Steven H Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 Hello All, My dad has his home system set up for surround with sub inside the living room. On the back patio he has his B speakers hooked up. He want to add a sub for the B speakers outside. Can he take off from a L or R wire or does he have to run a new wire back to head unit? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Astra.Xtreme Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 You'll need to splice into the subwoofer output of the head unit/receiver. The satellite speaker channels are the mids and highs and the subwoofer channel is the lows, so you shouldn't mix and match. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven H Posted July 22, 2014 Author Share Posted July 22, 2014 You'll need to splice into the subwoofer output of the head unit/receiver. The satellite speaker channels are the mids and highs and the subwoofer channel is the lows, so you shouldn't mix and match. And we need to make sure to Ohms are matched as well correct? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Astra.Xtreme Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 And we need to make sure to Ohms are matched as well correct? Ideally you want it to be about the same. If they're labeled as 6 Ohms, you can go with an 8 Ohm speaker, but it won't be able to get as loud. Inversely, you could go with a 4 Ohm speaker, but it may overload the receiver at high volumes. If you don't plan on cranking it up too high, you will probably be fine with any speaker. Also, I'd probably suggest a powered subwoofer so that it doesn't have to feel off the power from the receiver. The more you have to suck from the receiver, the less volume you'll be able to pull from it. A powered sub has the advantage of having a built-in amplifier, which is nice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven H Posted July 22, 2014 Author Share Posted July 22, 2014 Ideally you want it to be about the same. If they're labeled as 6 Ohms, you can go with an 8 Ohm speaker, but it won't be able to get as loud. Inversely, you could go with a 4 Ohm speaker, but it may overload the receiver at high volumes. If you don't plan on cranking it up too high, you will probably be fine with any speaker. Also, I'd probably suggest a powered subwoofer so that it doesn't have to feel off the power from the receiver. The more you have to suck from the receiver, the less volume you'll be able to pull from it. A powered sub has the advantage of having a built-in amplifier, which is nice. Thanks for the advice, My old Dad surely won't be cranking it up so we should be ok. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HawkMan Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 You'll need to splice into the subwoofer output of the head unit/receiver. The satellite speaker channels are the mids and highs and the subwoofer channel is the lows, so you shouldn't mix and match. Unless it's a receiver you can set speakers to "small" and they're set as small the output to the speaker is the full range and you can use it as a output for the sub, the sub will have a frequency range knob of its own. Of course this is generally only useful, with subs with stereo input and amplified stereo speaker outputs like my Dali, but I don't use that function anyway Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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