Review on Enhance your Car Audio with Alpine Electronics 🚗 PWE-S8 Restyle Compact Powered 8-Inch Subwoofer in Sleek Black Design by Mike Mitchell

My 2000 Jeep Wrangler Sahara had a Sony MEX-BT3800U head unit installed by the previous owner. It had a dedicated dual subwoofer in the back, but I removed that and left the wiring behind when I bought it in 2012. Recently TJ became my daily driver so I decided to upgrade the sound system. Having a convertible option on a Jeep, I decided a Marine Grade was required. All 4 factory speakers are easily replaceable without major surgical intervention. I bought a Polk dB461 for the front and a dB651 for the rear soundbar. They were a direct upgrade that installed in about an hour. Great sound from Polks. Bright and clear speakers that I am very happy with. With the volume cranked up, the 651 in particular had reasonably good bass, but still needed the richness that only a subwoofer could provide. I wanted to "feel" the depths. Since the wiring was already in place, I considered building my own subwoofer using a matching Polk 8" or 10" subwoofer. In examining cabinets and amps, I found that loss of storage space and possible theft were serious considerations. Make the license plate vibrate. Just fill in the audio bar. A compact, self-powered subwoofer is all I really need. The PWE-S8 has risen to the top of the range. As it turns out, it fits discreetly under the back seat. I'm still tweaking it, but so far TJ's sound is amazing across a wide range of music. I can literally feel the low keys resonating with the piano and bass passages. With the main unit's adjustment options, I can experiment to find the optimum point between the subwoofer and the mains. The position of Alpine's bass source is invisible to the ear. It's throughout the car. Exactly what I was looking for. The connections are made correctly. I made my own ground c-mount to the rear seat bracket using a heavy duty self tapping screw. The surface is sanded down to the bare metal. The guys at Best Buy helped me get the hot wire right back from the passenger side battery. (The main unit cables run on the driver's side. This separation eliminates any possibility of interference and noise.) We then connected the main unit remote turn-on cable (blue/white), plugged in the RCA connectors and voila. NOTHING. ! There is no operating indicator. We fiddled with it for about half an hour before the guys at BB decided it should be a PWE-S8. I received a replacement unit from Revain the next day, thinking it was a plug and play replacement. This one didn't work either! Then I called Alpine support and they ran some tests on me with a multimeter. The guy firmly said that this should be my connection. Although I got 12 volts it dropped to 9 when the amp was under load. I know hot was good because I saw it installed. That brought me back to earth. I removed the seat mount (2 large torx screws) and found paint on paint at the attachment point. I sanded it down to bare metal on both surfaces, screwed it all together and now really, VOILA! It worked great. Self-inflicted pain turned a fairly simple installation into a frustrating experience, but I managed. The Alpine PWE-S8 is the finishing touch to a great update. My 2-3 hours in jeep stuck in traffic is much better now. Hooray!