Someone I know had a 2.1 Sound system that he was no longer using and "gave" it to me (as in, giving a case of beer in return). The set consists of one active top, one passive top and an active subwoofer:
He gave me a bunch of cables and explained to me how to wire it up. When I got home and looked at the setup and all connections, I was pretty sure there were some major problems with the way he had it setup.
These are the connections of the active speaker:
These are the connections of the passive speaker:
These are the connections of the active subwoofer:
The manual labels the XLR connectors "Line In" and "Line Out".
The way he had it hooked up was as follows:
The cable he gave me to make connection 1, was a self-made SpeakOn P2 cable. Instead of a special cable, he used ordinary speaker cable, like this one:
And for connection two, he used an ordinary SpeakOn to XLR cable. The packaging of the cable didn't mention anything special, just that it was a SpeakOn to XLR speaker cable.
Now the problems I see with this are multiple:
First of all, the input at the active speaker. He connects both L & R outputs from the mixer, while it looks that the connectors are hooked up in parallel. So you can plug a line source in either one, and use the other one as a "through". By hooking up both, he is effectively shorting the two outputs on the mixer side which can eventually destroy your mixer.
Second, the connection from the passive speaker to the subwoofer, he is connecting a speaker level output to a line level input. I cannot imagine this is very healthy for the subwoofer...
Third, this effectively is a mono system because the audio coming from the active speaker is simply duplicated at the other speakers.
Also, even without the subwoofer connected and even though the passive speaker is actually the exact same speaker (albeit passive) as the active speaker, the passive speaker is a lot less loud than the active speaker.
To start with the last problem, could this be caused by the poor quality, home-made speaker cable he gave me?
Most importantly, what would be the best way to hook up this system?
I was thinking the following: Get rid of the passive speaker and replace that with another active speaker. Then give each speaker it's own Line Input coming from my mixer (my mixer has 3 (L&R) line output). So each top will have its own channel giving me stereo sound and the subwoofer will be connected to either L or R.
So my questions really are:
- Are my assumptions about the original setup correct (that it will eventually destroy your equipment)?
- Is my setup the best way to set up this system?
