If you want to feel the bass and not have impact noise of a subwoofer or use the space to accommodate one, try this simple solution using Tactile Bass Transducers (Bass Shakers). The bass is only felt and audible when you are sitting down and it just normal volume when you stand up, this is great for small houses.
I have an AV Receiver with 2 RCA subwoofer pre outs, so will be attaching 2 Tactile Bass Transducers to my sofa and powering it with a compact power amp.
Due to a wiring issue at the beginning of testing I was only listening to 1 Tactile Bass Transducer and the bass was still quite powerful when it needed to be, so I might have been able to get away with just one.
Requirements
- 1 or 2 Dayton TT25-8 (or -16 depending on amp and configuration) (£20 each), do not buy the SMRK-2 mounting rings they now come in the box.
- Noobsound NG10 power amp £35
- Cable joiners (£7)
Setup
Turn over your sofa and screw the Tactile Bass Transducer mounting frame to the to wooden sofa frame, then screw the Tactile Bass Transducer to the mount, make sure the mounting rings are completely on the wood and mounted evenly on the frame, on my sofa they fit perfectly, you can make out the edges of the frame through the black cover.
On the amp you will need to turn on the subwoofer channel and match the bass crossover LFE to speakers you have (mine can already get to 38Hz in room) I chose 80Hz (lowest my amp can go, do not know the complete ins and out of setting up sub woofer LFE, so may change this if I have got it wrong).
I then adjusted the subwoofer volume manually as you will not be able to use the auto speaker setup as the Tactile Bass Transducers do not produce bass the same way as a standard subwoofer.
It is best to not have the volume too high, so in films (like Bolt, first 15 mins is amazing) the bass slam is very effective and not over used.
With music like Blue Sky Black Death the shakers are constantly on the move as they are bass heavy tracks especially at 55 seconds into Joey Gallo, Joey Gallo – (Nacho Picasso) | Blue Sky Black Death (bandcamp.com), this made me turn mine down a bit more.
Let me know how you get on if you try this project in the comments below.
