I know this is a bit of a silly question but bear with me here:
What options are there for getting that feeling of a powerful subwoofer vibrating through your body in your home? I know the easiest option would be to just put a capable subwoofer next to your seating and let it hit as hard as it can. I'm also not trying to make all of my neighbors hate me so I'm looking for some creative solutions to pulling it off at reasonable residential volumes.
I'm thinking that some combination of tactile transducers in the couch and a subwoofer next to or also installed inside of the couch would get pretty close. Being right under your body I wonder what kind of decibels would actually be required to get a bass massage going. Without the sensation of the high volume bass it also might just seem silly and be a complete waste of time aside from watching movies.
I can't understand why anyone would want "car sound" in a home... The home system SQ is SO far above any car system I've heard. I started bi-amping my car systems in 1976, but none can come close to what the home system sounds like. Good home subs are so much better than any car subs I have heard.
Great auto sound is much easier and less expensive than home hifi. If done well, you can use a single 10” JL Audio sub with custom crossovers and caps. Of course you need 3 way sound up front, and there are several ways to achieve that. Rear fill is just 2-way and only noticed when turned up too high. However, 3 two channel amps, dual subs with 6s,5s,4s,2s and tweeters in each door with the aforementioned rear fill will sound well beyond what most people in here have heard and the parts are not expensive in comparison to home audio. Granted, the installation in my ‘58 Chevy was $1,800, but those guys earned their money by building a custom hidden sub box under the rear deck that was covered by the amp rack, which featured completely hidden wiring, sunken red gel top Optima battery in the trunk and custom door speaker grills I copied off Shaq’s Testarossa Suburban, which they had done previously. They were one offs until I requested them. I had been given a mid build tour and the whole rundown on his mom trying to control his checkbook as a rookie and how he had scale the build back because of her meddling and how he then called from the set of his Nike commercial and said go with the big baller version etc. Anyhow, I’m a musician and was attending BIT at the time and briefly shipped the car to Orlando to use the store that I bought my Krell , B&O, Adcom and Fosgate gear for the custom car stereo. And you can bet the farm, it was worth it. The east coast was light years ahead of anything in SoCal at the time. So called shops to the stars couldn’t visually build their way out of a wet paper bag at the time. Sonically, they were clueless. Some places are still there. But if you want impeccable auto sound, you can get it. You just have to know how to spell it out for them. But to say it doesn’t exist or that it shouldn’t be emulated in the home, just means you live somewhere that still hasn’t figured it out.
Wow you (audiophiles) have never taken the time to listen to a good car stereo! Take a look at the new DSP’s for car audio it’s come a long way. Educate yourselves first. Some people spend 200k on 2 towers some spend 200k designing door pillars with multiple drives. Then there’s the people that say we’re all idiots. OP id recommend multiple subs for equal response through the room but place a few directly behind the couch or anchored to the couch but decoupled from the floor to avoid extra resonances. 4 10” is all it takes. Tune them very low and you’ll get the pressure in your chest with out getting to loud. Use a minidsp hd to switch sound curves from rock concert to classical. I’d stay away from tactile transducers because they offer no SQ.
Yukispier, is this desire for bass response on steroids related to a home theater application (e.g. action movies; etc.)? In an apartment or condominium setting, even at low volumes, bass like that is still likely to annoy your neighbors. Even a deaf neighbor will feel it. As a few folks have mentioned in this thread, headphones or a single family home with lots of elbow space between you and your neighbors would be the way to go. Depending upon how loudly and how often you like to listen to this kind of stuff, you might want to get a head start on developing a relationship with a good audiologist.
I suspect that a pair of Tekton 4-10 subs would give you what you're looking for. Can't say for sure because I've never turned the volume up that far on mine & am not willing to take one for the team here.
Look to the vintage full size large driver horn systems to get you that feeling like a car in your home they will fill your room and pressurize it below 90 decibels all the way to 110+ decibels if you need them to.
mikelavigne - That’s a very nice system, I’m envious. Why did you delete your post? I’d like to learn more, how do you know it’s -3dB at 7Hz. and -6dB at 3Hz., was that correct?
the reason i deleted my post is upon re-reading the original post i realized i was not answering the question he was asking. i had not taken the time to read it all the way. obviously i take my bass performance very seriously.
thank you for the kind words about my system.
i have not measured my bass performance in my 2 channel room. those are the published specs of my Evolution Acoustic MM7 twin tower speakers (my speaker designer and builder has spent a couple of days in my room setting my speakers up).
with 2 channel there is a music focus so there is nothing useful to hear at 7hz or 3hz. the reason those frequencies are relevant is it does allow for lots of headroom and linearity in the 10hz-20hz region which is musically useful. suffice it to say that the bass performance far exceeds anything music can throw at it. my purpose designed and built room is optimized for bass performance; there is sufficient room for the music to breathe and strong room boundaries to control good bass extension.
and to be honest, the fact that my Evolution Acoustics MM7’s have 4 11" woofers per side is more significant to the bass performance than the bass towers. the music and the bass lives in the mid-bass, not the deep bass. the deep bass is sexy to talk about but for music it’s not the main thing. more the cherry on top. but great systems get the mid bass absolutely perfect. and you are transported.
mikelavigne - That's a very nice system, I'm envious. Why did you delete your post? I'd like to learn more, how do you know it's -3dB at 7Hz. and -6dB at 3Hz., was that correct?
Yukispier, not a problem and you do not need to put vibrators under your seat either. Assuming a 16 X 30 foot room you will need 4 12" or larger subwoofers, 4 amplifier channels 1000 watts each and digital bass management. If you have the money and are serious about doing this I'd be happy to help.
As long as you live in an apartment, and this is an assumption on my part, what you ask for is a pipe dream. If you can " feel" the bass, your neighbor can too.
Move into a house or invest in a nice headphone rig.
There is some guy that cuts through our neighborhood daily with a tricked out Suburban with the bass pounding. I can hear all the sheet metal on the truck vibrating with the bass. Sounds God-awful and it bothers everyone on the street. I hate that guy!
I believe you guys kind of missed the point of the silly post.
Just looking to achieve the bass wave effect without the SPL associated with achieving it via high powered subwoofers. Don’t care to piss off the neighbors or rattle everything off every surface in my house.
I can't understand why anyone would want "car sound" in a home.
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You mean Boom Boom car sound. There are some nice sounding systems, when they are parked and not rolling..
But Boom Boom systems.. I been torturing a neighbor for 3 months..
He's learned to turn down the BASS I assure you.. I just tip the pick up bed his way and do a little glass rattling with 40,000 watts or so. Boom Boom at 2 pm is Boom Boom at 8:00 am when he's trying to sleep. Besides his girlfriend brings me angle food cake.. She likes my Pick UP.. :-)
You really just need big subs. The air volume of a car is very small and they use 12” subs or more so the ratio is crazy compared to a room. There are a number of mechanical bass shaper devices you hook up to an amp and you could bolt them to your chairs. Somewhat common in the home theater world but would drive me crazy for music. I run two JL audio E112s and don’t get anywhere near the car type of bass for music. If it turned them all the way up they would tap out before it got there. Maybe something like the SVS PB16-ultra. They move a lot of air, sound ok. They sound best with all the ports open. The one port closed extended mode causes some chuffing.
I can't understand why anyone would want "car sound" in a home... The home system SQ is SO far above any car system I've heard. I started bi-amping my car systems in 1976, but none can come close to what the home system sounds like. Good home subs are so much better than any car subs I've heard.
There are products that you can put in your chair that vibrate your ass to make you feel like there is more bass. Drummers use them in loud environments to feel the kick drum. Sometimes called "thumpers". Not exactly audiophile approved, but I think we should encourage more music listening no matter how it's done. Enjoy yourself.
Headphone SUBS. Work perfect. I can see them on YOUR head not mine.. :-) Heavy notes, your tongue pops out, eyes bulge if you have a hemorrhoids, you figure it out.. LOL
Let me give you a clue. When you’re in your car with it’s sub bass system thumping away, all your neighbours do hate you, both those next to you at the lights and in the dwellings all around, especially at two in the morning.
Since I'm not interested in have 140dB of bass in my home lets say SQ system. Clean and defined sub bass yet strong enough to cleanly vibrate through your body.
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