What cable???

You have a passive subwoofer. That means there is no amplifier in it. So you cannot plug it into the subwoofer output of your AVR. Run the left and right front speaker cables to it, and then cables from the subwoofer to your left and right front speakers.

It is a passive sub. You can't connect the two the way you are wanting. Either replace the sub with a powered sub (that will have an RCA jack) or you have to wire the sub to the front speaker outputs (1 red/black for left and 1 red/black for right).

B.

Depending on the crossover settings of your AVR and/or the gain settings on your sub(do passive subs have gain?).

Let's say you set the X-over on your AVR to 100KZ, everything below goes to the sub, everything above goes to your main speakers.

So, therefore your mains will no longer reproduce the low end bass. However, depending on how low your mains go, they may not be able to go as low as your sub, so you may gain some low end.

...But...

Passive subs, tend not to go as low as powered subs.

So, you need to find out what the response range is for both your mains, and your sub. If the sub goes lower, then use it, if not, then just use your mains until you get a sub that can go lower.

??

I'm guessing this is some generalization referring to HTIB sub, or ???

Yeah, it's a generalization. When I was looking for a sub, I started out looking at passive subs, for price points, but saw that they rarely went as low as powered subs.

However...this may be due to driver size. Most passive subs, that I looked at, had 6" or 8" drivers. Whereas, the powered subs were 10", 12", and even 15" drivers.

So with that said, it is only from my experience that I found that passive subs did not go as low as powered subs.

just so you begin to have some context, take a look at the JTR Captivator and/or CHT passive subs. A whoe different arena . . .

The JBL will be using your receiver's powr amps, and splitting the lows into the sub drivers and the highs to your left and right. It will do what it's supposed to do. Your receiver's crossover will have no effect, since it divides between the non-subs and the sub preamp output. So you should set your speakers to "large" or whatever turns off bass management - -ie no crossover.

Depending on how loudly you listen, this could work just fine. You lose some flexibility to set different crossover points, and how well the sub and L&R speakers blend will depend on the L&R speakers' extension into the bass.

Use speaker wire. Connect both right and left, or bass will be out of balance (too low), and your L&R may be audibly mismatched because one is receiving a full range signal and the other a high passed signal (ie less bass sent to the speaker connected ot the sub)

Danke, I'll keep those in mind for when I get my second sub(gotta get that past the vife first though).

Since we are on the passive subs thing, and back to the OP's querie, when a passive sub is hooked up to the AVR, is there any more or less SQ issues vs a powered sub through the RCA out?

It seems to me, that it would all depend on the cross-over setting, but since passive subs are a "pass-through" for higher frequencies for the mains, is there a SQ loss?

With a passive sub, you set your front/main speakers to "large" in the AVR. The LPF in the sub's x-over does what it's intended to do (when using speaker level in/out). The AVR's x-over is meaningless when using a passive sub. Set the AVR to "large" and "no sub" and hope you have enough power.

When using a passive subwoofer, the AVR has no way of knowing how to redirect low frequencies.

So it would not be a good idea to mix a passive and a powered sub in the same set up then?

Or get a separate amp to drive the sub, and connect it via the sub out from the AVR, in which case it's just like a powered sub only in 2 pieces instead of one (sort of).

If you use the AVR's amps to drive the passive sub, you won't be able to balance the active and passive subs to get the correct bass level. If you want "too much" bass, you might be okay.

If you connect just a passive sub to the AVR's amps and set a crossover at 100 Hz, there is no speaker anywhere in the system that will receive any sound below the crossover point (once it rolls off - - crossovers are slopes, not brick walls). All the lows are being routed to that subwoofer output on the AVR that is not connected to anything. That's why people are saying set the mains as large . . .

It could be or it couldn't be. For starters, one has to understand how it all works.

Lot's of curve balls being thrown without reading and/or understanding as it pertains to this thread.

what does "center port" mean? Do you have 2 center speakers?

Read the manual for your AVR. It may assume every center channel speaker is small and send the bass either to the sub or, if no sub is implemented, to the left and right channels. Go into the receiver's setup menu and tell it there is no subwoofer. To the receiver subwoofer means sub out preamp channel and you do not have anything connected to that. If the receiver thinks you have a sub it will send the bass into oblivion.

Plug the speaker wires from the left and right channels of the receiver into the JBL. Run additional speaker wires from the JBL to the left and right speakers. See what happens.

If it's multichannel, doesn't it have a speaker setup where you set sub, surrounds and center to on or off?

I still don't know what a "center speaker port" is. Is this on your computer? on the receiver? How is the computer connected to the receiver? From what output to what input? Are these all powered speakers *plug them into the wall?) You do not want to feed the speaker output from a receiver into the inputs of powered speakers unless you want to destroy the speakers.

Let's try to rehash the directions. Here's where you start:

Red and black wires from speaker terminals on the back of the receiver/amp (front right).
Red and black wires from receiver/amp to subwoofer's speaker "Right speaker INPUT" (also red and black)
Do the same for the LEFT speaker.

Run a speaker wire from the subwoofer's "right OUTPUT" to the right/front speaker.
Do the same for the LEFT speaker.

I'm lost (and perhaps you also) and give up.

Hope you get an answer. Good luck.

I believe I understand your situation. I would get rid of the sub and purchase a powered sub. I'm sure you can find an inexpensive one if you want to keep the budget low.

This is your best option.

B.

1. You can't follow the manuals instruction because you have a passive sub woofer. You will not use the LFE input out output. Let the electronics will think you have a 5.0 system.

2. Send all the bass to your mains. Left and Right. And stop using your center.

3. Do you see all the hook ups on the back of the subwoofer? Notice the R and L near the 2 clusers. That is L left and R right. Plug you left speaker output from your AVR into the Left input on your sub. Do the same with the Right.

4. Connect your real Left and Right speakers to the subwoofers correct L/R output.

5. Getting a powered sub or a dedicated amp for you passive sub (subwoofer RCA output to dedicated amp) will fix all of this.


Good Luck!

So now you have a sub and a center playing?

Are you left and right speakers connected to the sub ?


Also it is better you don't start new threads so people can see what the whole situation is.

Are there any knobs or dials on your subwoofer?

Good Luck!

How does it matter where the sub is set if there is nothing connected to the output that the sub level controls?