home theater speaker question

[bazookaman]

I've had a set of Cambridge Soundworks home theater speakers for a LONG time. The 2 fronts look like this:


At any rate, according to the manual, you connect the subs to the satellites than to the receiver. Or sats to sub than receiver or any variation thereof. But you always connected the speakers together first. And that's how I've always run them. But I am wondering, since the manual actually refers to the larger speakers a subwoofers, can I connect them to my subwoofer output on my receiver? I don't know why I couldn't. There was just no mention of that in the manual. But that may have been b/c separate sub-outs on receivers weren't de rigueur then? I don't know.

[Robert M]

Bazooka,

Something doesn't make sense... The only time I've ever connected speakers together is with computer oriented speakers. Connect the left speaker to the right speaker and then the right speaker to the computer. Or, connect both the left and right speakers to the sub and in turn connect the sub to the computer.

For a home theater system configuration, it's different in my experience. Connect each speaker to the appropriate location on the receiver. Subwoofer and only subwoofer always go to the sub port via a subwoofer cable instead of regular speaker cable.

I'm hoping people with more a/v experience can jump in and clarify and help out. You may also want to call Cambridge Soundworks. If anyone can help you, it'll be the tech support at Cambridge. Great company! Owned by Creative these days if I remember correctly but still a great company!

Robert

[bazookaman]

Yep. I just downloaded the manual and looked through it.

There are 3 options for connecting to the receiver.

[mikebw]

The Cambridge set you have are what I would call full-range speakers. Many home theater setups these days use mid-high range speakers on all the channels and then supplement that with a subwoofer. It's up to you how you want it to work, but most receivers will allow you to pick a crossover frequency for the signals going to the surround speakers. If you want to keep the fronts as full-range just wire them together as you always have, and be sure to set your receiver accordingly.
You could potentially use the secondary woofers from your set as the dedicated subwoofer for the whole system, however the receiver is most likely only sending out a non-amplified signal, so you would need a subwoofer amplifier to power them.

EDIT: all that was assuming you are using a multichannel receiver. but now I see you may not be.

[Filliam H. Muffman]

You can get undesirable results if there is a low pass filter in both the sub woofer and on the sub-out on the receiver.

[mikebw]

bazookaman wrote:
can I connect them to my subwoofer output on my receiver?

(Just to clarify my other post) This seems to be the main issue. You could technically connect them, but the sub output on your receiver is most likely not powered, meaning the speakers won't produce any sound.

[bazookaman]

I actually dug up the manual for my new receiver and it does only have a powered sub output. So it's a moot point. My old receiver actually had speaker level connections with a built in amp.

[tuqqer]

DAmn. I used to own that exact set up. Paid a fortune for it, back around 1993 I think.

[bazookaman]

tuqqer wrote:
DAmn. I used to own that exact set up. Paid a fortune for it, back around 1993 I think.

Yeah. I've had them for awhile. I've 2 more for the surrounds and a vertical oriented center channel. I guess that's a testament to their quality. They still sound great. never had a problem with them.