Scares the *** out of the cat...

Breaks things as they fall on the floor

I got this as damged goods on Ebay super cheap!! Yes it was damaged, I had to replace the driver which was all ripped up. Other than that the cabinet was perfect and the amp was fine. No hum from mine although I did use high quality cable. A little heads up if other get a NON warranty unit like I did. The replacement driver from JBL direct is US $265.00. YOWEE @!#&#$. So I measured the hole which is 8.75" and went to the local stereo shop and bought a 4 OHM 10" JBL sub for $110. Since a standard 10" sub uses a 9" mounting hole I carefully and lovingly taped the bottom of my unit up so as to not scratch it all up. Removed the feet and proceeded to make the mounting hole larger. Easy except for the board that covers the amp section on the inside. Then installed my new driver and hooked it all up. Unbelievable quality and volume. I almost expected the sound to be a little muddy or have some tonal issues since I was not using the original driver but it sounds very clean and tight. I compared it to a friends and both him and myself feel that my slightly modified version actually is cleaner, faster to respond, and louder.

Some will say this is not a fair reveiw since I am not using the original driver. On that note no am am not. But after listening to my friends I was about to go and buy one because I was so impressed with the one he had. I just ran across the broken one first.

Overall this completely makes my Audiosource sub sound pathetic and I now wonder how I got by with it at all. I would have hladly paid $300 for this if I had not found the one I did.

Similar Products Used:

Audiosource 8"

none

too many

My second PB10 arrived recently. It appeared ok at first, but then... within a week it too went dead. I really wanted to like this subwoofer, but I'm not about to try a third time. Sorry JBL. You loose.

Very imperceptible hum when in standby. Use good rca cable! No power switch, though I suppose I could hook it up to the switched outlet in my receiver, as a previous review suggested.

This is my first sub. I bought it before I read the reviews here, and knock on wood, I have had no reliability issues. It is hooked to my Sony 845 receiver, and plays sound from games, cds, mp3s, streaming internet radio, & dvds from my Dell's digital coax sound card. Nothing like *feeling* the high rev rumble of a Ducati 996 in Superbike racing game! It really livens up MP3's, which makes up for the fact that MP3 conversion crops off the lowest lows (& the higest highs) of your audio tracks. I can't tell any diff between CD audio and MP3 when played through this sub, and jbl control 1 speakers. I think Monster cable is overpriced (try www.svideotorca.com, I did), and decent non-monster rca cord gives it great sound with very minimal noise. Have not tried DVD yet, but cable tv audio now has depth from this sub. As long as it continues to perform its job like this, I will be very satisfied.

Similar Products Used:

None.

Price, size and overall sound quality

no power switch, occasional port noise

W0W. That about sums this one up. not a perfect sub but unbeatable at this price point. can be very musical but also capable of thumping out the low frequency effects in movie soundtracks. I've had this sub for about 3 months now and it has done wonders to round out my system. it took a little tweaking to get the sound right, but was nowhere near as difficult as the DCM (blech) or AR subs i had auditioned. compareable to some of the Velodynes i've experienced and at 1/3rd the price. you almost can't go wrong. the only drawback is the lack of power switch. It would come in handy for those late night movie marathons when you don't want to anger the neighbors ;)
Clean, not at all muddy, and never overpowering. sometimes a bit weak at low volumes, but not a major problem.
If you're considering a sub, go for the PB10

Similar Products Used:

DCM, AR, Velodyne

sound is very decent no distortion at high volumes, cheap

for no apprent reason it stopped working after 2 1/2 months,takes 2-3 weeks to get it fixed

Product is very fragile. If you move it even slightly while it is plugged in, it will make a very loud noise. The noise goes away after a while. Initially The SW would no go back to standby mode once the amp was turned off. A few minutes after turning off the amp,the SW would make a loud hum until you unplugged it. A few days after experiencing this problem, the SW stopped working altogether. The Led's worked on and off (i.e. sometimes it would change from Red to Green and vis-versa and other times it did not come on at all).
While the SW was working it sounded great for both music CD's and DVD movies. There was no distortion even at high volumes. You get a very clear deep sounding bass.
It worked very well with the other Klipsch speakers, B&K preamp and B&K power amps.
I bought mine online, would never recommend it to anyone, because of this problem. It is going to take abt 2 -3 weeks to repair the SW. The repair center said a lot of these JBL SW models gave trouble, but do not give anymore problems once it is fixed - Will have to wait and see.

sound and appearance

reliability

Has a slight hum all the time, but that's not usually an issue because I am not usually close enough to hear it.

One of the two LEDs on the front side seems to have blown out for no apparent reason. However the sub seems to still work fine so I didn't return it.

It's super super fragile; be sure you unplug it before you attempt to move it. The slightest movement of its cabinet when I attempted to adjust its position in my room, made mine make weird scratchy / painful sounding noises for about half an hour. I thought for sure I was going to have to return it to best buy. But the noises seemed to go away and it works fine now. The only problem is the one (redundant) LED, but since it seems to still put out the bass, the problem seems limited to a bad LED and I can live with one less LED.

It sounds good. Listening to old music and movies is a new pleasure again. It brings out bass nuances of music and sound that I never heard before. It is funny how some music has a ton of low freq sound, and other music does not activate the sub whatsoever. The sub has plenty of power. My other speakers are JBL HDS610 mains, JBL S28 rears, and Mitsubishi center. Receiver is JVC 7000.

This is my first subwoofer experience.

Recommend buying this sub in person at a store where you can return it just in case. Don't buy it mail order or online.

Similar Products Used:

none

sound and appearance

reliability

Has a slight hum all the time, but that's not usually an issue because I am not usually close enough to hear it.

One of the two LEDs on the front side seems to have blown out for no apparent reason. However the sub seems to still work fine so I didn't return it.

It's super super fragile; be sure you unplug it before you attempt to move it. The slightest movement of its cabinet when I attempted to adjust its position in my room, made mine make weird scratchy / painful sounding noises for about half an hour. I thought for sure I was going to have to return it to best buy. But the noises seemed to go away and it works fine now. The only problem is the one (redundant) LED, but since it seems to still put out the bass, the problem seems limited to a bad LED and I can live with one less LED.

It sounds good. Listening to old music and movies is a new pleasure again. It brings out bass nuances of music and sound that I never heard before. It is funny how some music has a ton of low freq sound, and other music does not activate the sub whatsoever. The sub has plenty of power. My other speakers are JBL HDS610 mains, JBL S28 rears, and Mitsubishi center. Receiver is JVC 7000.

This is my first subwoofer experience.

Recommend buying this sub in person at a store where you can return it just in case. Don't buy it mail order or online.

Similar Products Used:

none

sound and appearance

reliability

Has a slight hum all the time, but that's not usually an issue because I am not usually close enough to hear it.

One of the two LEDs on the front side seems to have blown out for no apparent reason. However the sub seems to still work fine so I didn't return it.

It's super super fragile; be sure you unplug it before you attempt to move it. The slightest movement of its cabinet when I attempted to adjust its position in my room, made mine make weird scratchy / painful sounding noises for about half an hour. I thought for sure I was going to have to return it to best buy. But the noises seemed to go away and it works fine now. The only problem is the one (redundant) LED, but since it seems to still put out the bass, the problem seems limited to a bad LED and I can live with one less LED.

It sounds good. Listening to old music and movies is a new pleasure again. It brings out bass nuances of music and sound that I never heard before. It is funny how some music has a ton of low freq sound, and other music does not activate the sub whatsoever. The sub has plenty of power. My other speakers are JBL HDS610 mains, JBL S28 rears, and Mitsubishi center. Receiver is JVC 7000.

This is my first subwoofer experience.

Recommend buying this sub in person at a store where you can return it just in case. Don't buy it mail order or online.

Similar Products Used:

none

sound and appearance

reliability

Has a slight hum all the time, but that's not usually an issue because I am not usually close enough to hear it.

One of the two LEDs on the front side seems to have blown out for no apparent reason. However the sub seems to still work fine so I didn't return it.

It's super super fragile; be sure you unplug it before you attempt to move it. The slightest movement of its cabinet when I attempted to adjust its position in my room, made mine make weird scratchy / painful sounding noises for about half an hour. I thought for sure I was going to have to return it to best buy. But the noises seemed to go away and it works fine now. The only problem is the one (redundant) LED, but since it seems to still put out the bass, the problem seems limited to a bad LED and I can live with one less LED.

It sounds good. Listening to old music and movies is a new pleasure again. It brings out bass nuances of music and sound that I never heard before. It is funny how some music has a ton of low freq sound, and other music does not activate the sub whatsoever. The sub has plenty of power. My other speakers are JBL HDS610 mains, JBL S28 rears, and Mitsubishi center. Receiver is JVC 7000.

This is my first subwoofer experience.

Recommend buying this sub in person at a store where you can return it just in case. Don't buy it mail order or online.

Similar Products Used:

none

sound and appearance

reliability

Has a slight hum all the time, but that's not usually an issue because I am not usually close enough to hear it.

One of the two LEDs on the front side seems to have blown out for no apparent reason. However the sub seems to still work fine so I didn't return it.

It's super super fragile; be sure you unplug it before you attempt to move it. The slightest movement of its cabinet when I attempted to adjust its position in my room, made mine make weird scratchy / painful sounding noises for about half an hour. I thought for sure I was going to have to return it to best buy. But the noises seemed to go away and it works fine now. The only problem is the one (redundant) LED, but since it seems to still put out the bass, the problem seems limited to a bad LED and I can live with one less LED.

It sounds good. Listening to old music and movies is a new pleasure again. It brings out bass nuances of music and sound that I never heard before. It is funny how some music has a ton of low freq sound, and other music does not activate the sub whatsoever. The sub has plenty of power. My other speakers are JBL HDS610 mains, JBL S28 rears, and Mitsubishi center. Receiver is JVC 7000.

This is my first subwoofer experience.

Recommend buying this sub in person at a store where you can return it just in case. Don't buy it mail order or online.

Similar Products Used:

none