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Actual Home Theater Explosions

I just found the greatest way to improve the "earth rattling" sounds that are so impressive from explosions or rolling thunder in movies.

If you have the opportunity to get a second subwoofer for your system, put it IN AN ADJACENT ROOM with the volume way up and the crossover fairly low. The rumble it creates will make you feel like there are actually bombs going off in your house, which may or may not be good thing depending on the structural soundness of your house.

This will obviously not work for rooms that are completely acoustically isolated from other rooms, but for an average home it's amazing.

Note: This is not for casual listening uses, only for movies with serious LFE output. It would be best to turn the second-room subwoofer off for anything but large-scale movies.

-Dusty
128x128heyitsmedusty
8 responses Add your response
freemand
225 posts
 
Thats intersting Dusty, and I can completley see that giving another demension in the bass. So thunder for instense has a feeling of being outside.

This obviously won't work in all but it sounds like an intersting idea.
markphd
667 posts
 
Interesting, but I can think of no reason in physics why it wouldn't produce the same effect if the second sub was in the same room. I think that the increase in effects was simply because you added a second sub to augment the first.
chadnliz
3,736 posts
 
Maybe it makes the explosion longer if it is out of phase?
heyitsmedusty's avatar
heyitsmedusty OP
227 posts
 
I don't think it's just about adding a second sub regardless of room location. If you want to rattle the vases in more than one room with two subwoofers in one room, you would have to turn those suckers way too far up. This way you spread the bass out over a larger area without overpowering the listening room.
freemand
225 posts
 
It sounds like its creating a bigger space for the bass. The bass is expanded in another room creating a larger effect. Seems to make sense.
maineiac
649 posts
 
I believe you can get devices that you attach to your furniture to provide the rattling effect.
johnnyb53
3,510 posts
 

08-23-07: Markphd
Interesting, but I can think of no reason in physics why it wouldn't produce the same effect if the second sub was in the same room.
I can think of a reason or two: With the second sub, you are not only energizing the listening room, you are energizing part of the house that contains the listening room.

In real life, you don't just *hear* explosions, you hear their effects on other things around you, you feel the explosions, and you sense the motion of other things the explosion has set in motion as well. And you don't just hear the sound, you hear the effects the sound and impact have on your immediate environment, including the space around you, which extends beyond the space of a listening room. Subs outside the listening room would imitate that phenomenum, extending the illusion that an explosion is shaking the house.
freemand
225 posts
 
Johnny, beautifully said!! Thats kinda what I was trying to say but not that well put. I think thats whats going on.

I have 3 solid subs in a sound proofed room so adding a 4th may not do much in this set up but I do have a forth in the living room on another system and I may experiment!
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