Connecting a Subwoofer with a Different Wiring Scheme

Q: I've got a question for you regarding the subwoofer hook up. I acquired a surround sound system from our previous home purchase and the wire set up was simply to hook up all of the mains from the receiver to the sub woofer and then back out to the 4 satellites. Now we've moved to a new home that was pre-wired for surround, but the wire configuration obviously does not match my last set up. They set up the sub woofer outlet with one co-axial type wire and one speaker wire. The receiver has it's own sub woofer output, but the sub woofer itself has two inputs: Input 1 is the regular left and right (pos/neg) open wire set up and Input 2 has a left and right audio cable set up. I have no clue how I'm going to make this work. Do I need to fish another speaker wire through to be able to hook up both the left and right mains again or is there a way I could use the single sub woofer output from the receiver? The problem for me seems to lie in the fact that the sub woofer requires both a left and right input set up.

Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Audioholics: I would terminate each end of the coax wire with an RCA type connector, if it already isn't done. Then, I would connect your subwoofer via the Line Level (RCA Connection) output from your receiver. At the end of the run (at the subwoofer), place a female-male Y-cable which will feed the signal equally into both of the Line Level inputs of your subwoofer. Be sure to set your receiver's speaker settings to "Small" if that is an option.

For more details about subwoofer connection methods, be sure to read:

• Subwoofer Connection to the Receiver Questions 
• Connecting a Subwoofer to a Receiver w/no Sub Out 
• Crawling For Bass

Enjoy the Music!