Sub woofing with 901's

Does your pre-amp have a sub out? If so, you are fine to run that to the sub.

Alternately: if your sub has L/R in and L/R out coax; then you can run from your pre-out to your sub in and from your sub out to your 901EQ in, and you'll be fine.

If not (if you are running L/R only), you'll need to y-cable off from the pre-outs before they get to the 901 EQ and into the sub. Note though that the 901s will still be running full range; you'll just have the sub in addition.

If you add an external subwoofer, all you need is some way to send the audio signal to it..

It can be a line-level signal through an RCA/coaxial cable, or you can just run a pair of wires from one of your main speakers to the subwoofer.

In making the change to a high-quality preamp and amplifier, it seems as if you want some high-quality sound. I don't think you will ever get it from 901s.

My advice would be to consider getting some new speakers.

70 watts per channel will run almost any speakers; there are VERY few that need more.

I would connect only the Mirage speakers and the subwoofer and see if that doesn't sound a lot better. Leave the rest unconnected.

I suspect it will.

Maybe you can sell those Bose speakers and spend the money on something else.

You can run a cable to the line-level input of the sub, or run wires from the terminals of one speaker to the speaker-level sub input; either will work well.

If he does that, then the sub will be getting the non-flat signal from the 901 EQ he has sitting between is pre-amp and amp. As a result, he will never be able to get proper performance from the sub.


88db sensitive speakers (there are lots) running the THX standard peaks (105db) for a listener 12' from the speaker in a reasonably dead (-6db/doubling) room.
That would take just under 1000W of power to do; assuming that there's no thermal compression from the speakers.

And even that's assuming it's an 8ohm load. A 4ohm load would be nearly 2000W.

Yes. Use the low-level (RCA) jacks so that the order is Pre -> Sub -> EQ -> Amp

Remember that your sub will control the crossover point; so the position of that dial matters.

If you auditioned many good speakers and those are what you liked; then those are what you liked. I can't say it's the route I would have gone; but I try to answer the questions asked rather than interject unrelated opinions.


I'm going to assume we are discussing a 2.1 system and not discussing using one pair as surrounds or the like.

I would advise against trying to run two different pairs of speakers for the same channels in the same room (two left-fronts, and two right-fronts). There are all sorts of cancellations and mis-matches you can run into. Worse: unless you have a separate amp to power them, you are changing significantly the amp load and could damage something.

The discussion changes if you have extra channels and we are discussing a separate room or surrounds.

Which model of Mirage do you have?