Adding Subwoofer to M-audio Studiophile BX5a using Laney AH200 as Sub

I observed that M-audio BX5a lack the deep bass needed to mix music genre that requires deep bass. Although M-audio Studiophile BX5a has a good and tight bass, it is still not enough for sub-bass mixing.

I went to research how it is possible to add a subwoofer to M-audio BX5a. Then I came up with standard subwoofer units that can be added BX5a such as SBX10. The problem is that these subwoofers can be very costly.

I looked upon my existing gears/equipments and I have Laney AH200 which is a 160-watts power amplifier capable of reproducing deep bass with a 15 inch cone. In fact, I use this amplifier in recording bass guitar and even guitars which is quite good. Wanting to make sure; I send an inquiry to Laney regarding the use of AH200 as monitoring equipment as these are the reply:

“The Laney AH200 is a great monitoring amplifier, and provides a very clean and very flat (EQ) to what is being played through it. This will give you a very true sound of your instruments, but it may not make your instruments sound as you would like them too (no distortion etc).”

The main advantage I am looking into this setup is that I only need “one” amplifier (all-in-one) for accomplishing these types of things:

a.) Recording guitars and bass
b.) Live gig monitoring (since AH200 is a 160 watt PA, it is loud enough for live band use.)
c.) And lastly as a subwoofer of BX5a.

But the question is how to use this power amplifier as a subwoofer unit of BX5a?

Changes in the Wiring: Use a mixer to route the signals

Originally the BX5a reference monitors are connected to outputs 1 and 2 of Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 audio interface. Although Saffire Pro40 is capable of providing a lot of output combinations, I then want to use only Outputs 1 and 2 for both the BX5a and the sub-unit for easy routing and volume control. So I made the following changes to the existing wiring:

I have a spare Xenyx 502 mixer from my old home recording setups. I then connect each of the BX5a unit to Xenyx 502 main out (LEFT for one monitor unit and RIGHT for the other monitor).

Then for the inputs, I simply plug the Saffire pro 40 outputs 1 and 2 to CD/Tape inputs (LEFT and RIGHT) of Xenyx 502. Then for connecting the Laney AH200 which is now used as a subwoofer in this case, I connect the CD/Tape Output (LEFT and RIGHT) to the AH200 Aux input.

Important: I recommend turning off your PC, audio interface and subwoofers when doing changes in the wiring.