Great sound. Compliments other JBL speakers well.

It blew up!

I bought this using about 2 years ago and have enjoyed listening to it. I use it about once a week on avg. It complements the sound of the low end JBL surround speakers well. The other day, I had this unit turned on without the stereo powered on. I tend to do this since the switch is in the back. It made a loud bassy noise and the powered off. I saw it blew a fuse. I replaced it and it blew another fuse. I sent a note to JBL about this. We will see what they say.

Base that will shake your house and make your skin crawl...no distortion.

Too boomy for some rap music

I just bought the pb12 bye jbl and it is an outstanding subwoofer. It handles base extremely well...and it will literally turn the hairs up on ur skin. I was surprised by all the reviews about the amplifier so i got a 4 year warranty with it...hope not to have any problems. The sub shook my entire house but is a little too boomy with rap music so you have to turn the volume for the sub down. It is also great with movies and the explosions make it as if it were right in front of you. The sub really sounds good with my B&W series 2 bookshelf speakers..it matches pretty well. I reccommend this sub to people out there looking for one....I got it on sale, with 40 dollars off of the sale price from Best Buy so i think it was a good deal....shop around ....you dont have to pay full price.

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Coda S Sub.....Piece of crap

I had problems with a previous JBL Sub, and bought the PB12 a couple years ago or so. It has done a great job for me so far. Mine switches to standby just fine, although I turn it off anyway. I'm sorry to see so many poor reviews. It seems JBL's strong suite is not subwoofers. Mebbe next time I'll cough up a grand or so for a sunfire... :P At the moment I am running JBL s412pII's with powered 12 inch woofers... so I am certainly not lacking in the low frequency range. Heres hoping it continues to work so well.

I don't actually own this sub, but after reading the many reviews on this site that mentioned the amplifier going bad, I contacted JBL about the issue to see what I could find. I wrote: I am considering buying this sub for my system. I have tested the sub at my local audio store and was impressed with the sound. However, several reviews I have read on this model have spoken about the amp going bad after about 6-10 months. They were all listed as 2002 and older models. Has this issue been addressed/fixed in 2003 models? If so, how can I tell if I am buying the corrected model? The support specialist at JBL replied: I certainly appreciate and understand your concern. However, please be aware that for every 1 negative review on the web, there are 98 customers that are thrilled with this unit. Our defect rate on this product has been roughly 2%. Even so, yes we did address the issue. If the serial number on the PB12 doesn't start with AM, you will be able to consider yourself okay with the purchase. For those who were turned away by all the bad reviews, I hope this helps.

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Velodyne CHT-10

Great Lows, Great Value

Would have liked it to be foreword-fireing

This shakes my house, and sounds great with my ND 310's and Bose Surrounds. I haven't had it for that long, but I have never had any problems with my previous JBL products, and expect this to work great.

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Polk Audio (Sucks), KLH, Yamaha, Paradigm

Nice bass, which hits the low frequencies that my book shelf speakers couldn't hit.

Idiots making bad reviews b/c it performed bad on their crappy system.

I love bass! PB12's can give you bass if that's what you are looking for. It also hit's all the low's that you'd like to hear while listening to music or watching movies. This product will also shake or vibrate the hair on your arms and legs. Although at this time of my review, i haven't had this unit for a month yet and i can't comment on the problems that others have had. I watched family and friends put together theater systems from using dj speaker hand-me downs to buying the small crappy home theater packages that panasonic and other companies offer. Now it's my turn to make my own home theater and i made sure i got nothing but the best and/or average... not crap! I settled for a pb12 and a kenwood KR-V7070 thx certified receiver. by the way, i got both really cheap at www.etronics.com Alot of previous reviews here gave the pb12 a bad review b/c they didn't like the way it sounded. I think it's just their taste and/or the lack of quality in their other equipment. All I know is that i love my pb12 and i'd recommend anyone to get one, especially for the price i paid. If you want great sound, do what i want to do... get nice and big floor standing speakers so that the subwoofer has less stress... sub would only have to produce the really low notes. Another thing, get a receiver with a sub out and a good pair of subwoofer cables... that'll take care of your crappy buzzing noise... if that don't work, replace all your non-shielded wiring on your system... in fact, throw your p.o.s. away and get a KENWOOD KR-V7070 THX certified reciever... for the price i got mine for, it'd be worth it.

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http://www.audioreview.com/A-V+Receivers/Kenwood+KR-V7070/PRD_118620_2718crx.aspx

Good customer support, responsive bass in sync with mains, LFE and normal mode on PB12, good value for $200-$250 on the web

I miss the cool front grill of PSW-D112

I bought a PSW-D112 from harmanaudio.com. At 14th month, amplifier died, changed 2 fusers, which was blown right away. Called customer support and they said it should have served me longer and sent me a brand new PB-12 as a replacement. I am happy with resolution. I said there were complaints about those subs on the web and they said out of thousands sold, a few hundred can be broken and people tend to write when things go wrong, not when it is working fine, which makes sense to me. My two cents for humming issues people experienced: I suggest people to use good shielded subwoofer cables and not run them close to electrical wires, which has 60hz frequency that might leak to your signal input, therefore to sub. Also small leaks of those frequencies (barely heard but keeps sub active all the time) might cause amplifier overheat, especialy if volume is cranked all the way up.

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PSW-D112, harman kardon brand 8" subwoofer (still using for the last 4 years)

Works great!

None so far...still knocking on wood!

I am shocked that so many people have had trouble with their units! I hooked it up and it worked perfectly and still does after 1 year. (Knocking on wood while writing this now!) The bass is very strong in all movies I have tried. I have heard sounds from this that I didn't know exist in low freq. bass. One thing is odd though, my Yamaha HTR-5560 receiver allows you to set the bass to go through the sub by itself or through all the speakers and the sub by itself does not seem to give the full bass in music mode. It might be my receiver though so I can't blame it on the sub...yet.

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My first sub but have had 15" Mach one's along with JBL floor speakers for some time now.

Heavy. Re-creates the rumble heard and felt at modern movie theaters. Very tight and accurate on hardwood flooring, or on a SUB stand. Amazing rumble and power. Literally shakes the gutters on my house.

Muddy on carpet.

Fantastic, well built powered sub. Very heavy. Lord of the rings sounds simply amazing, tons of accureate rumble. Litterally shakes our home theater room. Had it on carpet, but purchased a SUB stand and that really tightened up the bass responce. I don't reccomend it soley for music, I think it's best suited for home theater.

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JBL S-CENTERII (CENTER) JBL N38II (MAINS) JBL S36II (SURROUNDS) JBL PB12 (POWERED SUB)

powerful 250w RMS amp 12in Long throw woofer.

slight hum when no signal is sent to it still a little boomy

I have just recently read suome of the reviews and I am shocked and feel sorry for those who had problems with their subs. I still enjoy using my sub and hope that it will last (knock on wood) a few things that have changed though ares its placement. I re-arranged my room so that the port is firing towards the wall that the entertainment center is on and what a difference it makes. I tighter and more musical response. I now own a three Definitive ProMonitor 200s (c,L,R) which are rated at 28Hz-30kHz, but I think thats at +/-6dB so actually more like 45Hz so I have the PB12 crossed over at about 60Hz-70Hz since then it takes care of only really low frequencies. I also now have a Yamaha RX-V1300 receiver and it too makes a big difference.

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Yamaha Klipsch DefTech, etc