I suppose I could ask this question on some audio board, but I'm sure I'll get the answer here.

I'm hooking up a good old-fashioned stereo in my office. It'll be used for both home theater sound, and listening to CDs (yes, I still listen to CDs). My subwoofer has both an LFE connection (RCA cable), and speaker pass-through connectors. Am I right in thinking I don't need to use the speaker connectors if I use the LFE connection to the receiver?

I remember years and years ago, you would run your speaker outputs from the receiver to the subwoofer, then back out to the speakers. I'm guessing the only reason the speaker pass-through is still on the subwoofer is in case your receiver doesn't have an LFE output. If I'm off-base here, please let me know.

Yes. You want the lfe connection if it's there

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So get back to work and sweat some more
The sun will sink, and we'll get out the door
It's no good for man to work in cages
Hits the town, he drinks his wages
You're frettin', you're sweatin'
But did you notice you ain't gettin'?

^ this.

great, thanks

No need to run the speaker wires thru the sub. Its one or the other, LFE is better.

It's quite possible, depending on your receiver and how you've set it, that if you use the LFE it will only be used with movies or source material that has a LFE channel. In other words, the sub may not get any signal for music. This could be good or bad depending on a number of circumstances.

Does your receiver even have an LFE output? If it is a "good old-fashioned stereo" then it likely won't.

In that case, you can run the wires and then back like you already said, OR you might be able to use a speaker to line level converter device, closer to the receiver and then run an RCA line to the sub.

[www.parts-express.com]

One important caveat to this discussion: if your receiver does have an LFE connection, then it will have an adjustable crossover point to send the signal to the sub.

Checkthat out relative to your existing left/right speakers and set it so that there is some overlap.

If this is at all confusing I'm sure there are dozens of YouTube videos explaining the process.

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So get back to work and sweat some more
The sun will sink, and we'll get out the door
It's no good for man to work in cages
Hits the town, he drinks his wages
You're frettin', you're sweatin'
But did you notice you ain't gettin'?

My receiver is pretty new and does have an LFE output. Haven’t tested it on a movie yet, but it was working on a CD I played. Which is a good thing because the tower speakers I own put out very little bass. Without the subwoofer, it sounds awful. I’ve tried other speakers (Bose) which sound a lot better, even without the subwoofer. Problem is I have a very narrow space and the Bose speakers are very wide and would need to be on speaker stands. But at least the subwoofer is working.