ButtKickers coming to my Home Theater (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

I have talked about this in the Star Wars movie thread....

I was very impressed while watching THE LAST JEDI on the big screen and it had nothing to do with the film itself.

It actually had to do with AMC's premier recliner chairs. The amount of bass that I felt during that film accurately accented the action on screen. It was an incredible experience.

So, I get home and I start thinking about how I can replicate that experience in my own home theater.

So, next weekend, I get ButtKicker modules added to my chairs. I am having it professionally installed as I really don't have the skills to do it myself.

I will keep you posted on the install with some pictures and my initial impressions once it is done.

If anyone else on this forum has ButtKickers in their chairs, would love to hear your opinions.

 

[Robert_J]

I have seriously thought about it but didn't want some fake feeling shaky couch. I've felt something similar on a smart home demo back in the late 90's at Disney World and it felt like a novelty.

Some of the guys over at another forum use very large DIY subs behind their seats to get that tactile feel.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Purchased my system from Ultimate Home Entertainment here in New Jersey. The owner, Roman, is coming to my home this upcoming weekend to install these ButtKickers in my two chairs.

I hope to take some pictures to share with all of you as well as, perhaps, provide a review and video of the results.

All I can say is that if my seats perform as well as the AMC Theater Chairs did -- and I expect they should -- I am going to be a very happy action movie watcher moving forward.

Here are some review videos I got a chance to look at this morning...

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Just got my ButtKickers installed and watched my first Blu-ray with them activated.

But first...

I am rather surprised by the lack of interest in this topic. However, I understand it. Everyone has their priorities when it comes to spending money on their Home Theater. In the scheme of things, adding what many would believe to be a "novelty" device to their theater chairs probably doesn't rank very high in upgrade options.

With 4k projection not even being on my radar, I am always looking for ways to make my Home Theater viewing experience better.

I believe that these ButtKickers have been well worth the investment.

The cost of doing two theater chairs cost about $900 in needed parts. I had it professionally installed by Roman of rtheaters, which ran me an extra $250. Easily, the install could have been done by anyone without a professional, but I never feel comfortable doing these kinds of things myself.

Left alone, it took a good hour for me to figure out how to execute the ButtKickers. At first, they weren't working. Had to go in and raise the LFE on my receiver a bit, and then play with the gain control on the new subwoofer amp that I purchased for the setup. Seemed that the gain was so high that the bass was just knocking out the ButtKickers. I had to continually power on and off the amp and ButtKickers switch to reboot. Found the secret to success in lowering the gain significantly and further raising the LFE on the Denon receiver.

Once properly calibrated, the ButtKickers turned out to be quite an amazing thing.

I watched Kingsman: The Golden Circle. The ButtKickers beautifully accented the film's action sequences as I had expected. A jet plane coming into view produced low, vibrating seat rumble. Explosions provided quick, sharp booming impact that literally kicked my gut. The amazing thing about all this is that the ButtKickers were properly timed to the LFE track in that vibration was not constant, but only when absolutely needed. For this reason, the concept that this was a novelty product was null and void.

Without any argument, adding ButtKickers could be the next best investment you make in your home seating. It significantly adds more immersive impact to whatever you are watching. You actually feel bullet fire and explosions. It really takes my viewing of action films to an entirely new level.

If you aren't sure this product is for you, I would suggest finding an AMC Theater near you that has the premium Dolby recliner chair seating with ButtKickers installed. Watch a good action movie sitting in those chairs. After that, you might be just as excited as I was in wanting to replicate that experience in the home.

 

[George_W_K]

No one cares about Cleveland so I don’t have a theater with Buttkickers installed near me. However, I did get in a few movies when the local Cinemark gave D-Box seats a trial. Other than not moving, do you know if the Buttkickers give a similar sensation to those?

Before I got married and still lived at my house, I had some of the cheap transducers wired to my couch for that extra bass feeling. They were $25 a piece and I bought a used cheap receiver to power them. It was pretty awesome to watch movies at the time. The big difference between the ones I had and Buttkickers from what I remember was the frequency response. Since the Buttkickers respond to much lower frequencies, I was still missing out on the best part of the soundtrack, but I had to go with what I could afford.

I stopped using them when I bought my SVS PB12+/2 and was able to feel the vibration of the lower frequencies. However, my house was built on a slab and when I would go to a friend of mine’s house that had a basement underneath his HT room and his SVS would send the low LFE through the floor into the couch and gave an even cooler tactile sensation with the LFE track.

I always wanted to try to upgrade to Buttkickers for their low frequency response to see if I could get a similar feeling as my friend’s house, never got a chance.

Also wanted to mention, when I first signed up here in 2002 or 2003, Buttkickers were talked about quite a bit, that’s how I found out about them. I’d give them a shot now, but I’m still at my wife’s house and don’t have a real HT setup at the moment. I sit in an office chair in front of a 55” OLED tv instead of having a projection screen and nice seating. One day. One day.

 

[Brian Dobbs]

I installed two of these last month.
https://www.amazon.com/AuraSound-AS...=8-1&keywords=AuraSound+AST-2B-4+bass+shakers

 

[technohobby]

Aura and Dayton bass shakers mounted under a platform for my Theater chairs proved to be one of the most entertaining additions to my home theater. I added a subwoofer Amp for power, and action movies have never been better. Movies like Dunkirk or Deepwater Horizon can be startling, while Sci-Fi gets a boost that would require multiple or expensive subs to get a similar effect. They aren't a substitute for a subwoofer, but they can lower the cost of entry into deep bass territory.

As noted earlier, you need to be aware of the interaction of your AVR subwoofer output level and the subwoofer GAIN control so you are delivering an adequate signal to the shakers.

 

[DFurr]

We have a friend in Long Beach, Ca. who has Buttkickers installed in his HT. Being very truthful, we found them annoying. The longer we sat there the more annoying it became. Unlike a great subwoofer system, the experience just seemed "fake". Maybe the system was not adjusted properly.
Just my 2 cents worth.

 

[Richard V]

Would be WAY down on my list of priorities.

 

[Scott Jentsch]

I installed Buttkickers (LFE Minis) in my home theater chairs in 2012, and they have their place, but I don't always use them.

The first thing I found was that it was like when everyone was installing surround speakers for the first time. The first inclination is to have them turned up real high so you get the effect, but the result becomes annoying very quickly. I soon wished that I had purchased the individual amps with their own controls that could be tailored to each person's preference.

The Buttkicker amp I ordered (BKA300-4NW) is very tricky to adjust properly. There is no display beyond a couple of LED's so you have no idea what relative level you're adjusting to, and the crossover setting is rough to say the least. If I were to do it again, I would use something that would allow me to better tailor the crossover and to set the levels on a per-chair basis (my amp powers all three chairs).

Less is definitely more with these things. At first, you want it to shake your body, but after the novelty wears off, you may find (like I did) that a little bit goes a long way. My preference is that the shaking only happens with the lowest and loudest of passages, so the effect is limited to explosions and intentional low-frequency effects that would naturally cause the ground beneath you to shake. You don't want James Earl Jones' voice shaking you (at least I don't).

We just watched the first Harry Potter last night on Ultra HD Blu-ray, and it was an example of just the right effect. Not too much, but effective when the scenes called for it. Unfortunately, there's no way to know what those settings are, so if they ever get changed, I'm out of luck and will have to try again to find that sweet spot.

I have a concrete floor, so my sub is never going to shake the ground. These devices (when dialed in properly) do a good job of adding some fun to the movie experience. But as with everything in this hobby, proper adjustments are key to the best results.