AR LS28 Subwoofer Mismatch
 

I purchased my first ever Audio Research unit this past fall. I love everything it does except one thing. It does not play nice with my PSA S15 subwoofer. There just isn't good bass at low volumes. [This sub only has line level inputs].

After much research I came to learn the input impedance of the subwoofer plate amp [27 kohms single ended] is too much of a load for the preamp.

As a test, I pulled out of storage my 19 year old MTX SW10 subwoofer which has high level input terminals and connected it to my amp terminals. Wow, bass galore. Not refined, but plenty of output.

Short of purchasing a new subwoofer is there anything like a High Low converter for 2 channel audio that is worth trying? Or perhaps a unit that goes between the preamp and the subwoofer that would line up the output impedance of the preamp with the input impedance of the sub?

thank you for your insight.

Percy

When I encountered a similar issue - tube preamp to low input impedance power amp, I ran a solid state preamp in between. I ran the solid state preamp at unity gain (HT bypass) or get a line level preamp. Perreaux used to make one.

Doggiehouser. Thank you for your input. I purchased a line amplifier/ buffer and it solved my problem.