psw10

bolelet1

After an extended vacation abroad, I came back just recently to find my power sub not working. The first time I plugged it in, the red light was on then switched it to auto and the green light turned on without even a music playing. When I started playing a music, I noticed that there is no sound coming out from the sub. So I played around with switch and the controls to no avail. What could be wrong with it? Please help me! Thanks.

[Deleted User]

Hello Bolet1,
Thanks for contacting us. Here's a fool proof way to test to see if the sub-woofer is the cause:
1). turn the volume all of the way down on the sub-woofer and remove all of the connecting cables/wires except the AC power cord.
2). find the right and left RCA cables that go from your DVD player to the receiver and remove them at the back of the receiver.
3). bring the DVD player over to the sub-woofer and provide AC power for the DVD player, then connect the right and left RCA cables from the DVD player to the corresponding right and left inputs on the sub-woofer.
4). begin playing any CD (not a DVD, but a CD) and turn the volume up slightly on the sub-woofer. There should be plenty of clean sounding bass with no bad noises. Let the CD play completely through and try stopping and starting the player.
Let me know the results.
Regards, Ken, Polk

bolelet1

Hi Kenneth,

I followed everything you said and the sub worked. It produced a clean sounding bass as you mentioned. But when I hooked the CD player back, it did the same thing - no bass sound coming from the sub. What is the next thing to do? Thanks. Bolelet1

[Deleted User]

Hello,
The next step is to test your sub cable. To do this you would remove the two RCA cables that were going from the DVD player to the sub-woofer, be sure to turn the volume down first. Then place your sub cable in either the right or left input on the sub-woofer. Then connect the other end of the sub cable into either the right or left output on the DVD player. Begin playing a CD and turn the volume up on the sub-woofer. Here again if there's no bass then you have a bad cable. If you hear bass information you have a problem with the receiver's sub out connection.
Regards, Ken

bolelet1

Hi Ken,

You're right the culprit is the cable. I will buy replacement cable first thing tomorrow. Do you think I should try using a Y-cable going to the sub? Thanks. Sonny

Jed Leland

Hello,
Great that you were able to figure out what was the problem, the cable is the easiest to deal with. There's no need to use a Y cable, the amp in the sub adds the left and right inputs together, so a connection to one is the same as a connection to the other. If you use a Y cable the signal from the receiver is divided in half by the two inputs in the sub, then added together for the same result. So either connect to right or left and rotate the low pass filter to highest setting to get its low pass filter point above the filter coming from the receiver. This avoids double-filtering.
Jed

bolelet1

Thanks Jed,

That will also save me some money. Can always rely on this site.

Jed Leland

I'm glad the info was helpful, got to keep good sound flowing!