Get an exclusive sneak peek into our new project. >>> Click Here

Complete Newbie Needing Some Sub Advice

825 Views 6 Replies 4 Participants Last post by bobknavs, Jul 17, 2021

pikeg123

Discussion Starter · Jul 12, 2021

Hi Folks, I wonder if you could shed some light on a very minor issue I'm having..

First of all, I'm a newbie to the world of AV receivers and powered subs etc, I recently invested in my first basic set up

I had some very nice Denon speakers spare and thought to put them to work.. So I'm moving away from the out of the box Bose Cinemate system that I was running, I've now got the components below:

Receiver - Pioneer VSX-S300k Slimline
Subwoofer - Pioneer S21-W Active
Speakers - Denon SC-M37

To some of you experts out there, these may seem basic/cheap but they sound great to me so far, the sound stage seems so much wider than my old Bose bar..

The only trouble I'm having is that the Sub is not waking up when I switch the system on.. I have to unplug the RCA and plug it back in to get it to boot.. However, once its on it seems to be fine, its just the first power up it seems to struggle.

So far I've bumped the decibels up to +8dbs on the sub channel and turned the sub volume down a touch to see if that cures it, but not quite.. I'm thinking would it be down to the pretty thin unknown RCA cable I'm using to connect them together?

Any advice would be fantastic

PS. I have to say it blows the Bose away!

Save

1 - 7 of 7 Posts

bobknavs

· #2 · Jul 12, 2021

It's not the cable. The input impedance of the powered sub should be high (tens of kilohms).

You could just turn off the "auto standby" switch. The sub would be on all the time, but many subs draw about as much power in standby mode as they do while on but with no input signal.

Save

bargugl

· #3 · Jul 12, 2021

If the sub has two rca input connections, you can get a y splitter and plug in both inputs. That will give you more gain on the signal. Or you can just leave it in the on mode as noted above.

Save

Reactions: 1

bobknavs

· #4 · Jul 12, 2021

bargugl said:
If the sub has two rca input connections, you can get a y splitter and plug in both inputs. That will give you more gain on the signal. Or you can just leave it in the on mode as noted above.

It appears to have a single input.

Save

dpc716

· #5 · Jul 12, 2021

Are your speakers set to small in the receiver? Did you run the calibration?

Save

pikeg123

Discussion Starter · #6 · Jul 13, 2021

Evening folks, the speakers are set as small with the sub switched on.. As for centre and surround, I've turned those channels off as I don't use them.

Amazingly today, I took a chance on an Amazon Basics Subwoofer cable.. Since installing this the sub has noticeably gotten louder and it kicked in and powered up almost straight away!

I can only assume that the cheapy, skinny RCA cable that I was using was just too restrictive for the signal to get through. Silly me, I took a regular (red/white) stereo cable and split it in two, throwing one half and using just a single one.. Thinking this would be enough..

I didn't think the cable alone would be a big deal but in this case its made a huge difference.

Save

bobknavs

· #7 · Jul 17, 2021

pikeg123 said:
Evening folks, the speakers are set as small with the sub switched on.. As for centre and surround, I've turned those channels off as I don't use them.

Amazingly today, I took a chance on an Amazon Basics Subwoofer cable.. Since installing this the sub has noticeably gotten louder and it kicked in and powered up almost straight away!

I can only assume that the cheapy, skinny RCA cable that I was using was just too restrictive for the signal to get through. Silly me, I took a regular (red/white) stereo cable and split it in two, throwing one half and using just a single one.. Thinking this would be enough..

I didn't think the cable alone would be a big deal but in this case its made a huge difference.

Odd. The input impedance of a typical powered sub is high (tens of kilohms.), so the impedance of any cable ought to have no impact, at least in terms of volume. I wonder what was wrong with the old RCA cable?

Glad that it's working, even if I can't understand why.

Save

1 - 7 of 7 Posts

This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.

Top Contributors this Month