I've searched high and low for the solution to this problem, both here and on AVS and elsewhere on the web, but haven't been able to find anything yet.

I previously had a Panasonic combination 5-disc changer/Standard DVD player/HTS that was hooked up to the included speakers, and it worked to my satisfaction.

Yesterday, I made the jump to HD-DVD. I discovered while doing this that my Panasonic player/receiver had exactly one audio input in the back - the old red/white cables. So, time for a new receiver in order to be able to hear sound from the new HD player in more than just stereo.

I went with the Onkyo TX-SR605 receiver. Pleased with it so far, and was able to hook up all of the speakers with no issues, but the subwoofer cable is not compatible. The new receiver only has a subwoofer pre-out jack, but the woofer has the traditional +/- 2 wires, just like the other speakers do. It's a passive woofer, and there are no other ports on it, just the wire coming out the back.

So, what are my options? Is there some sort of an adapter to solve the subwoofer issue? Can I re-wire it somehow? Or is it time for a new one?

Also, another concern is the receiver manual says not to use speakers with less than 6 Ohms, but the ones I currently have are 4 Ohms. They did seem to work fine for the couple of hours that I tested them.

While pondering this problem, I have been looking at new speaker packages. The Onkyo SKS-HT240 or SKS-HT540 look nice, but they are at the upper end of my price range. Any recommendations for these or others if I decide to get all new speakers and subwoofer?

Any suggestions or advice will be appreciated.

You could rewire stuff. I've had to cut red/white cables for regular wire inputs and I've also had to do it the other way. It just takes some time but it can be done.

It's all just positive/negative in the end.

No, it's not...

If his receiver only has sub pre-outs, it means he can't drive it, since he has a passive sub. He needs an active sub, or a receiver that can drive a passive sub. He's not going to be able to drive it with line level pre-out, regardless of how he cuts the wires.

Then all he has to do is cut more wires to build an amp, I guess.

What is the frequency range of the front speakers? And ohm rating of all of them, including sub?

If you have an old unused amplifier then you can use that. Just run an RCA cable from the sub pre-out to the input of one of the channels of a second amplifier (either left-white or right-red, it doesn't matter) and then run speaker wire from that amp (left or right, depending on which one you chose) to the subwoofer. Adjust the volume of the amp to desired level and now you have a powered subwoofer.

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I went ahead and upgraded to Onkyo 705 receiver and all new speakers/subwoofer, so problems solved.

I was going to suggest that you hook the sub to the speaker-B terminals. This would really only work if you could adjust the crossover separately.

That's not usually a good method because you'll not match up the ohms properly.

Just put a 2 Ohm resister in series.