This question often comes up when shopping for a subwoofer. Everyone wants to know whether the cable is directional, but it may not always be spelled out on the packaging. Since subwoofer cables are just like any other speaker cable, they transmit a signal, and therefore the signals they carry must be directional.
However, most subwoofer cables are not directional. In fact, most are one-way and won’t change the direction in which your subwoofer receives its power.
If you’re buying a subwoofer cable for a stereo system that doesn’t have a preamp, make sure you get one that is marked stereo-out (often with an S) or mono-out (often with AM). If it’s not marked, look for a cable marked RCA to RCA or bare wire to bare wire. You can plug this type of cable into any speaker input on your receiver/preamp/amplifier, and it will work perfectly fine.
What Do Subwoofer Cables Do?
There are two main types of subwoofer cables: coaxial and optical.
Coaxial cables carry signals to the left and proper channels, while optical cables provide a stereo sound.
The main difference between these two types is that coaxial cables use a single connector for each signal, while optical cables have two connectors, one on each end. Both coaxial and optical subwoofer cables are “directional,” meaning they transfer audio information from one direction without changing its voltage or current levels, making them ideal for transmitting high-quality audio signals over long distances.
Why Do Some Manufacturers Claim Their Subwoofer Cables Are Directional?
- Some claim that their subwoofer cables are directionally sensitive. This means that the cable’s conductors are arranged so that if you hold the cable with the arrows pointing in the direction of signal flow, the signal will flow better than if the direction of the arrows is reversed.
- Most manufacturers who make this claim provide no supporting evidence for it whatsoever. In fact, there is a lot of reason to believe that it makes absolutely no difference which way you plug in your subwoofer cable. For one thing, even though most subwoofer cables carry an unbalanced line-level signal (which means that it has two conductors), they are not susceptible to crosstalk noise from adjacent wires or nearby electromagnetic fields because their impedance is much higher than speaker cables, and ICs designed for audio-video equipment use. More importantly, RCA connectors (the type used on most A/V equipment) have male and female connectors so it doesn’t matter which end you plug into which source or output device.
- The claim that some subwoofer cables are directional appears to be nothing more than a marketing gimmick meant to help manufacturers sell more subwoofer cables.
Does the Direction of a Cable Matter With Subwoofers?
Basically, it does a single-direction flow of voltage. It doesn’t matter where from; the direction is one way. This is because the voltage is constantly flowing from one direction to another.
What kind of cable does a subwoofer use?
To answer the question in the title, are subwoofer cables directional? First, we’ll need to ask another: what kind of cable does a subwoofer use?
Subwoofers use a single RCA cable to connect your receiver to your subwoofer. This cable, then, can either be a coaxial cable or an optical cable.
While it would stand to reason that directionality could come into play for such a simple set-up, it does not. While directional cables can affect audio quality somehow, this is not applicable when it comes to subwoofers and their audio quality. The cable length doesn’t matter either; they’re all pretty much the same length.
Does the length of a subwoofer cable matter when it comes to its direction?
It’s also worth noting that the length of your subwoofer cable will affect its directional properties. The shorter the better, however, getting a high quality subwoofer cable will make the difference in quality negligible, even if it’s long.
Subwoofer cables are like any other type of wire – they have varying degrees of resistance, and longer cables are more resistant to the signal than shorter ones. This means that it’s essential to use a high-quality subwoofer cable if you plan on placing your subwoofer further away from the rest of your equipment.
While this isn’t an issue for many people, there are some setups where you may need to place your subwoofer farther away from the rest of its components. In these cases, you’ll want a thick cable capable of carrying a large current over long distances without loss in quality.
A good example is a 12 AWG cable designed specifically for use with amplifiers and high-current applications (including car audio systems).
Why Do Some Subwoofer Cables Have an Arrow?
The arrow printed on subwoofer cables is just a way of marking the cable’s polarity. The arrow is pointing towards the positive terminal. This is just to ensure that the cable will be connected with the correct polarity.
Some manufacturers claim that their subwoofer cables are directional, meaning that they must be pointed in a certain direction for optimal performance. However, this claim is not supported by any evidence. Writing an arrow on a cable does not make it directional; only the parts inside it can do so.
What is the difference between a subwoofer cable and RCA?
Subwoofer cables and RCA cables are both the same. The only difference is that subwoofer cables are better versions of RCA cables.
Subwoofer cable’s name was derived from the giant speakers used as subwoofers.
A subwoofer cable is a better version of an RCA cable, but they can be used interchangeably. RCA is just a brand name that came to be identified with the connector type itself and not the company, even though Radio Corporation of America invented it.
Subwoofer Cables, in general, are not directional. The direction1 of the subwoofer cable does not matter, as most cables are unidirectional for digital and analog signals.
The only time needed is transmitting speaker-level signals from a receiver to a subwoofer. The cable should go from the receiver’s subwoofer to the subwoofer’s speaker level input.