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hooking up a standalone sub

post #1 of 7
8/22/11 at 9:38pm
Thread Starter 

Quick question. I'm considering buying a standalone powered sub to hook up to my laptop for a little more rumble. The sub in question is the sony sa-w2500 (http://www.amazon.com/Sony-SA-W2500-Performance-Line-Subwoofer/dp/B000OL3QTW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314074160&sr=8-1). Thing is, I know it has a line level input, but I'm not sure how I could make that work with my laptop. It comes with an rca cable, so I was thinking I could simply pop an adapter like this (http://www.amazon.com/PDIF-Adapter-3-5mm-MONO-Plug/dp/B001TKEGRI/ref=sr_1_5?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1314073997&sr=1-5) on one end of the cable and hook it up to my comp via the 1/8" port. Any idea if that would work? thanks!

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post #2 of 7
8/22/11 at 9:47pm

no that would not work, you need a receiver to use a sub... but then you also need speakers. the problem with just using the adapter is that when you plug into the port on the laptop the only sound your gonna get is rumbles and no more laptop speaker audio

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post #3 of 7
8/22/11 at 9:51pm
Thread Starter 

mybad, I should have explained more. I have two outputs on my laptop, and one of them is already routed to some active monitors. So the rumbles are the only things I'm looking for

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post #4 of 7
8/22/11 at 9:57pm
Are you using phones, speakers or the built in laptop drivers?

With headphones, if you really need that much more bass, I'd have to say those cans aren't right for your music.

With speakers, if you're using powered monitors or desktop speakers, you could split your output to go to your speakers through one output, and the sub with the other using the cable method you have already mentioned. You have to mess with the sub's Xover to get that right, but it shouldn't be too big of a problem.

If you're using the laptop speakers... all I can say is stop. Get yourself a receiver or something that has an LFE output to use the sub, hook it up to some good passive speakers, and you'll be much happier than the lappy speakers.

So yes it will work, but depending on your setup, there may be better options.
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post #5 of 7
8/22/11 at 10:00pm
Thread Starter 

thanks for the advice, yeah I plan on using the second method you mentioned with desktop speakers. Although I didn't think I would have to mess with the crossovers...whats the reasoning behind that?

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post #6 of 7
8/22/11 at 10:20pm
Well you won't have to, but the sub crossovers on the plate amps are usually weird and I've never found one that sounded right without tweaking that a bit. It's already there for you to mess with on that sub, so no worries about getting one, you just might need to tweak it to get it right for you.
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post #7 of 7
8/23/11 at 4:20pm

Well you could go with a sub with both RCA in/out eg: Dayton SUB-80

SUB-80AMP.jpg

hook sub from headphone jack lappie via 3.5mm/RCA to RCA in of sub, set crossover freq then send to active speakers from sub RCA out via RCA/RCA cable to audio in (RCA) of active speaker Err i am assuming by active speakers u mean something like Audioengine A2, M-Audio AV40, Edifier R1900TII, etc (with at least one set of RCA in) hehe Hmm perhaps hit an external DAC as well?

Untitled-2344.jpg


Edited by trog - 8/23/11 at 4:25pm
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