Connecting Bass Shaker Amp

damansidhu

I am a big fan of Polks and have earlier had the RM6005 series and a few months ago upgraded to the RM6700 series with a PSW303 Sub, I also bought an extra rear speaker to complete the 6.1 setup.
I am thinking of installing Aura Bass Shakers in my setup which I plan to buy from partsexpress.com , I also intend to buy a 100 watt amp from them to drive those. The problem I have is to how to connect the amp to my reciever. I had asked this on the forum earlier too and I was suggested to take an out from the subwoofer cable and use that as an input to the amp. But I have connected the Sub as per Polks recommendation by wiring the front speaker wires to the sub and letting it filter the LFE signals and pass on the rest to the fronts.So theres no subwoofer cable in my setup. Also theres no Out of the sub from where I can take the LFE signal. Please suggest me as to how to connect it.
Thanks!
Daman

hoosier21

If you hooked the fronts up as Polk recommends, you still have the subwoofer output of the receiver to connect to, buy a cable and hook it up. What receiver do you have? You will want to change the subwoofer (LFE) setting to "both", or whatever setting send the LFE to both the fronts and subwoofer.

damansidhu

well i dont think that its possible in the reciver.. i have a yamaha HTR5640 and the setting available is subwoofer OFF or ON.. it sends the LFE to mains if the Sub is off, there isnt a setting which says LFE to both.. what to do now? Is there a Y cable for Subwoofer or something?

gmorris

this is simple. just use any output from the receiver, such as the output from the TAPE, or VCR IN/OUTS.

Also, I've looked at the Bass Shakers at PE, and I think their RMS power rating is WAY lower than 100 watts. You may want to look into this, as the 100 watt amp you are considering may be to much.

damansidhu

You mean to take an output from the other reciever outs? Would that work? well ill surely check it and let you know.. also yes the bass shakers are rated at 25 watts rms each and 50 watts max, but if we connect the 2 of them in series the load would be able to withstand the amp, in fact this is the amp partsexpress themselves recommend for the bass shakers. If i use 4 of the bass shakers we can connect them in parallel.

gmorris

Right on, you sound like you've already thought out how to connect the Bass Shakers... Good move.

You will need to verify that the tape loop outputs are affected by the volume control, which they probably are not. That was a bad idea on my part, oops, sorry. But, if by chance they are affected by the volume control, it will work. If you have some output that is affected by the volume, it will work.

Of course, you could always ditch the Polk method of hooking up your speakers. Then, use the sub out cable with a Y-adapter.

damansidhu

great! ill verify today if the outs of other devices work like this or not.. meanwhile is there a big difference by using polk's hookup method against the conventional sub out? Also where can i find the Y Adapter for sub cable? Radioshack? or CC?

gmorris

you can get a Y-adapter anywhere, may as well get one from Parts Express though.

The Polk Method of speaker connection is not better or worse than the other method, it is just different. With the Polk meth., you are using the crossover in the sub for low & high pass. But, the Front L&R are always high passed.

Using the receiver to connect the speakers, and the sub out to connect the sub gives you the ability to use the receiver to set crossover points, as well as the ability to run the Front L&R full range or high passed. This method is more flexible.

The Polk method has the advantage of less signal processing. You are sending a straight, full range signal to the sub, which then does the splitting.

Most people here on the forum use the sub out method, as the flexibility is more advantageous.

damansidhu

well yes that seems better to me too because theres not an option on my reciever to set the cross over point, i think its set to something like 120Hz where as with the sub i normally use 150 something hz which is better since my speakers are satellites.. so in a way i might be loosing out on that part if i connect it via the sub out.. hmm... ill probably check what you suggested earlier and see if the outs from other devices also send out a signal or not. Thanks a ton for your inputs!!

gmorris

oh, i see, you must not have a Dolby Digital receiver. If you don't have Bass Management capibilities, the Polk method is your best bet.

damansidhu

i do have a Dolby Digital/DTS ES reciever.. its 6.1 capabale.. but i havent found a way to set the crossover frequency on it(could it be because ive set the subwoofer to OFF.. i wonder) and im assuming that its set to whatever default value yamaha guys set it up.

gmorris

OH NO!!!!!!!

You most certainly SHOULD have the ability to change the crossover. I can't tell you exactly how, as I'm not familiar with that receiver, but you should poke around and try to find it.

Check the owners manual if you still have it. Otherwise, look for options called "Setup, Speaker Configuration, Bass Management" or something similar.

damansidhu

Ok,ill surely check it tonight and post up tomorrow what i found out, there is a speaker configuration menu in which i set the Sub to off. Let me set it back to On and see if i get a crossover setting

damansidhu

well i checked it last night and it seems theres a solution, my speaker settings in the reciver have an option of setting the Bass Output to BOTH - which means it will send the LFE to the subwoofer out as well as to the mains. I set it up today but felt that the bass coming out of the Sub was less when i set it to BOTH instead of MAINS as i had done earlier, could it be that its filtering out some singal below a particular freq and sending it only to the sub out even though its set to BOTH?

PS: btw theres no way to set the crossover freq in yamaha HTR models, i saw the manuals of a few and all of them have a default of 90hz signal being passed on to the Sub,so im probably better off with the sub doing the filtering

hoosier21

Originally posted by damansidhu
well i checked it last night and it seems theres a solution, my speaker settings in the reciver have an option of setting the Bass Output to BOTH - which means it will send the LFE to the subwoofer out as well as to the mains.

sounds familiar