I used to have a home theatre in a box 5.1 set from JVC that had the 5 satellite speakers, the subwoofer, and the receiver/DVD player. The receiver/DVD player is long dead, so I've purchased a surround sound receiver.
The speakers and subwoofer all have the bare red and black wires coming out of them, and that's it. The new receiver had clips for all 5 speakers, no problem, however for the subwoofer it seemed to be looking for an RCA plug. Well all I've got on the subwoofer are the bare wires, so I took a trip to Radio Shack hoping for some kind of adapter to suit my needs.
I came home with what seems to be what I needed: It's red and black bare wires at one end, and RCA at the other. I am thinking that I need to solder this (never done that before) to the subwoofer's wires and plug the RCA end into the receiver. Does this sound right to anyone? Or am I just dreaming that this will work? I'm fairly naive to these things, and was hoping I could just touch the wires from the sub to the new wires I just bought with the RCA input; that of course did nothing. Any insight would be appreciated!
I think the subwoofer is passive, it does not have an amplifier of its own (it would have a power cord otherwise). The RCA out on the receiver is meant as an input to an amplified subwoofer. You have two options:
1. Buy an amplifier to drive the passive subwoofer.
2. Get a powered subwoofer.
Even if it costs more, I suggest the second option . Some options are Athena AS P4000 ($150) and HSU STF-2 ($400). Hope that helps...