Hi nowayman,

I have a buttkicker with the 1100W amp that I bought here: www.fischer-amps.de

It drives a platform (4m x 3m ) out of wooden beams that rests on 6 rubber feet. On top of it I have 2 recliners and a sofa. You'd be amazed how much you get shaken considering the weight of the construction and several people sitting there! grin

I feed the sub signal through a Y connector into an equalizer (Behringer PEQ2200) then into a compressor/limiter (Behringer MDX1400) and finally into the amp. The reason for the 2 additional components is basically to prevent that the Buttkicker "knocks". This happens when the amplitude is too big and the internal mass hits the end of the possible displacement (like clipping in a speaker). It will not damage the Buttkicker, but it makes a rather unpleasant noise. Normally you will not hear the buttkicker (make sure to dampen it well when you fasten it; I put 2 layers of carpet between the Buttkicker and the wood I screwed it on). But you may very well hear your furniture (or the platform) rattle.

As you may know, sub sonic waves are very powerful. A 10Hz wave has a lot more power than a 40Hz wave. It's 4 times the frequency although it's just 30Hz away and well within the band you want to use as input for the Buttkicker. So I had to find a way that keeps the Buttkicker from "knocking". Simply turning down the volume didn't work. In some movies you get such low frequencies that you will not feel much on other occasions when you set the volume according to those few occasions. So the first step is to adjust the volume for the different frequencies according to their impact on the Buttkicker. I then introduced the compressor/limiter to first compress the volume (a "quiet" and a "loud" noise will both give you a kick that you feel, with only a certain differentiation in strength). The limiter serves as a final measure to cut away any peaks that might get through.

After a lot of try & error with the equalizer and the compressor/limiter I finally found a setup that shakes well over a wide frequency band and a wide range of volume. Don't worry too much that you twist and tweak the signal. This is NOT HiFi anymore, but that's OK since there's a reason we don't listen with our butts... wink

Don't let my explanations discourage you. You may well start with just the Buttkicker and the amp. Maybe you like the results. The 2 additional devices plus cables cost me a little more than 100,- Euro in total, so that's not very expensive.

Let us know how about your experiences!

Enjoy,
NutFlush


P.S. BTW, great movies for the Buttkicker are "The Haunting" (girl fleeing from monster, monster breaks through window & much more scenes), "Lord Of The Rings 2" (first encounter with a walking ent), "U-571" (when the waterbombs get dropped overboard)!