With the rise of DSP and EQ, it has become more effective to have those processes in the main amp or AVR and, in so far as they are still included in some subs, to have a line level input to the sub. Of course, along with this trend, speaker-level sub-woofer outputs have also disappeared from amps and AVRs.

Trying to pick an integrated amp recently I found that neither Luxman, nor Accuphase nor McIntosh have subwoofer outs. They all recommend some convoluted way of hooking up the sub via pre-out... I guess I'll have to splurge on a DSP.

While passive subs may be taking a backseat, we'd say passive speakers on a whole will start to go this way... eventually. As and when though remains to be seen. Most likely when active speakers become cheap enough to produce that it makes anything passive more or less redundant. The majority of the best studio monitors are now active speakers, so we feel it's only a matter of time before anything passive becomes old hat.

manunkind wrote:

Trying to pick an integrated amp recently I found that neither Luxman, nor Accuphase nor McIntosh have subwoofer outs. They all recommend some convoluted way of hooking up the sub via pre-out... I guess I'll have to splurge on a DSP.

Try NAD, Anthem or Lyngdorf.

I'm hoping that McIntosh MA5200 and Focal Aria 936 combination will eliminate the need for a subwoofer altogether.