Factory subwoofer is boomy, turned it down to help. Hate hip hop boomy bass, like tight bass in rock. Tight favored over loud or deep. In home stereo the usual trick is to seal a box and stuff it with polyfill to tighten the bass. Anybody try this???

It could be the door speakers causing bass distortion, same problem in the Ridgeline. Swapping the door speakers made the subwoofer sound much better.

You could also seal the box up. Seal the seams and plug the port. Add a little polyfill if you think it needs it, but i do believe that might make it a little boomier as it makes the sub act like its in a bigger box.

Are you sure J, I thought that was the case with a ported speaker like it is now, but I thought sealing it and making it an acoustic suspension that stuffing with polyfill was the thing to do. Should make the bass tighter, at the expense of some lower frequencies, but I want clean tight bass or nothing at all, not the hip hop boom. Right now I have the sub turned way down because its boomy, so if I tighten it up I can turn it up and have better bass anyway. If nobody has tried it I will report back when I do it, but may be a while before I get around to it.

Well, i'm sure that adding polyfill gives the effects of a larger box. And, to my knowledge a larger box means boomier bass. A sealed box will actually give you deeper bass, it just isn't as loud. Try sealing it up first and then adding polyfill later. I fried my factory sub early on by overpowering it with mike's mod. My genious basshead friend messed with my settings while i was out of the car and then later on our trip it fried. I replaced it with an elemental designs eu-700, now the 7kv.2, which was a definate improvement. Later i sealed the box up, seams and port. Gave the sub an entirely different sound. I added polyfill, because the factory box is tiny. I would really suggest sealing up the box. Take the box apart and seal the seams. Then somehow seal up the port. I used Fun Stuff, or whatever that hardening foam stuff is called. Enough of that sees to have done the trick. If you then notice that its still boomy, try adding polyfill. Could be the trick, its entirely possible that i'm wrong, or that it just sounds better to your ear. I'm sure you know by now, but car audio is a bunch of trial and error. Thats what makes it fun :)

How much is the E design, and is it plug and play without any mods?

The problem with the elemental designs is that you'd really need to amp it to notice much of a difference. It wouldn't take a huge amp, just something thats 100-250rms and it'd bump. An amp this size should easily be able to bet installed under the driver seat or something.