I had a wonderful (for me at least) set of Logitech Z-680 speakers that met an untimely demise as some water got into the built in amp on the back of the sub and destroyed a voltage regulator that ran only about $13. I cleaned it up best I could and put in new components but every time it got turned on it would blow a capacitor...leaving a nice dent in my foot. So now I've got the speakers, control pod (worthless without the amp being functional) and the subwoofer. The sub was undamaged and I'm hoping can be hooked up to a receiver of sorts but I'm not an audio guy. I could use some help determining what wires coming out of the sub do what. There are the two pairs of wires, one bundled together is just 2 wires IIRC and I believe them to be power input (again IIRC they were red/black. I'll check later when I dig this thing out). The other bundle had 4 wires or so and I couldn't make heads or tails of what they did. Would it be possible to use the sub and speakers again with an appropriate receiver? Or would it be best to toss em and get something new? I'm willing and able to put in the time I just don't have much in the way of audio equipment knowledge. More of a video person. EDIT: OK I'm dumb. Just pulled the thing out and its got 4 sets of wires going down a straight vertical line as such: 1) Black, Yellow, Red - power input? 2) Red, Black - higher gauged wires than the rest, maybe audio input? 3) Blue, White - remote power on? 4) White, Black - no idea Aside from bundle #2 I can't begin to draw straws at what the other pairs might be. I also don't have the amp itself anymore to try to trace the circuit either. I'd have to guess that all black wires are grounds but I don't want to make that assumption given the fact that this was a 180w subwoofer. Assuming it is using standard coloring for the top three wires they would be Black:ground | Yellow:12v | Red: 5v Update: After tinning all of the wires I'm about 99% sure the second pair are audio input wires. They seem to be 16 gauge and tapping a 9v battery across the pair makes the sub activate and put out sound where as the pair above it does nothing. Seems to confirm my pseudo-hypothesis at this point.
From looking at the connections on both the control panel and the sub, and browsing the manual; With the amp within the sub being broken, you have nothing to provide power to the woofer to create sound. Also there won't be any signal processing without current to the components inside of the sub. Check to see if the speakers really only work for this set-up (official (manual) word is that they only work with this) If your a hands on type of guy you could pull the woofer for use later.
Check their impedance. Chances are the satellites will be 4, 8 or 16 Ohms, the sub possibly lower. From there just find a suitable amp. I don't understand why any of this matters, since the amp itself is blown and gone. Open the sub, find the wires that hook up the speaker, job done.
Yes the amp is gone, but the sub is going to get hooked up to a new amp. If I can't figure out what the various connections are for I'm SOL. But if it is as easy as hooking up to the wires to the sub's speaker then I've already got that done....I think. The second bundle of red/black seem to be the input wires so I'll go dig out an old receiver and hook it up. Hopefully I can find one capable of handling at least 100w.
The speakers are more than likely passive. The woofer would need a power source, not just a signal from an a/v reciever.
I just hooked it up to an amp my brother had and it played audio from a TV just fine with the full bass I came to expect from it. I wouldn't dare try to wire it straight into the sound card in my computer but I'll have to browse thrift shops for a suitable amp. I'm really hoping the red/white/yellow cables I cut aren't needed and an amp with enough wattage can drive it alone. This thing is sealed in such a way that opening it up means never using the case again, unless I want it uglified. BTW: the amp circuitry was housed outside of the sub but on the rear within a shielded environment and two very large heatsinks on either side. I sincerely doubt they had put anything inside the sub in terms of electronics but clearly all of the wires go somewhere. I plan to use a HTPC to handle the audio input and processing then shuffling the audio back out as analog to an amp then to all of these speakers I have left over from the Z-680.
The sound card's output is simply an audio signal, again, no power. Best bet would be to pick up an amp since the woofer and satellites appear to be working. Technical Specifications (as per manual) Subwoofer: 188 Watts RMS into 8 ohms at 100Hz Satellites: 317 Watts RMS into 8 ohms at 1kz Front: 2 x 62w Rear: 2 x 62w Center: 1x 69w
