# Alpine SBR-S83V (Type R 8" in Alpine prefab ported enclosure)



## Huey (Oct 28, 2008)

First review here, mostly lurker but figured I'd try to contribute, while I was sitting in my wife's car, listening to the aforementioned sub. For anybody who's not familiar with this enclosure, you can check it out here: Alpine Electronics of America, Inc.

Setup: 
Eclipse CD5030
Soundtream Rubicon 604 (the original one)
JL XR650CXi
and of course, the SBR-S83V


Bought the sub 6 hours ago, jerry rigged a simple setup at home to try it out and give it a bit of a break-in. Was quite impressed initially by how well it blended with my bookshelf Mirage OMD5's in my upstairs 2.1 setup. Decent low end extension in a home set-up (600 sq ft living room) and didn't sound too peaky, like the Mirage Prestige S8 home audio sub it replaced. Seemed to be a very versatile sub, blended when it needed to, making my bookshelfs simply sound like the floorstanding version, yet had enough balls to rumble and boogy when in the mood. 

Now for the meat of the review... in the wife's car where it will make it's new residence, which is an '07 Honda Fit. This will be replacing a 10W6V2 in a custom MDF box of roughly 0.7 cu ft net, sealed box. X-over is 80Hz at 24db/oct LP and 12db/oct HP. Again, sub is 6 hours old, however, it was a demo model at the local shop, so unsure of how many hours on it. I listen to all sorts of music... 

George Michael - Spin The Wheel
Bassline goes quite low, really exposes subs that don't dig deep. This sub/enclosure had no problem reproducing the lowest bass notes with decent authority when called upon. No single frequency stood out as being louder. Like I said above, not peaky, nice flat response. 

50 Cent & Jeremih - Down on Me
Gives you a decent slap in the chest for what it is. The sliding bass tones, again, where very smooth, with no varying loudness dependant on frequency. Tried this song in the house as well, eliminating any cabin gain, with minimal room gain. Was still able to go nice and low, smoothly. Little drop off on the low end. 

Dire Straits - Private Investigation
It disappeared. I mean that in a good way. Blended very well with my JL XR's. Didn't sound like a sub was on, just sounded like the XR's were playing full range. Kinda like my home setup, it simply made the front speakers sound as if they were playing full range. Last time I had a sub blend this well with my front stage was with an original Focal 27V sub, paired up with a pair of AVI BSM's. Both were very transparent subs that produced exactly what it needed to, nothing more. 

Bruce Springsteen - Streets of Philadelphia
Some subs that I had used previously had a bit of nasty resonance with this song. Not so with this sub. Stayed composed all the way through, even at fairly high listening levels. 

Dave Matthews - Say Goodbye
Lotsa drums in this song, faster bass. Surprise, the drums sounded like... yup, drums. Good impact, good pace, sounded very natural, transparent. Didn't draw any attention to itself. 

By now, anybody willing to read to this point would have hopefully gotten enough of an idea of what I think of the sub, so I won't bore you with any more songs. The sub doesn't play as loud as the 10W6V2, but I think that observation is also due to the fact that it blends so much better, without drawing attention to itself. A perceived loudness so to speak. Truthfully speaking, I've never been uber happy with my 10W6V2, it always sounded too boomy for my tastes. Always had a hard time getting that sub to blend in with any front stage well. This sub ticks off most of my requirements: small, light, decent SQL, not too power hungry. 

Thanks, and curses to rexroadj for making me spend more money.  Your review had definitely inspired me to have a listen/buy this little 8, and I AM impressed.


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## trojan fan (Nov 4, 2007)

Very nice review....sounds like Alpine hit it out of the park park with this setup

Kudos to Jim over at Alpine


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## Angrywhopper (Jan 20, 2010)

I've heard nothing but great reviews about this sub.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## chevbowtie22 (Nov 23, 2008)

I'm really thinking hard about using 2 of these in my girls 2011 Altima coupe.


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## trojan fan (Nov 4, 2007)

Angrywhopper said:


> I've heard nothing but great reviews about this sub.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Remember the right enclosure makes all the difference, which has a lot to do with this review


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## trojan fan (Nov 4, 2007)

chevbowtie22 said:


> I'm really thinking hard about using 2 of these in my girls 2011 Altima coupe.


Get-R- done


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## avanti1960 (Sep 24, 2011)

I auditioned this sub at my local dealer after reading this review. They were on order when I bought my original sub, a pioneer 10" enclosed shallow mount. I was not overly impressed with the pioneer so I wanted to upgrade. 
when I demoed them, the rep said that there was no way the 8" would be better than the pioneer 10". 
Well, during beat music and bass line music, after about 10 minutes, we were both blown away. This sub filled the entire room with hard tight bass- i had to make sure no other subs were playing- he pulled the wall plug and it confirmed- just the alpine. 
the rep tried to play it down his error by saying, yeah, well, it's a vented enclosure, bla bla bla. 
I put this in the back of my small SUV and it took about a week and then it sounded like it did in the store. I'm driving it with a bridged 4-channel amp and it sees 200 watts. It is very impressive- one is all I need. The tight bass is no comparison to the muddy 10" pioneer. Very tight, sharp and a physical hit. Very much recommended.


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## cgm246 (Jun 27, 2011)

need to do a comparo to the JL audio 8" prefab they have..


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## Hulk311 (Jan 25, 2012)

I am thinking of getting the SBR-S83V, any other opinions on this sub?


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## AndersonS (Mar 6, 2013)

Mine is about two weeks old, and I love it. This thing is just so convenient. It's loud and clean, and fits in the back of an extended cab. What's not to like?


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