Subwoofer....... no quite sure how to hook up a sub home theater without an rca jack in the back. Only has the wiring for input and output. My JVC stereo receiver has an RCA jack in the back, but my subwoofer has no RCA jack on it just input and outputs. what speakers go where? confused.....

i am wanting to know the answer to the exact same question. did you ever find the answer?

the rca subwoofer jack is not a speaker level output, it is a line level output which is made to work with a POWERED subwoofer

HI,the rca system should have a sub pre out socket,plug a phono cable into this then to input on your sub and set volume to half way,also make sure the sub is set to on in the setup menu on the system.
Hope this helps.
CABLE GUY.

I have the same setup. Are you going out of the subwoofer output of the reciever? (it's purple.) then into the LFE jack of the subwoofer (also purple.) That's the only connection you need besides power. If you have those right, try using your cable for something else to make sure the cable is good. Is the indicator of the subwoofer green? Mine comes on with the reciever. Good luck!

Back in the old days, subwoofers were powered by the voltage from your receiver, through speaker wire.
Nowadays, subwoofers have their own power, hence not having speaker wire connections anymore.
It's unlikely that you'll be able to connect your old subwoofer to your new receiver.
You'd need to get a new one, which if you don't mind buying closeout, can be found on eBay pretty cheap.

Does the Sub have a Low- Level input? This is a RCA type female connector, what you need to do is run a Male RCA cable from your home theatre where it says Sub-OUT and go into the Sub woofer Line in. Unless you only have speaker wire inputs on the back of the Sub then take the Left and Right front into the Sub speaker inputs and then out of the Sub speaker OUTS back to your speakers.

If your receiver has a dedicated subwoofer line level output, we recommend connecting your subwoofer to this jack. Most receivers will have just one (mono) subwoofer output, while quite a few subs require two inputs. You can use an RCA "Y" adapter cord , which is a cable with one female RCA jack at one end, and two male RCA plugs at the other. Some receivers require menu settings (such as "sub-on" or "front speakers-small") that must be made before the sub output will be active.

In general, there are two ways to hook up your sub-woofer. First using the high level outputs from your receiver ( speaker output from the front R & L speaker terminals ) run a set of wires from the outputs to the speaker inputs on the sub-woofer, you do this in concert with the speaker wires going to the front R & L speakers which you then attach to the R & L speaker outputs on the sub woofer amp. Note that the sub woofer doesn't power your front speakers, the connections from the sub amp are just a pass through connection where the signal needed by the sub is parasitically taken from the inputs.
Second is via a low level output from your receiver / amp to the low level input on your sub amp. This is normally done via a RCA type of patch cable and connected to the sub woofer RCA jack on the rear of the source receiver or amp, Next run the patch cord to the sub amp an into the RCA jack input. IF you have a right and left input, use the Right input.

john

The easiest solution to use your subwoofer is to buy an amp for it. Any old stereo receiver from a garage sale will probably do just fine.

1. Connect the mono RCA subwoofer output from your Sony with a 1xRCA-to-2xRCA splitter to both the left and right input of the cheap reciever's tape or aux input
   
2. connect both speaker outputs of the cheap reciever to the speaker input on your subwoofer. make sure both black (-) outputs on the reciever connect to the black input on the sub, and the red outputs (+) on the reciever are both connected to the red input on the subwoofer.
3. make sure the cheap receiver's volume is all the way down. turn your Sony up to about the loudest you'll listen to it. turn up the subwoofer amp until it's loud enough to sound good.
4. leave the subwoofer amp alone, the Sony volume will all you ever need to touch from now on.

You can even now turn off your subwoofer / adjust the volume easily now!

Even if your JVC doesn't have outputs for a subwoofer you can hook it up with the a speaker wire to RCA converter. You just spice your rear speaker wires to this device then connect RCA's to your amp. I've used them before... works great. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Speaker-to-RCA-Line-Level-Converter-Adjustable-High-Low_W0QQitemZ130143832174QQihZ003QQcategoryZ38636QQcmdZViewItem