How to Hook Up a Car Subwoofer

If you listen to music with lots of strong bass, then you'll need a specialized speaker to reproduce these notes. A car subwoofer will help broadcast these low notes in your music. Hooking up a car subwoofer to an amplifier mostly involves getting the wiring right.

1. Make sure your subwoofer is mounted properly in its enclosure. This will usually involve connecting the leads to the terminal cup with mounting screws.


2. Wire your speakers in parallel to get the deepest bass possible. The lower the ohm impedance that an amplifier sees coming from its speakers, the more power your amplifier will produce. The more power that your amplifier produces, the louder your music plays. Parallel wiring your speakers helps lower the overall impedance of your speaker system. It's accomplished by connecting the positive leads of both your speakers to the amplifier's positive terminal and connecting the negative leads coming from your speakers to the negative leads of your amps. You’re now ready to introduce your subwoofer into your setup.


3. Connect your subwoofer to your amplifier. The easiest way to do this is to connect the subwoofer to your amp using RCA cables to connect to the back of the subwoofer. Depending on the subwoofer model, you may need to wire the positive lead on the subwoofer to the positive lead on the amp and the negative lead on the subwoofer to the negative lead on the amp.


4. Break in your subwoofer after you complete the wiring. Play music through your car subwoofer at a low volume for at least 10 hours. This helps to condition the subwoofer and to give it better performance.