel now (parsley007's), since I'm posting this again, but I recently did some testing of Audyssey's capabilities and I was quite impressed with what it was able to do with speakers that sounded pretty crappy on their own.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmmDenKL4U0

It's likely that your old speakers will sound better with some auto-correction applied to them.

Getting new speakers / sub would certainly be a good choice as well though. It's also more likely that a speaker / sub purchase won't become "obsolete" with a new model coming out with new features that you'd want.

 

Insomniator

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Oct 23, 2002
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Hmmm interesting... i had no idea a new receiver could improve the sound of speakers. I can't think of any new features that could be coming out... the 607 was just released no?
 

YOyoYOhowsDAjello

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Originally posted by: Insomniator
Hmmm interesting... i had no idea a new receiver could improve the sound of speakers. I can't think of any new features that could be coming out... the 607 was just released no?

Yeah, that's the newest 6XX model. There are different levels of Audyssey though. The results from that video are from a 3 position quick calibration (as opposed to 8 position) from a MultEQ XT Audyssey system.