OK. I need a hand hooking up my Onkyo sr600 to a subwoofer. I am waitng for my surround speakers to come in, but the sub (JBL PB12) has arrived. So, I connected it to the subwoffer/preout. I only have two other speakers attached to the front and set to small. I have gone through the speaker setup and selected subwoofer yes. When I run "test" both the front speakers and the sub play the white noise. The sub sounds nice and loud during the test. When I listen to a digital channel the sub plays but not very loud. When I listen to a non-digital channel the sub is not even detectable. So, am I doing something wrong (or is that an under-statement)? I would adventually like the sub to play for both digital and analog sources. Is this possible? Can I run both speaker level connections and the subwoofer out to accomplish this? I have the volume up to max on the sub and tried both LFE and normal settings on the sub. I also, checked the crossover settings on the sub and receiver. Please excuse the noob questions and lend a hand if you can. I appreciate it.
Anonymous
Posted on
I'm not familiar with the JBL sub, but from your message I gather it has both line level and speaker level inputs. If you use the sub pre-out on the SR600, then don't use speaker level at the same time. That would be redundant. You apparently have it hooked up correctly since you can test and get the white noise.
Check that you have the speakers set to small if you are using a 5.1 satellite system, as well as the crossover frequency you selected.
Check what sound mode you are listening to with your test music/movies, i.e. PLII, Direct (I think this uses only the front two speakers and no sub), All Channel Stereo, Dolby Digital, DTS, etc.
Anonymous
Posted on
Thanks for the reply. I am using stero mode which does send to the sub (direct, as you say does only play to the fronts) I still have the same issue. I have now tried connecting the sub via speaker level inputs and the sub again plays well. My problem is analog to the sub via the subwoofer out jack. (the sub barly plays) I think I must need a Y cable, in order to get both digital and analog to the sub. Can anyone confirm this?
Anonymous
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I just tried a Y adapter on advise by Onkyo Customer support (JBL sub says ut is not nessasary) I have the exact same problem, there is a huge difference between my speaker and line level connections to the sub and the line is worse??? Any ideas?
Anonymous
Posted on
I have a SR600 with a velodyne sub. I have it hooked up with a connection from the sub pre-out to the left line in. I have a CD player hooked up via stereo RCA in and a DVD player with an optical connection. I don't have any problems with the bass not going to the sub--not like that helps you any.
Did you check your level calibration for the subwoofer?
Check the audio selector for auto?
Make sure that you have your digital input associated correctly with your video. The digital inputs can be associated with most any other video input. I had accidentily plugged my DVD audio into optical 2 and the default is coax. That took me a minute to realize that I hooked it into a different connector.
hope this help
Anonymous
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Thanks. Digital works for me. (although questionbly) How do your analalog sources sound? Does the bass participate in stero mode? I get little to no sub activity listening to FM, for example.
Anonymous
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I just checked and FM sounds fine, as well as the CD player in stereo mode. I have the volume on the sub about 1/3 of the way up. I can tell when my sub kicks on with the auto sensing because (of sound obviously and) there is an LED on the back of the sub--red when off/green when on.
Also, depending on your source material, the sub may not kick in. If you put something bass heavy like Techno, you should notice the difference. You can try switching between direct and stereo to see if you hear a difference. Also, All Channel Stereo in a 5.1 setup will send a lot of bass to the sub (all the bass under the setup crossover frequency for 5 speakers).
Which line in side are you using? I think that the left side is typically used for a bypass of the sub's crossover. I didn't know if you had the crossover used on your sub while using the sub pre-out (thus filtering twice).
I believe using a Y connector will makes the sub kick in with less of a signal level needed.
Oh also, if you use speaker level then you will only be getting the bass that would normally go to 2 speakers. I don't believe you would get the bass that goes to the surround channels (when you get them).
Onkyo has hookup diagrams on their website too.
It sounds like you have everything set up as I do. I don't have a problem with it so I'm just tossing things out there to see if anything I can think of sticks. I'm just at a loss of words. Sorry.
Anonymous
Posted on
Who knew? I finally found the problem. I was walking through each and every one of my settings, for another post when I found that there is a SW(A/PCM) setting under audio adjust just after the bass and treble settings. I turned that on and the problem is solved. I wish the OSD and setting screens showed all the options, in every instance, but just did not allow you to set the ones un-available to you. Who knows if you try hard enough maybe one of the dynamically displayed menu items might say "receive 100% money back for receiver". I now feel stupid, but hope this helps any other equally brain dead individuals. Thanks anonymous for your help and confirmation that this could be done.