Hi

At the moment I have a surround system (5.1) with a subwoofer that plugs in and has a couple of inputs (1 x optical) (1 X coaxial) and (2 X phono). I want to purchase something like ONKYO TXSR577 HOME CINEMA RECEIVER. I have PS3, Xbox, Wii and a pc that I want to plug through, I have 5 other speakers, but can I use the subwoofer or will I need a new one? What is meant by active and passive subwoofer, any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance

Hello Ryk, welcome to the forum.

As far as your question on active vs passive subwoofers goes, an active subwoofer has it's own amplifier built into it to power the driver. A passive subwoofer has a driver and enclosure but rely's on external amplification to power it.

In order to use a passive subwoofer it would have to be very efficient to be of much use. Subwoofers generally suck up a lot more wattage than normal speakers. And for the most part recievers don't have a power channel for the subwoofer, it's a passive channel since active subwoofers are much more common than passive subwoofers are. So you would need to purchase an external amplifier to push it with.

If your subwoofer is anything like my fathers Bose subwoofer, you can run the speaker wires from your reciever to the subwoofer, and then back out to your speakers. This way the sub can be powered by the reciever. But depending on what speakers you own, I don't know how well this would work, I don't know if the subwoofer would use too much of your available power or not? And as far as buying an external amp to run the subwoofer, you might actually just be better off investing in an active subwoofer. You can find many affordable offering on the internet these days.