The ButtKicker lets you "feel" the bass of in your favourite movie, game, or music
So you have a 60″ plasma, a 7.1 surround sound system, and theatre chairs. You have everything you need for your home theatre right? Not quite. Just when you thought you purchased the last piece to your home theatre setup…along comes the ButtKicker.
The ButtKicker is a low frequency audio transducer. In english now, it’s a device that works with your subwoofer to help you “feel” the bass in your theatre chairs. When the subwoofer begins to rumble, your chair rumbles as well.
Setup is quite easy. You can have the entire system put together and ready to go in about 10 minutes. Instructions are fairly straight forward, if you’re familiar with how a surround sound system works. For those of you who aren’t, it may take 10 minutes longer. Really not that tough.
So how does it work? Actually quite well. The ButtKicker really does change your home theatre experience. Now instead of hearing explosions during your favourite movie, you feel them. Your chair will rumble along with any deep bass in the flick you’re watching. We aren’t talking about a vibrating chair here. This doesn’t feel like a cheap massage chair. The rumble is deep and changes depending on the audio you hear. Your chair may rumble for 5 to 10 seconds during an explosion, while a car door slamming will last only a brief moment. You can also increase or decrease the intensity of the vibration to your comfort level. (No one wants to have their teeth rattling while watching a movie!)
While many movie buffs will get a kick out of the device, gamers will really take a liking to it. First person shooters and action games really come to life with the ButtKicker. Play with it for 30 minutes or so, then turn it off and you’ll notice a distinct difference. Die hard gamers will fall in love with it! Music lovers, don’t worry, you haven’t been left out. There are actually three modes on the device. Movies, games, and music. Set it to music and the ButtKicker will rumble along with the bass on your favourite tunes!
The device does give off some noise. After all it does vibrate quite a bit. To counter this you can purchase rubber isolating discs to place underneath your chairs. These act in two ways. One, to make sure the vibration stays in the chair and doesn’t transfer into the floor. Two, it reduces the noise that would be created by a chair vibrating on a floor. These are a must, and do a great job in making sure your floor doesn’t rumble.
Over all I was quite impressed with the ButtKicker. My one complaint would be the system itself can become expensive if you want to add this to each and every chair in your home theatre. Each chair will need a separate motor and will set you back about $200. A standard system that will create rumble for one chair is about $500. You would be looking at close to $1000 to get all your chairs rumbling! I should mention you can also use this on a sofa, but by the time the vibration travels the length of the sofa it is lost at the far end. Only the person sitting near the motor will get the true “ButtKicker experience.” You will need two motors for most couches to get any real effect.
Another issue is looks. While the ButtKicker Amp is fairly small it is too big to slide under some chairs and sofas. While the manufacturer suggests cutting the dust fabric on the bottom side of your sofa, in some cases that just isn’t an option. My theatre chairs are simply too low to the ground to hide the unit, so they are noticeable to anyone walking in the room. I have had plenty of people ask “what is that black box attached to your chair for?”
I will also point out there were a few times the unit I was testing simply stopped working. A quick reset of the unit brought it back online (still haven’t figured out what was causing the problem)
The bottom line…if you are looking for a way to take your home theatre experience to the next level, ButtKicker may be just what you’re looking for. Yes, it sounds gimmicky. In fact I guess it is. But it is surprising how it changes the feel of an action flick (I didn’t try it with a drama or romance so can’t comment on that LOL).
The Good:
Easy setup
You can control intensity of rumble
Wireless (optional)
Adds to home theatre experience
The Bad:
Not easy to hide the amp and motor
May need more than one motor for your setup
Pricey: $500 for one chair or sofa (add $200 for each additional chair)
For more information on the ButtKicker check out the companies website: www.thebuttkicker.com