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 InstallationApril 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 love this, works well on my truck.

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 system2 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.