Electric shock at subwoofer metallic parts

[Peter P.]

GET RID OF THE SPLITTER CABLE! You need ONE RCA jack from the receiver to connect to only ONE jack on the subwoofer, and that's the jack labeled "LFE".

You're half way there!

[Marvel]

A house built in '64 probably only had two wires to the outlets. I would definately get an electrician, because someone did something wrong.

[Bubo]

1. Buy a tester for $20,  test every outlet in the house and keep a notebook with the results for every outlet.  I find at least one wired backward in every house.

2.  The outlets must be polarized correctly

3. Take a photo of your fuse box, so we can see the wires going into it, and post it here.

4. 120 VAC can kill you, 220 or higher the party is over for you.  Any shock can be fatal.

5. If you don't have experience with AC and were instructed by an Electrician or Engineer in person who watched you work, don't take the protective covers off of anything, it can and does kill people. Even electricians and engineers  die if they make a mistake.

6. Your Receiver almost certainly requires a correctly polarized outlet with a ground,  the same is true for the amplifier in the sub,  if you don't have correct polarity and ground,  discontinue use until you have an electrician run a new wire from the breaker box to your stereo outlet,  dedicated 15-20 amps.

-  Have them add a 50 amp whole house surge protector while they are in there

-  may also be a good opportunity to add a 3 way manual throw switch to disconnect city power, and connect an outside outlet for a portable generator. Also comes in handy for Thunder storms.

- may also be a good time to add an 8ft grounding rod next to the outside meter box and ground to it.

- If your city allows it, a 200 amp surge protector on the main line in is highly desirable for lightening hit and other city catastrophic failures that can fry every item in the house.

7. You may require a replacement breaker box with new breakers, and the house wiring may have been dry rotted and need replacing. Think $2,500- $25,000.

- You can and should add GFI breakers for the wet areas aka kitchen, bath and outside. Every outlet in the house if you can afford it, except the dedicated stereo-TV outlet.

8. If it's the whole house, the cheapest and fastest way is to have a drywall installer and electrician cut open holes in the walls to see what is going on. I would have them draw the electric cable runs on the walls with a marker, and have the drywall guy cut them out stud to stud, so the electric installers can get in and out in 2 days, or it will break you financially as it drags on with them fishing wires and getting blocked and stuck repeatedly.

- The drywall guys can patch in new floor to ceiling sections incredibly fast, especially if they did the cut outs for the electricians.

-  Instead of trying to remove the old wires;  it may be faster and less expensive to cut them well short of the breaker box,  and cap the wires and remove the wall outlets and drywall them over. New wires with new outlets at new locations.

- This would be a giant suck, but you would also be able to run Ethernet and coax at the same time with little effort, same for phone jacks.....

[CECAA850]

The wiring in the outlet needs to he checked.  If you're not comfortable doing this call an electrician. 

[Peter P.]

2 hours ago, Bubo said:

6. Your Receiver almost certainly requires a correctly polarized outlet with a ground,  the same is true for the amplifier in the sub...

I don't believe this is true regarding the subwoofer amplifier.

My SVS subwoofer has a non-polarized plug.