[schirpich]

About a week or two ago I posted how I unintentionally destroyed my 10 year old Klipsch 4.1v2's by stupidly positioning the sub port down at the floor. It was raised off the ground, but not enough. Anyhow, after reading the forums here for a bit I pulled the trigger and got a pair of Swan D1080mkII's and am loving them.

They really do give you quite a bang for the buck and am very happy with the purchase. But having come from a 4.1 I would like to get some real grunt behind them. I tried hooking them up to my old Yamaha HTR-5730 receiver along with the sub it came with (i believe its a 6 inch 45w down-firing sub) and the Swan's simply over powered the sound that the little sub could produce cleanly. In a way, I thought that was absolutely fantastic

. But now I'm left searching for a sub that can play well with the Swan's. I've read that many of you out there recommend the Dayton sub's from parts-express. The price point is excellent, 100 - 150 bucks USD. I've got my eye on these here...


Dayton SUB-100 HT Series 10" 125 Watt
Parts-Express.com:*Dayton SUB-100 HT Series 10" 125 Watt Powered Subwoofer | subwoofer sub powered sub SUB-100 home theater 5.1 7.1 surround bass LFE Theaters110308 gifts1117 WinningSubwoofers

Dayton SUB-80 8" HT Series 80 Watt
Parts-Express.com:*Dayton SUB-80 8" HT Series 80 Watt Powered Subwoofer | Dayton SUB-80 subwoofer sub powered sub SUB-80 home theater 5.1 7.1 surround bass LFE Theaters110308 gifts1117 cyber121 WinningSubwoofers

Dayton ES8 Elite Series 100 Watt 8"
Parts-Express.com:*Dayton ES8 Elite Series 100 Watt 8" Powered Subwoofer | dayton audio HSU subwoofer hsu subwoofer powered subwoofer 8" subwoofer home theater subwoofer ht subwoofer hsu LCS122208 WinningSubwoofers Dayton25Speakers063009

I listen to a very wide variety of music and some genre's just don't sound the same without the beat behind it. If anyone could give me an idea of which of these ( or any others around that price point ) would be a suitable match power wise, I would appreciate the advice.

Right now I've got these plugged into a Creative Labs X-Fi Platinum, however I'm running Ubuntu Linux, and creative has some pretty crappy driver support. So I lose a lot of the features of the sound card. No use of the front panel, meaning no optical, no spdif blah blah blah. Sucks, I know.

I'm not against hooking them back up via sound card >> HTR-3750 >> D1080's when I get the sub. But I would have to get the proper cables as the output's from the HTR-3750 require I get banana plugs to RCA's (Correct me if I am wrong there). But if I can avoid that I wouldn't mind it as it would save me a ton of space. Would going from sound card >> random dayton sub >> d1080's be ok considering the sub is active as are the d1080's?

A lot of questions, for a hungry mind. Hit me! Thanks in advance

 

[twylight]

on the 10" one you would go:
sound card - rca cable (splitter cable to RCAs probably) - sub inputs, rca cable from sub outputs to d1080 - set the high/low pass on the sub directly

I actually did this recently with an old deftech sub and some m-audio monitors

 

[schirpich]

I'm not sure if I follow exactly, looking at the rear panel in the pictures I get a bit lost when you mentioned a splitter. I guess my question is, which inputs should be used for what devices?

According to the attachments, which would be right,,,, or are both totally wrong?

 

[taso89]

You should use the RCA outputs, not the speaker-level binding posts because the Swans are already powered. There are some subs (like the ones in the pictures you posted) that have a pass-through; you can connect your source's RCA outputs to the sub, and then out of the sub to your speakers. In other words, the sub has RCA inputs and outputs.

This is a preferred solution to those subs that only have RCA inputs (like mine). If you get a sub that only has inputs, you have to get RCA splitters that you connect from your source, so that you can supply both your sub and your Swans with the signal.

Oh, and as far as sub choice goes.. Pick one with some very low extension (the lower the Hz extension the better). Ideally something that hits as low as 25Hz would be nice, because the Swans go down to like 60Hz themselves.

 

[schirpich]

Thanks for the info, that clears everything up.

So now that I know the Dayton's with low level inputs and output's would be ideal. Does anyone know if the AudioSource PSW-110 has low level input and output's? I see in the parts express site that it mentions it a bit, but finding exact spec's on the inputs and outputs has proven difficult.

Parts Express mentions this...
Quote:

Speaker level inputs allow you to connect directly from your amplifier/receiver's power outputs for signal. Stereo line level inputs offer the ability to use the PSW110 seamlessly with a two channel stereo setup.

Makes it sound like it is similar to the Dayton's, but the images offer no rear view or spec's that would indicate the input/output's exactly. But it does lead me to believe I could use a male 3.5mm to female 3.5mm splitter, one side going directly to the Swan's and the other going directly to the audio source sub making them independent of each other.

Where as with the Dayton's I could daisy chain them via the low level RCA in/outs. Or if I wanted to I could use the 3.5mm splitter method. Is it safe to assume that the daisy chain method would be ideal?