I am looking at adding a subwoofer to my setup. PS Audio Sprout, Totem Rokks, Rega RP3 and more. I don’t know a lot about subs and setups so apologies if standard knowledge/ covered everywhere else.
My understanding is there are two general sub outputs possible:
Add a sub that has speaker cable in/outs before going to the speakers that helps filter out some of the audio to prevent duplication and some bass being overpowered because it is being covered by the speakers as well. It then also uses the audio out (potentially?)
A sub that just takes the analog in from the sprout, and then there is some sort of gain or adjustment on frequencies.
Is there a better setup out of the two? For the 2nd option, how would I determine what adjustment would I make on the sub? How would I determine it given my speaker setup? How does the sprout handle this/ help with balancing?
Any ideas/ articles to read to help me get smart on this… lots of audio stuff out there, but haven’t seen any good adding a sub posts with 2.1 systems anywhere?
Hi Jared. There are two schools of thought on this - the two you mentioned. My preference has always been to find a subwoofer with high level inputs from the speakers - or more properly put, from the output of the power amp - because this helps everything sound the same. Though either method you describe works fine.
The easiest type of subwoofer to find these days, however, is the second kind - where we take the analog output of the Sprout and feed it into the subwoofer’s input. This is by far the most popular and easiest to find. You turn the volume level of the sub up or down by ear - how it sounds. The idea of a subwoofer is to help your main speakers sound like they have low bass - and to do so without pointing to itself. I put on a record with a bass guitar and slowly turn the subwoofer up until the main speakers all of a sudden have plenty of low bass, but I don’t hear where it is coming from - it sounds like the bass player is still; coming from the main speakers.
In my “office” system I have a pair of minimonitors (Sequerra Met 7 Mk. II’s) and a small REL subwoofer that connects exactly as Paul recommends - via the speaker outputs of an amp. It works beautifully. Haven’t really tried it via the preamp outs, since REL suggests using the high-level connection. But I do recommend the little REL’s - they seem to wring wonderful musical performance out of even their cheaper models.
(One caveat: mine is very sensitive to line noise. I have heard others say similar things about REL’s. I ended up having to switch out an offending computer power supply, but since I did that, it’s been great.)