Hey all, I’m new to the HiFi world and am absolutely enthralled by the newfound love I have for all the music I’ve listened to in my 22 years. Over the past month I have invested in Paradigm Monitor SE Atoms for a Near-Field setup on my desk, along with a Topping PA3 as the dedicated amplifier for the set.
I am very happy with these speakers but they lack the low end punch I’m looking for with the Paradigms (IMO) Bright sound signature. However my Topping only has a left and right channel output for 2 speakers. I’ve been doing some searching and discovered RCA Y splitters. I have a FiiO e10k dac/amp for my headphones with a 3.5mm line out currently feeding my topping (0db gain when using the speakers). I was wondering if it would be ok to split the 3.5mm output into 2 sets of RCA outputs and connect one to the topping and one to a powered sub (or would this introduce timing issues, etc?). I know its a bit janky but if this is not viable should i replace my Topping PA3 for something with a sub-out? If anyone has any ideas please let me know.
Good first post, welcome aboard. I liked to know the answer. You could get a sub with high imputs to get signal from the speaker wires. Elac sub1010 example. Hear its more hifi if you get the signal from hi-level imputs.
In the case of the topping, I’m using banana plugs to feed the speakers. Can I use the bananas and then use bare speaker wire to feed the high level input of the Elac or some other woofer?
Here I have the bananas for the Left and Right channels. If i unscrewed the binding posts and added some speaker wire to the image above, would I be able to feed the woofer (leaving the bananas in)? Maybe its a fire hazard lol.
Just to confirm, Your saying I can use the Bananas and the bare wire at the same time? Just want to make sure we are on the same page. Also I thought about doing that, but that would require me bypassing the Topping i think.
Basically if your sub doesn’t have a pass though, you can split the line level or speaker level outputs to the sub.
If the sub has a passthrough, line level or speaker level use it. The reason it’s there is to act as a crossover, so your small speakers aren’t trying to reproduce the low bass that is now being done by the sub.
You can fairly effectively tune a sub with the natural rollout off of the speaker, but it’s more messing around.
I haven’t bought anything yet, but I’ve heard good things about the BIC America F12 which i attached. If you guys have any recomendations (bedroom sized room), im all ears
Yes. But as mentioned above, you may want to wire from amp → sub and, sub → speakers. This way you get the crossover functionality built into the sub. The crossover will remove the low frequencies from your speakers and allow them to operate with less stress.