AMP and Speakers query

Townlea · 27 Sep 2006 at 19:22

Hi there

Need a little bit of help regarding my Hi-Fi …

Currently I have a NAD amp and with 2 mission speakers connected up…

I have a spare subwoofer from my Phillips Surround sound system under the telly

Would I be able to hook the subwoofer up to the amp aswell as the speakers…

Just asking due to different ohms etc – I don’t know much regarding that side of sound systems so best asking you lot

Thanks

daz · 27 Sep 2006 at 19:29

It's possible if your amplifier has a sub-woofer pre-out, however these are usually most common on AV amps.

Otherwise, I really wouldn't. A subwoofer is only a single speaker, and as such you would need to load one channel on your stereo amp with it. Assuming your speakers are 8 ohms and the subwoofer 4, this would bring the impedance on one channel down to 6 ohms, with the subwoofer and one of your speakers sharing the power meant for one channel. Not to mention it's a cheap Phillips subwoofer.

Townlea · 27 Sep 2006 at 19:40

daz said:
It's possible if your amplifier has a sub-woofer pre-out, however these are usually most common on AV amps.

Otherwise, I really wouldn't. A subwoofer is only a single speaker, and as such you would need to load one channel on your stereo amp with it. Assuming your speakers are 8 ohms and the subwoofer 4, this would bring the impedance on one channel down to 6 ohms, with the subwoofer and one of your speakers sharing the power meant for one channel. Not to mention it's a cheap Phillips subwoofer.

The Surround sound system did cost me £380 so I dunno if thats cheap

I can see where your coming from....

I have A speakers and B speakers.... I can play just using A speakers or just B and then I can play both ... the missions are on A so if i put the Sub on B will that be ok you think?

My knowledge in this area is appauling so sorry if I am talking ****

fish99 · 27 Sep 2006 at 23:02

You'll probably find if you're using speaker A + B both sets of speakers have to be 8 ohm. Your amp manual will tell you though. If that's what it says then I wouldn't try it.

I don't really see the point anyway, wouldn't it just sound a mess? You're not talking about speakers and sub that were designed to work together here. The tone could be different, the frequency ranges could overlap, plus any sub with a £380 surround sound all-in-one system is likely to be pretty poor given the amount of components you get for your money.

How about some mission floorstanders instead?

squiffy · 27 Sep 2006 at 23:10

I wouldn't recommend using a POS subwoofer into a decent quality stereo system, it'll just make it sound worse. You'll need to use a crossover below your mission speakers for the subwoofer to reproduce, otherwise you'll just send full-range or frequencies around the mission speakers, making it sound boomy.

If you want a subwoofer in a 2 channel system, buy a good one. Or if room allows buy speakers with wider frequency response.

Look for a Rel ST line of subwoofers, these have crossovers, are active and are somewhat better than a "subwoofer" that's bundled with a TV.

Townlea · 28 Sep 2006 at 23:21

fish99 said:
How about some mission floorstanders instead?

I've been looking at them but they wouldn't be much of an improvement over my current speaker.

Don't need any more help guys - it was just an experiment

Thanks all