Earthquake Sound CP-8 Couch Potato - 300W Peak Powered 8-Inch Slim Home Theater Subwoofer with Down-Firing Bass Reflex Enclosure Design (Black Laminate, Single)

After reading the reviews I was nervous, but this thing is amazing and totally worth it.! I set it up in a basement 5.1 home theater that’s roughly 30’x12’x8’. The box is pretty small in terms of footprint, fit it easily under a coffee table. Bought separate 90° 2-1 RCA adapters and 50’ of single RCA for a receiver with a single RCA. After dialing it in, it’s at 1/2 volume. Movies get the couches and room vibrating, bass heavy music pounds, and I still have room to crank it if I really wanted to. I got no hissing, no popping like some reviews mentioned, box seems solid. Con: the sub itself is VERY exposed. Depending on how you grab it to move it, you could easily grab the speaker potentially damaging it.

I have been an audio nut for as long as I can remember and became aware of Earthquake Sound in the 90s in the car audio market. They have always been known for making solid products at reasonable prices, so when I saw the CP8, I was intrigued. I originally bought one a few years ago to compliment my computer audio system which consists of a Peachtree Audio Decco2 integrated amplifier and D5 bookshelf speakers, as well as Sennheiser HD 650 headphones for when I need to be a little quieter. This system cost a couple of thousand dollars all told, even after "bargain" shopping, which puts me into "He's clearly crazy!" category for my friends, but "mid-fi" category for audiophiles. Hopefully, this gives you an idea of my audio experience for this review. This sub fits perfectly in the cavernous foot well of my over-sized desk, and since it and my desk are both black, it blends in very well. It gets a substantial low bass boost, similar to corner loading, because of my foot well, but doesn't get too boomy as a result, which surprised me to be honest. It plays low enough that it will cover all but the most infrasonic of music, and in my small office, will energize the room with bass quite nicely, especially when sitting right on top of it at my desk. This system sounds phenomenal to me while seated at my desk (which is the most important thing)...but the bass quality varies dramatically around in the room due to its placement in the foot well. Given its excellent performance in my desktop system, I decided to get one for my office "home theater." My significant other wanted my "ugly speakers" out of the living room. Surprisingly, I was able to talk my way into keeping the sub...whew! So, I recently replaced those old speakers with in-ceiling surround sound (GoldenEar HTR 7000...another highly recommended product!). I re-purposed the old ones to my office and needed a sub. With the lack of space in my office, I bought a new CP8 to go behind the love seat, and it sounds wonderful, as I knew it would. It goes plenty deep, shakes the love seat nicely during explosions, and fills the room with bass. This won't replace my giant 15" sub and couch bass shakers in my primary home theater (how I was able to talk the S.O. into keeping those, I don't know!), it's a small 8" woofer after all. It's designed as an auxiliary sub to be placed right next to the listener in order to provide a similar tactile sensation as the bass shakers in bigger rooms and systems, but performs well enough that it can also be used in smaller situations like my office as the primary sub. Use it as designed immediately next to your listening position and it will perform excellently!

If you need a slim sub, do not hesitate. 150W is not a lot of power, but in a small room it's plenty. I turned it to half volume, dialed in another -6 dB on my Wiim Ultra, and the room EQ knocked it down even more! Then again, I disregarded the name and did not place it next to or under my couch. All subs benefit from corner-loading. Placed in a corner, the walls & floor of your room act as a horn, amplifying the bass & creating fewer reflections that merge & cancel each other. I appreciate the simplicity: there's no app required to tune it, but that's fine because receivers and streamers all have pretty good bass sync & level controls these days. This is just a very basic sub that does one thing and does it well, at a minimum price in space and dollars. While it's no replacement for a home theater sub designed to pulverize kidney stones in large rooms, it's quite good at filling in the bottom octave that bookshelf speakers can't reach, giving them a full, rich sound. If hidden & properly adjusted, your guests will never notice it, and might even believe your main speakers are doing all the work. Amazon sells 90° RCA cables, so if the included ones aren't long enough, there's no problem finding one that will still work. Also, rubber furniture anti-slip pads are a good idea. At higher volumes the plastic feet will walk the sub on a wood or tile floor! Damping the case vibration improves bass response as well.

We purchased the Couch Potato subwoofer because of its highly unique form factor, combined with Earthquake Sound's reputation for excellent sound quality and high value, combined with its speaker-level input, a feature that's disappearing from subs. The subwoofer is being used in a distributed audio system in a master bedroom. We have a pair of Sonance 6.5" VP64R speakers installed into the ceiling. The subwoofer is placed under the bed, near the footboard. We ran the 16/4 speaker cable from the multi-room amplifier (a 12-channel 60w/channel AudioControl Architect) located in a storage room two floors below) to a terminal behind the bed, then up to the Sonance speakers. Because the Sonance speakers can run full-range, we chose to wire the sub in parallel with the speakers, rather that wiring the Sonance speakers into the sub's high-pass Speaker Level output. Words can't fully describe how beautifully the Couch Potato sub fills out the sound in the room. The tonality of the sub is exceptional. Musical textures come through aplomb, and after the crossover frequency and level were adjusted to match the ceiling speakers, the sub and those speakers blended together so well it's almost impossible to hear them as separate speakers. The room has punch, texture, and a fullness that has to be heard to believe. And, best of all, the Couch Potato's form factor, which allowed it to be hidden under the bed, is what allowed this system to come together so well. I looked everywhere and couldn't find another subwoofer with a built-in amplifier, speaker-level inputs, an 8" woofer, and a low-profile cabinet. The CP8 met all of my requirements, and the best part it it actually sounds good, too. Win-Win. Now, the only part of the project that wasn't turnkey was that in order to fit the sub under the bed, the box spring needed to be elevated 1.5" to fit the sub. I used 2"x4" boards cut into various lengths, screwed to the bed's support frame. This naturally elevated the bed 1.5", which was not entirely what I wanted. But, it was needed to use the sub under the bed. I wish Earthquake Sound would consider making a shorter enclosure with two 6.5" woofers. It seems to me that this "hidden" subwoofer market (especially for whole-home distributed-audio systems where room's typically have a single pair of ceiling speakers and lack truly full-range sound) is not well served by current products. Earthquake Sound, are you listening"?

This a good sub! Plain black box. Nothing fancy but puts out quality bass. I used my Stereophile test CD which has test frequency tracks down to 20 Hz. This sub plays solid down to 32 hz. Beats my old 12 inch B.I.C.. The 12 inch will play louder but the CP8 plays better. So, I will use the CP8 for everyday listening and switch on the 12 inch when I'm in the mood for some rock. My room size is 14'x10'. This CP8 will not handle room sizes much bigger. The CP8 is designed to be placed under a sofa or bed or under furniture. So, a remote control to tweak the volume, frequency and phase would be a nice option. Once the sub is placed it is difficult to get at the controls. I recommend this sub for small to moderate room size and sound systems.

Bought to use with a vintage stereo and it caused the stereo to make terrible popping noise. Asked product support for help and they were clueless. They also said that spending time on my questions was "unmanageable". I like the concept, but product simply didn't work for me.

I really want to like this. It stops working once running for 1/2 hour or so. I realized it is due to the built in AMP overheating. Why? I don't know. I bought it from amazon warehouse so I guess the issue was already present. When I initiated return, they told me to just dump it since it was probably returned more than once already. I was going to dump it but just to try it out, I sealed off the plate amp opening with MDF. Running it with an external OSD 100w Sub amp which doesn't overheat seems to do the trick. The BASS is really full. I bought an OSD slim SUB to replace this. I like the OSD for music, but this is what I like for movies. The BASS is nice and enveloping. Really impressed with the box/speaker.

if you want some deep extension added to a normal (traditional/vintage) home stereo, the Earthquake Sound CP-8 v2 works very well. It's not going to crack walls at frat-party volumes, but that wasn't my need or expectation.

I used to use a Scandyna Bass Station, but having moved to a smaller apartment a while ago I found it a little over bearing. Of course I could have tuned it down but it took up lots of space. I wanted something smaller that could (if I really wanted) provide equally as much bass or more. I wasn't disappointed. I initially tried this by plugging my phone into it and playing some Bass Mechanic test tracks. It seemed over blown and the port noise was horrible. However, since connecting it up to my surround system and tuning it properly it has no such issues, so I suggest spending some serious time tuning this thing. It does take a while, but now provides exactly what I was looking for. The same (well, less) bass than I had before but it a much smaller and easier to hide package. It's very impressive how much bass this thing puts out, and I say that as an ex test pilot for Cerwin Vega in the 1990s (I used to run three 18" stroker subwoofers). Obviously as I get older I don't want my music to be boomy or shake my head. However, this thing does indeed provide more bass than I would know what to do with at my age.

En remplacement de mon sidney AR12, caisson a l'epoque très réputé pour ses qualités, ce caisson va encore plus loin. Plus present quand nécessaire tout en etant aussi rapide et sec que le Sidney. Seul petit défaut, l'accès aux réglages. Mais normal au vu de sa conception. Manque aussi une entrée LFE. Produit reçu bien emballé.

I chose CP8 mainly for it's slim figure so I can place it next to the sofa on it's side (a big square sub is out of the question in our sh***y tipicaly British living room). Now don't let the slim part fool you about this sub, it is a really heavy hitter, it can literally make the paintings on the wall shake! It is connected to the receiver via RCA cable on the white input (the red one gave a boomy sound), half volume, crossed at 100 Hz, -3 Db in receiver settings. I've tested it, it really goes down to 20 hz (and below, only you can't hear it). The movies are brought to life by 5 speakers and this sub. Some music can be too boomy, maybe playing with the equalizer would help