Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion HiFi & HT Chat Tactile Transducers (Buttkicker)

NutFlush, That video is brilliant! Nice to see a little humour on here. Nice stage you built too!!

Its amazing if this small buttkicker can give that massive stage + seats + people a good effect.

Great stuff!!!

Don't let the size fool you. It's slightly smaller than a basketball, but quite heavy. Combine that mass with the 1100W from the amp and you get some serious force...

I just thought I would update those kind folks who offered their advice regarding this topic.

I finally received my Buttkicker from the Danish distributer and set it all up last night. I still have a lot of tweaking with the set up but will do that over the weekend when I have time.

First impression is WOW. It really fills that gap that I had in my system. I could hear the bass before but now I FEEL everything. It really completes the sound. It is fast too. Its super responsive and the cut off is set at 40Hz. Its nice not to have to turn the volume up to ridiculous volumes to appreciate the bass. There is no booming or annoying resonances around the room either which is great.

I would be so bold as to say that pound for pound it has been the most significant upgrade I have made in a LONG time. If you live in an apartment and you really want to feel the movies and get even more sucked into an immersive experience I can definitely recommend this product!

Most good dealers will offer a one week return period so that you can buy with confidence. I find it very strange that this type of product is not more common in HT set ups. The branding/Website and overall marketing doesn't help the buttkicker products for home theatre at all. I can imagine that high end enthusiasts may be discouraged by such a product. Its hard to take a product seriously when its presented in such a way.

Its A LOT more expensive in Europe than the states so if your in the states and would like to try it out you can pick yourself up a bargain!!

My couch is kind of a light weight frame and don't feel comfortable bolting one of these too it. But after seeing NutFlush's setup I'm thinking I could try bolting one to the floor under the couch. It's just a cellar below. Basically shake the house but with the epi-center directly under couch

They also sell an adaptor that rests one leg of your couch on the adaptor and the BK is bolted to the other end. That might work well too.

George,

I don't think that's a good idea. Your couch needs to be able to move up/down a little. It cannot do that when standing on a hard floor (and you will not want your floor to move up/down by a few millimeters). Please take a closer look at the rubber foot in one of my photos. This allows the whole platform to bounce. You want your butt to be shaken (= amplitude!) and not just tickled, right?

If you just send some "ripples" through the floor to the couch, those will also mostly be filtered away by the padding you are sitting on.

Another "no go" might be that when you try to shake your floor, I strongly suspect that this will result in all kind of "rattling" noises coming from the floor, wall panels etc. Either that or the floor will not move at all (and thus not shake your couch either).

In any case you should place your couch on something that allows it to bounce. Either put rubber feet under all the legs or place the whole couch on a platform that rests on rubber feet like I did.

The easiest way for you would probably be what meridian506 suggested. You could also try contacting the company and ask for advice.

Good luck & "Shake it baby!"
NutFlush

I installed mine with the LFE kit under one of the legs. I have planned to mount it underneath the sofa at the weekend. My sofa has 10 legs and is super heavy and luckily it has a perfect area underneath where I can still use the LFE mounting plate so that it will still sit on the ground but connects to the main support beam of timber underneath.

George you could also build a MDF/Plywood platform, mount rubber isolation feet and then place your sofa onto of that. There are loads of things you can do. They are very versatile. I had more time last night and watched TITANIC. It was phenomenal!!!! Never heard or felt BASS like it and never dreamed of that kind of effect integrated in my apartment, fantastic. Even my girlfriend was so sucked into the movie experience.

I can not recommend one or more of these enough!!!

Or you can build your own transducers.

I use these built using a 8" woofer and amplifier from an old subwoofer. There are some difficulties during the building that I have learnt.



The image shows the underneath of one part of the couch.

I have had these for a couple of years and I cannot live without them. I also appreciate these much for music, not all people do. The infrasonic feel that they give would be very difficult to achieve the conventional way, and your ears would not like it.

Couldn't agree with you more, I've had the Clark Synthesis Transducer for several years running at 36hz and below, Threw away my subwoofers, and the clarity and speed of the bass was a revelation. Above 40hz I found male voices intruding. Only slight problem is matching the levels, but a variable line level amplifier helped.

Philip