Operating instructions

11THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO THE SMS-1
CONNECTING THE SMS1
“
One of our field research-
ers has a knack for untying knots.
Whether this is a fortunate gift or not
remains to be determined, but what
we know for certain is that this knack
means we tend to let him figure out
how to untangle the mess of intercon-
nects that can crop up when you find
yourself face to face with the rear
panel of a new component. When it
was time to look at how to connect an
SMS-1, there was no questioning who
to give the job to.
”
Obviously, our quick start guide skipped a number of connections on
the back. Depending on your system, some of those may be useful to
you. With that in mind, we’ll walk you through all of them so you can pick
and choose the ones you need. We realize that there are a number of
connections to deal with back there, but as with any other component it
is important to remember a simple rule: DON’T PANIC. You can sort them
out easily enough and only worry about the ones that interest you.
We’re going to hop around the rear panel a bit, but we’ll work through it
in the order that you will probably think about when hooking the SMS-1
up. In a couple cases, we’ll take two separate runs at a particular connec-
tion to discuss some dierent approaches. The rst stop will be getting
an input signal from your receiver or processor to the SMS-1.
INPUT
For most users, the SMS-1 will be between a surround receiver or proces-
sor and a powered subwoofer. In a scenario like that, there will be a dedi-
cated subwoofer output. That output will need to be connected to one of
the “Input” ports on the right side of the rear panel. There are two “Input”
ports (left and right, with the red port being the right channel), but in this
case we don’t need to worry about left and right – either port will do.
If your processor has balanced pre-amp outputs, you can use the bal-
anced “LFE Input” on the left side of the rear panel. The SMS-1 is capable
of using a mixture of balanced and unbalanced connections. This means
that you can connect a balanced input from your processor and still use
an unbalanced output to connect your subwoofer, but we recommend
maintaining a consistent balanced or unbalanced signal path in most
cases. The one exception would be if you have a subwoofer with a bal-
anced input that is located a signicant distance away from the SMS-1
– a case that could benet from a balanced connection’s ability to reject
noise and interference – but you have a receiver that only oers an unbal-
anced output.
If you are a user with a less conventional system, you may not have a
dedicated subwoofer output. That’s why the “Input” is a standard stereo
input: your main left and right channel pre-amp outputs can be con-
nected to the left and right inputs and passed back out to your amplier.
We’ll explain what output to use for that later, but for the moment we’re
only concerned with inputs. For now, collect the left and right pre-amp
outputs to the left and right inputs. Be aware, though, that this works
best if you have a separate amplier so that the SMS-1 can be in-line
between the pre-amp and the amp. It will also work well if you have a
receiver with pre-amp output to mains-in jumpers (which are found on a
few surround receivers and are more common on stereo receivers such
as Outlaw’s own RR2150) or if you have an external processor loop (typi
-
cally found only on stereo receivers). If none of these three cases t your
system, you can also connect the pre-amp outputs from a standalone
receiver or integrated amp to the SMS-1’s input, but you will not be able to
use the SMS-1’s high-pass crossover to lter the low frequencies out of the
signals sent to the main speakers. The drawback here is that the mains
get the full range signal, which will make our work of equalization later a
bit more challenging.