Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Help me with my little axiom system....please

Well I guess I should stop lurking around here. I'm putting together my first Axiom system and I'm VERY excited about it. This is a small bedroom (about 12'x13') stereo system consisting of a pair of M22's and an EP125. The EP125 was delivered this week and I briefly had some time to listen to it. WOW!! that little thing is EXACTLY what I was going for. Tight, musical, punchy bass. Thanks Axiom. Anyway, here's my question. I'm having to use an old Kenwood reciever with no sub out to power things. Currently I'm running from the "Fronts" to the line level "in" on the sub. So this means that I'll have to run my M22's from the EP125. Correct? Also, could I get a good integrated amp (ie. NAD C370) and connect the sub to one of the pre-amp outputs? Thanks for the help guys. You're all great. I'm also open to any other solution ideas that you all might have.

Jason

Jason, it isn't entirely clear from your description what you have connected to the sub's line level input, since your receiver doesn't have a sub output. Ordinarily, speaker wire would be used to the sub's high level inputs and then the M22s would either be fed through the sub's speaker level outputs or they would also be powered directly from the receiver terminals, in parallel with the sub.

Ok I'll try to clear things up.
I'm running wires from the reciever speaker out to the sub's high level in. I know that I can run the M22's then from the sub's speaker level outputs, but how would I run them from the reciever's speaker outputs?

Okay, so you're actually using the sub's speaker level inputs. The alternative parallel connection I mentioned simply has speaker wires attached to the receiver's speaker terminals right alongside the wires to the sub and then directly to the terminals on the M22s, as usual. Note that the speaker wires to the sub would then carry essentially zero power, since the input impedance of the sub amp is in the tens of thousands of ohms and doesn't permit any significant power to flow.

Hmmm....and this "parallel" connection is clean and safe?? This is the first time I've heard of this type of connection. Thanks for the help though. I'll experiment with it.

Yes, it's safe; as I said, the sub wires then carry essentially zero power, just the audio signal. So far as "clean", some claim that going through the sub degrades the signal, which I think is highly unlikely if it's just an unfiltered straight feed-through. It's probably just a question of convenience in deciding which connection to use.

My solution for using a sub with a situation like yours was to run the sub off of the tape out ports on the receiver, and the speakers out of the speaker outputs on the receiver. I found that this sounded better (although it could have been my imagination).

Well, to awnser the question of running a sub out of the second pre-amp outputs on the NAD, yes you can. Or you could do it on one of the two tape outputs. But it would be better to hook it to the second pre-out because when you turn the volume up on the amp, it will make the sub volume go up too.

Well...thanks again for all the help. It's great to know that there's so many experts around here.

Jason

Ah, mine didn't have a second pre-out. That would have been nice...