Sound Storm Laboratories LOPRO8 Amplified Car Subwoofer - 600 Watts Max Power, Low Profile, 8 Inch Subwoofer, Remote Subwoofer Control, Great For Vehicles That Need Bass But Have Limited Space, Black

Sound Storm Laboratories LoPro8 Installation April 2014 – I installed this subwoofer in a 2014 Honda Accord Plug In using the stock radio and navigation system that came with the car. The subwoofer was placed under the passenger seat with a little room to spare as I wanted to keep everything as stealth as possible. This subwoofer has a built in amplifier and various controls for great bass and gives the music the extra punch it needs. I’m amazed this subwoofer doesn’t have a port but can still produce deep and strong bass levels for its size. I bought mine new from Amazon at $113. It’s near impossible to get to the back of the car radio without dismantling the entire dash so I chose not to do that and created an alternative to share. Before you get started, safety first. Be sure you put electrical tap on all exposed speaker and power wires. Be sure you put electrical tape in any area where they might touch another wire or connector. Wrap electrical tape around wires where they might rub anything and expose bare wire later on. Don’t add power to the subwoofer until you’ve double checked your connections and ready to test. For subwoofer power, I bought a 20 amp buss fuse holder at Home Depot and attached one end to the positive battery post. Use the battery in the engine, not in the trunk. Then open the passenger front door and there’s a plastic vertical panel next to the door hinge covering access to the quarter panel wheel well. I pushed a red 8 gauge wire through there to above the front right light assembly, then well above the radiator around the left light assembly to the battery. I attached the other side of the fuse holder to this wire. NO FUSE INSTALLED AT THIS TIME. Passenger front seat – foot area. There is one horizontal panel just above where the feet would be. That pulls down. The kick panel is that horizontal panel you step over when you enter into the car. That pulls up. There’s a vertical panel just right of the feet and that pulls off. The passenger door has a black rubber boot that feeds wires from the cabin. I made a small cut in the boot on the cabin side and fed the red power wire through the boot. I followed the existing wire harness along the kick panel and the wire comes up under the passenger seat. I patched the cut in the boot with some caulking. For the ground wire, I used black 8 gauge wire and attached it to the passenger seat mounting screws. This subwoofer has a third connection that tells the subwoofer to turn on when the car is turned on. Otherwise the subwoofer would have power all the time and drain the battery. I took a 12 Volt cigarette lighter charge adapter and cut the end off the cord. I ran the 12 volt power side to the subwoofer Remote connection. Do not connect this to the Remote Level Control on the other side. For speaker input, the subwoofer can use low end RCA cable input or high end speaker input. I chose the high end. At the passenger kick panel noted above, is a wire assembly. You’ll find a solid blue wire and solid orange wire, the rear right speaker. Splice in a 10 gauge speaker wire to these and route the rest under the passenger seat. I could not locate the left speaker wires so here’s my fix. I ran 10 gauge speaker wire from under the seat, to the back seat of the car, through one of the top child car seat anchor points to the left speaker. There, I put female spade connectors on the ends. About 2 inches back, I stripped the insulation off, and attached 3 inch leads with male connectors. I pulled the speaker connector off the speaker. I put the female connectors on the speaker and male connectors on the speaker connector. At this time, from under the passenger seat, you should have a red power, black ground, 2 speaker wires, and a cigarette adapter line. At the subwoofer… connect the speaker lines to the supplied connector. Be sure your polarity is correct. There is an extra ground wire on the connector, be sure to connect it to ground. Attach the red wire to power. Attach the black wire to ground. Be sure your polarity is correct here too. Go to the battery and install the fuse. Install the Remote Level power adjust cable and control. DO NOT CONNECT THE 12 VOLT CIGARETTE ADAPTER yet. HINT: Be sure your speaker polarity is correct. Using a spare speaker, you can attach one line to the speaker and ground the other side. Turn on your car radio with low volume. If you hear speaker sound, then that is the positive line. No sound, and the speaker hook up is the negative side. Turn off the car power. On the LoPro8, set the controls like gain, boost, etc to very low. Be gentle when turning. Turn full clockwise. Then turn full counter clockwise. Then turn clockwise about a quarter turn, about a 3 o’clock position. Do this to all 4. Do the same for the Remote Level Control. Power on the car. Power on the radio. Turn the radio volume to low. Now connect the cigarette adapter and look for a green light to show on the subwoofer. Look and smell for smoke and sparks and shut down immediately if you see these. Put on your favorite song on the radio and turn the volume up to just above where you can hear it. Adjust the Remote Level Control, volume of the radio, and the Gain first in small steps. Then fine tune using the other adjustments. For a few days, I placed my subwoofer on a box and kept in on the floor in the back seat until I could adjust the subwoofer settings just right for me. Before putting the unit under the seat, double check that your connections are tight but don’t overtighten where you’ll break something. Be sure to use electrical tape where you see exposed wires. There is a vent under the seat. I used a curved strip of aluminum foil to deflect the air around the subwoofer. When you push the subwoofer under the seat, don’t bind or pinch the wires. If the music still sounds good, and you don’t see or smell sparks or smoke in the car or engine, you can put back the panels you removed. The LoPro8 packs some good bass and extra punch to the Honda radio. I can see the rear view mirror vibrate when I have the volume up about 25; it goes to 40. Sometimes I like to play the music loudly and the LoPro8 is a great unit for the size and I am very pleased. Problems… The Honda radio has 2 microphones that listen to the noise in the car as it goes faster. At around 40 mph, rough roads, or windows down and cars rushing by, it causes the subwoofer to sound off on its own. I haven’t tried disconnecting the microphones yet. Secondly, the cigarette lighter adapter used to power on the subwoofer may need to be adjusted to something under 12 volts as it causes a slight pop on the subwoofer when the power is turned off. An easy fix with an in line resistor.

I am impressed with this little guy! I honestly didn't have too high of hopes, based on the price and some negative reviews, but I was quite pleasantly surprised. First, let's talk about its performance. This thing puts out an incredible amount of bass, in spite of its small package. Way more bass, in fact, than I need; I had to turn the gain and bass boost down. I wasn't looking for something to boom my way through the 'hood, just needed some bass to round out my system. This fit the bill perfectly; no more 'hollow' stereo sound! I've only had it in for a day, so I'm still tweaking the settings. I expect that it'll be even better once I find the sweet spot. Next, aesthetics, size, and functionality. I bought this for me Wrangler TJ (which I'm doing a full restore on), so size was super important. For those of you who have Jeeps, you know there isn't much extra room inside. **Note to TJ owners: this does not fit under either of the front seats (on mine, at least). That is where I planned to put it, but no such luck.*** I ended up putting it under the rear seat, and it fits quite nicely; you can't even see it (which is good for theft deterrent). I needed to keep it hidden because I have a soft top, but if that isn't a concern for you, don't fear; this is a sharp looking unit. If you mounted it somewhere visible, it definitely won't be an eye sore. Hooking it up was simple and straight forward. You will need your own power, ground, RCA, and speaker wires, though. It does come with two options for mounting: Velcro (which is what I used), and brackets; what you use will depend on where you put it. Overall, this was a great purchase. I was considering getting two units, because I didn't think an 8 inch would have enough umph, but it certainly does. I would have wasted my money if I'd have purchased a second one; it just isn't needed. Obviously, I can't attest to its durability or longevity yet, so I'll update if it craps out on me. EDIT: The unit died in 2018. So, it worked well, and sounded nice, for a little less than 3 years. Do what you will with that information.

It's been about one month since I installed this under the passenger seat of my 2010 Ford Focus coupe (was initially a bit worried about passenger side rear seat foot space, but I have since removed my rear seats entirely, so this is no longer an issue). First, the hardware: - You need 6Ga or smaller wire. The 1/0 install kit I accidentally purchased was much too large - the 4ga kit i intended on would also have been too large. - One side gets significantly hotter than the other (along the heat fins). In the main product picture, this would be the left side. I'm sure the negative reviews of protection mode are due to a lack of proper cooling/airflow along the fins. Luckily in its current location I can a.) safely reach over and feel how hot it's getting and b.) blast AC air right along it if I feel it's necessary. - The other reviewers weren't kidding about how bright the remote's blue LED is. I installed it in my glove box. Strongly suggest black masking/gaffers tape or black nail polish or SOMETHING to mitigate the light. I'm still liking the glove box install 6mo later. Surprises/blinds me and anyone going into my glove box on occasion however. Do not put this light anywhere aimed at the driver without blocking/dimming the light. Second, the sound: My stock speakers are OK, especially with the mids and trebles. Surprisingly good for stock speakers I would say. However, in order to crank out the amount of bass I like, they took a hit to the overall quality of the rest of the music, while not providing enough bass. With this sub installed, I can give my speakers an easier time, and get the lower end I was looking for. It doesn't quite give the chest-compressing vibration you can get at venues, but it does leave you with a tickle in your chest. And it vibrates the mirrors enough that it can be annoying (in a good way). It's not a ported 15 inch sub with 1000 watt amp, but it definitely does enough for me! My most frequent passenger does not complain about the bass at all the way I have it configured as she does with the 10in boxed sub in my friend's GTI. 4/5 does what I expected, but there's room for improvement. Particularly regarding the hookups to power/ground - I don't see why these couldn't be over-engineered so as to be compatible with a wider range of cable sizes. I'd buy another for another car, or if this one experiences any issues. Additionally, I might just get another and run each as a mono sub. 6 month edit: I've specified a few vague things above, but here I am. As another reviewer noted, it's important to tune this for good sound. I have my low pass filter set to around 120Hz and my subsonic at about 25Hz. Strongly considering replacing this with the lopro10 when/if this breaks. I have been very careful to not use the floor heating in my car in the winter, and not to stress it too much without AC running on it in the summer. Originally I had only planned for a few inches on each side but I hadn't measured with the seat removed... or something. Long story short I have more room than I had thought, so that's why I'm thinking about the 10in version. Still helps out my music, lot of electronica/indie rock/wub wub wub, listen minimum 2 hours every day if not longer on my commute. It's more like a regular speaker but with the filters dedicated to just the low sounds (and higher quality materials than stock/regular speakers). I definitely think it's worth the money, just be cautious of overheating the integrated amplifier. I'm planning on sending more power to it via my LOC (technically a LOC but it had a plug for the harness in my car + low level output so I didn't have to cut anything) and lower the bass via the headunit, as my other speakers are still a little on the bassy side. Will likely mess with my filter settings as well. Between this and the set of coaxial front speakers (w/remote tweeters/crossovers) + soundproofing I will be ordering soon... and maybe 2way speakers in the back, I think I will have happily accomplished everything I have set out to do with my car audio system 2 year edit: been out of my car for about 6-8 months as I sadly killed my Focus. I have been working on installing this in my GF's car after recently upgrading her headunit. My new car, though very tight on space, will benefit more from a custom install, as I will be spending roughly 2x the money of the sub/box/mono amp I have planned on the headunit alone. I expect this device, with continued care, to serve nicely in its new life. note: I have misplaced the remote bass switch and wire, however you can buy a replacement directly from Boss if you submit a ticket via the SSL site or contact Boss Audio directly. I'll come back and edit if I have any problems.

I'm not too happy with this sub but to be fair I will play with the settings to get to my desire performance and submit an update on my review. Sub sounds amazingly well when my car stereo is at half volume "BUT" I've noticed that once I increase the volume level on my stereo to about 80% the sub stops responding. Seems that the more volume it gets the lower the subwoofer gets . It's so bad that when I'm at 90% volume level (stereo) sub completely vanishes and I don't hear a difference in bass. For now I'm cruising at about 50% of volume to actually hear a decent kick. I did not install it, it was done at a professional car stereo shop. I didn't realize the issue until a few days after install. I'm running a pioneer stereo (2-4 years old) and 4 fosgate 6x9 speakers PLUS this particular subwoofer. None of the components are currently running with an amp, everything is coming straight from the Pioneer stereo. If someone knows what might be triggering the problem please advise. Thanks in advance. Update 3/6/17: Just came back from car stereo shop and was told that it was the maximum performance I will get from this subwoofer. The Volume knob that controls the subwoofer it is not necessarily a "volume knob" but more of an ON and OFF switch. You will not get more than a 1/4" of volume performance. Since I was already there I had the guys pull it off and purchased a Cerwin Vega Powered Active Subwoofer Enclosure ($183 on amazon prime). Boy what a difference! that good old saying "you get exactly what you pay for" applies here. I told the dudes that on my next paycheck I was coming back for a second unit, they said no problem. I hope my Honest review and critical opinion will help you decide on your next purchase. I wish I would have known this issue before spending my time and money on this brand. Having said that, I'm not saying that the sound storm 10" subwoofer is a bad choice, what I'm saying is that for an extra $50/$80 more there are far better choices to fit your needs and performance expectations. I didn't find none of those with my experience with Sound Storm lopro10.

This is not necessarily a great subwoofer, but it is a great value. As others have said, this is not going to put out enough bass to hear outside the car. In fact, I would be hesitant to buy this if I were installing it in a trunk. However, I was looking for something small to fit under the passenger's seat in my 2015 WRX that would fill in the lower frequencies of my factory system and this worked perfectly. It took me about 2 weeks of tweaking the levels to get it setup correctly. Once I had it dialed in, it blended with the rest of my audio system very well and now sounds like I have a much more expensive audio system than I actually have. I did end up hiding the remote in my glove box so I would not have to look at the absurdly bright blue light, but that's not a big deal because I rarely need to adjust it. When I first ordered this subwoofer, I was a little concerned about quality from other people's reviews, specifically it overheating easily. But I have been using it for about 3 months now, during the peak of Florida summer heat, and I have not had a single issue. I do have the gain set around 30% of its max level and the bass boost turned way down as well, so I'm not pushing the amplifier as hard as others may. But at this point, I would be surprised if it failed on me for any reason. I have installed aftermarket sound systems in every car I have owned over the past 15 years so I have a lot of experience with car audio equipment. I don't think there is a better compact subwoofer/amp on the market at this price point. I'm sure there are better options, but I would expect to pay 3x-4x as much for one of them. If you want to fill your car with the type of bass that drowns out all other frequencies, this is not the subwoofer for you. But if you are looking for something that will provide balanced bass at louder volume levels and hit lower frequencies than your door speakers can support, you will be hard pressed to find a better value. For anyone considering installing this in a 2015+ WRX, it is a perfect fit under either seat. There are pre-existing cutouts in the carpet to run the wires through, as this is where the premium factory system places their amplifier. You will have less than 1/4" clearance between the seat rails, so the 10" subwoofer will not fit. The seat heaters are a few inches away and would likely have no effect on the subwoofer's performance. I recommend pointing the speaker towards the floor to insulate the seat from excessive vibration. I used an 8 ga amp kit, but only because I already had one. A 10 ga kit will supply enough power. You will need a line-out converter if you have the stock head unit. I used the PAC SNI-35 and it has been great. The sound quality is better than most and it fit behind the radio so I could leave the RCA cables there for when I do upgrade my head unit.

I added this to my FJ Cruiser and it did enhance the sound. I am running it via RCA on the 2nd sub out on my Pioneer nex using the recommended 8guage power wire and ground. It does a decent job of providing low frequencies, but is not going to give you any kind of big "boom". If you are looking for some low fill with your factory stereo this will do that. You'll need to pay attention to how you set the built in filters. Dialing the settings in is the key to making this sound good. And those will be different for every vehicle. I found that keeping the low pass at about (or a little less than) 90hz was key with the factory JBL system. Any higher, it just resulted in very "muddy" or inaccurate bass. The LPF goes to 150, and honestly It shouldn't go above 100 or its just a lot of distortion. Also note that it is simply not possible for this thing to reach the 20hz it is advertised as being able to produce, and you'll get better performance out of it setting the subsonic filter appropriately. Testing the lowpro10 thoroughly it will reach down to about 45hz, but the roll off is very steep at 50hz. That means that 50hz those lower frequencies "disappear" rapidly. Keeping the subsonic set above that increases the efficiency of this sub, and its easy to hear. So again, if you are wanting "deep bass" this isn't going to do that job. Furthermore 1200watts peak is simply just false or at a minimum misleading advertising. That would be a 600watt rms amp, and no, no it is not a 600watt rms amplifier. This is more akin to perhaps a 200watt amp, which would be something like a 400watt peak, and honestly that's being generous. I believe that perhaps the driver (speaker) is rated at 600watt rms but the power the amplifier delivers is much, much lower. That is supported by a number of the reviews here describing it failing and how it was failing. Typically you'd want MORE power to the speaker than its rated for. Something like 30% more (at rms). Counter intuitive yes, and a common mistake. SSL would without a doubt know this, but again, we are talking about a $150 subwoofer. If I get a crazy itch, I might one day disassemble mine, actually test the amp itself, and replace the driver with something more reasonable for the power output which i suspect would sound significantly better and increase its lifespan. Regardless in order to reach this price point a number of sacrifices need to be made and I understand that. An accurate product listings from SSL would have gained this review another star. Again, for the price this is what you should expect to get so I am not let down at all. I just don't know why they would hyper-inflate the specs when its just going to lead to worse reviews.

This is a very great subwoofer for the value. It's been 2 weeks since I've installed this subwoofer and it took me about 4 hours to do so, it was my first time so I wanted to be sure I've done it right according to the instructions from the manual and the amp kit (amp kit bought separately) . I felt like I was able to finally get my amp settings fine tuned just a couple days ago from writing this review. I want to say for the people who gave negative reviews or low star ratings, I felt like the 2nd most important thing after adjusting your amp settings is the subwoofer placement and positioning is important because I have my subwoofer in a 2018 nissan titan in the back seat behind the back of the bench and although it sounded amazing in the back seats, when I sat in the front seats the bass wasn't quite there and could barely hear or feel the bass which I thought was strange and felt disappointed, I had also thought of returning it and maybe finding something different , but I was researching online and found that placement and positioning was important as the settings on the amp. Before my subwoofer was in the same position which is behind the back seat of the bench but the subwoofer speaker was facing towards the front seat and one thing I decided to try out was flip the subwoofer so it can face towards the back of the truck towards the tailgate and I couldn't believe the difference that it makes, now I can hear and feel the bass in the front seats. It's just the way that the bass reflects and travels makes a huge difference. So my advice is after you felt like you found the settings to your subwoofer try out different placements and positioning, you'd be surprised. So my thoughts on this subwoofer, I felt like it's definitely a great value for this subwoofer and very good quality, solid built and material, it has a nice tight punchy bass that sounds incredible inside my truck. It vibrates my seats and rearview mirror. But not those crazy super deep bass where the car next to you can feel it. Not sure how long it would last but I'm hoping it would last me at least a year and ill be happy , I believe if you don't max out the settings of the amp then it could last a long time. I have no problems so far with this subwoofer but it's only been 2 weeks.

***Latest update - 2019 - this is almost 4 years later. It's STILL kickin', STILL sounds great, and just had another friend compliment me on it and now is going to buy one for his Impala. Don't overdrive it, set the levels properly and forget 'em, control it from your head unit and the remote knob, mount it so it gets some airflow around it to keep it from overheating, and you should have no problem with it. Yup, I love it, and yup, I'd buy another one in a heartbeat.*** ***Ok, it's now a couple of months after the installation and I'm upgrading this little unit to 5 stars. It's dialed in, set to my preferences, and now all I have to do is the occasional tweak to the remote knob on the dash depending on the track / genre that's playing through the head unit. There's a respectable amount of bass, it's clean, it's got a good punch and I'm not abusing it at all, just using it to fill in the bottom end. I'd buy another one in a heartbeat if I needed a sub for another vehicle, and I've recommended it to several friends / family that are upgrading their systems as well. Still haven't covered up the blue LED, but it's situated on the dash so when I'm driving, the steering wheel blocks that LED from my eyes... I'm ok with that.** Had it professionally installed in a '94 Chevy C1500 regular cab under the passenger seat, out of sight. It's paired up to a Pioneer head unit using RCA plugs, and filling in the bottom end for the Pioneer 2 way 4x6 dash speakers and factory 4x6 pillar speakers (pillar speakers soon to be replaced). First, I bought this on the strength of the reviews I read here on Amazon. I'm happy to say, this sub seems to live up to those reviews. It's only been in the truck for 2 days now, so I'm still dialing it in, but it rocks. Even the installer (who had never seen the LOPRO8 before) was surprised in a very good way as to how nice it sounds and has said he'll be recommending it to his customers looking for something to fit in a small space. No, it won't rattle neighbor's windows 3 doors down the street, and no, it won't vibrate the mirrors on the car next to me at the stoplight, but I'm 53 years old and WAY past that stage. It fills my truck cab VERY nicely without overpowering the rest of the music, which is all I need or want. I spend an hour each way in my truck back and forth to work, and this will make the trip quite enjoyable. I predominately listen to rock, blues, classical and jazz, and so far from Rimsky-Korsakov to Metallica to Al DiMeola to BB King, this sub seems to perform extremely well and I am VERY happy with it. My only issue is the brightness of the blue LED for the remote knob. Yeah, that'll be covered with something very soon - it's WAY too bright and very distracting.