One-note loud car system or audiophile quality loud car system?
Bass sensation like a loud car system in home?
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.
Thoughts?
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.
Thoughts?
86 responses Add your response
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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. |
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. https://youtu.be/aFcGtng-9gU |
This is what you want' https://www.htmarket.com/audio-video-products-for-home-theater-buttkickers-for-home-theater.html Go to AVS forum for all things related |
I can't understand why anyone would want "car sound" in a home.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 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.. :-) Time to feed the chickens.. |
Ok, silent bass. Checkout this video.I think this looks like a pretty good solution |
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@fiesta75 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). http://evolutionacoustics.com/evolution-acoustics2/specifications-for-group-brochure-4.pdf 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. |
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https://youtu.be/QhnEjzJGByM If you guys aren’t aware of how silly some people get with car systems here’s a taste |
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. |
millercarbon One-note loud car system or audiophile quality loud car system? It does seem incompatible. Having said that, what about setting the subwoofer 18 dB louder than it needs to be. That might just about do it. |
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. |
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. |
bro, we hear you , I have 4 Buttkicker LFE in my couch on a QSC DJ amplifier mounted to the coils in my couch and it pumps , the cushions move up and down remotes fall off the couch. I also have 5 12 inch subs mounted in my couch (2 are kicker solos the square ones behind the back) on another dj amp you would love it , i love using my buttkickers I rarely use my 12's cause my pb16s are much more cleaner and the 12's tend to drone, your not the only one looking for bass in a couch like a car system. I have 17,000 watts in my house system .you cant really talk about this to these people its frowned upon, you can talk shop here about your digital stream, stereo, amps but when it comes to sub bass they just dont get it and you will get a bunch of replies like if your system was good enough you wouldn't need all this bass, speaker position , , blah blah bunch of nonsense.. I got 2 DJ quality amps running my couch , a clean box to convert the RCA to XLR and its in my basement under my theater because they are noisy by nature and blow off allot of heat. theres allot of Bass Heads out there and im one of them for sure . I have 3-20a circuits 60amps total and I have 60 amps because i needed it , I have 1 for my Furman 20amp 1 for my dual pb16's and 1 in the basement for the DJ amps. Im here because Its still a hobby for me and get ideas, It was a journey to get to this point I think I can lead you to the promise land Bass nirvana. allot of the parts for the couch were used and saved a bunch cause it was a project but at the end of the day I exceeded my expectations , Im also using this in my Home theater and run an AVR thats also frowned upon , this is a 2ch forum you won't get much from this crowd but light insults. let me know if you need help I truly have it all figured out and can save you some heartache and pain because Ive tried everything. |
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. +1 @yukispier -- Actually I am just trying to be a courteous home owner and not have a house that can be heard down the block like a car with a nice system So you do live in a house? Let’s be clear on that, because if you do there’s no reason you can’t have your cake and eat it too. 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. You don’t need Richter scale levels to vibrate through your body, but make up your mind here: if you want what you’re asking for - that is, sound quality and impact - be prepared to go the distance (i.e.: there’s no magic "feel the impact on your body without the near within-the-same-structure surroundings being affected," and you won’t get proper impact from tiny, decor-friendly subs). If your residential situation can accommodate it there’s no reason why you can’t achieve your goal. My advice: forget about "buttkickers" - it’s a cheap and distracting trick, if you ask me. Visceral sensation is very much created through prodigious lower 30-ish Hz reproduction in particular, and with bass it’s relatively simple: ample displacement (meaning: a certain minimum of driver size and overall volume) and proper implementation, and with that quality of reproduction and felt impact naturally follows. It seems to me your real problem isn’t the neighbors; it’s that you want felt bass impact from a soundbar. Moreover, if you do live in a separately situated house then 90-110dB SPL’s from capably implemented subs won’t affect the neighbors, even louder than that, and you’d definitely be able to feel it. A mono-couple DBA bass setup with likes of, say, four PSA S1512 sealed subs (fairly compact and quite powerful) would give a sensation of a impactful and rather smooth "inside your head" bass, not entirely unlike that experienced in a car (personally I prefer symmetrically placed, stereo-coupled subs, but that’s not subject here). |
1+jd55, I have heard some outrageously good car systems, competitions for highest sound pressure levels aside. I use to do my own systems because the factory ones were terrible but that is no longer the case. Although most stock systems are not the last word in performance they are quite tolerable so, I do not feel the need to rip a new car apart. Car systems to me are like headphones. They can sound great but it is the wrong perspective. |
Very large woofers and lots of power. I suggest a pair or 24" Hartley woofers in custom cabs that can be many shapes. Hartley can help you with this. https://www.hartleyloudspeakers.com/new_page_2.htm We built some cabs for these back in the day for the Levinson HQD system: https://www.google.com/search?source=univ&tbm=isch&q=levinson+hqd&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjW... They are big, but will give you what you are seeking. Cheers! |
The Eminent Technology rotary subwoofer can easily do this. it’s a bit pricey but if you want bass down to 1Hz, it’s the best. http://www.rotarywoofer.com/ |
I own a pair of Hartley Reference, a full range speaker with the 24" as the woofers. My understanding is that the 24"ers are no longer produced and very difficult to find on the open market. It took me over two years to find a pair on the internet and I bought them of course \8-). Easier to find the 18" drivers, still few and far between. OP, If you really want boom boom then the Hartleys are not for you. Buy some modern powered sub-woofers. The Hartleys are very musical and not designed to slam you in the face, they will but I'm not going to find out for how long. Regards, barts |
What @myjostin said, and… What you get in a car is called "Cabin Gain"; large drivers in a confined space. You can solve this in a house by adding a lot of large drivers, most musicians playing bass prefer 4 or more 10” drivers right now for a modest club, multiples of that for larger halls, rather than 2 12’s or 15’s, for accuracy sake. (A random fact made by musicians buying performance speaker cabinets.) Or, to everyone else’s point that you could possibly be the most hated person in town, you can build a small room within a room in a basement or garage, as an example, where the listening chair is in the middle, and the drivers are modified surface mounts and the cabinets external to the listening space. Say 6’x8’; with all surfaces dampened with fabric, carpet with padding etc. This takes Nearfield listening to the extreme. And it doesn’t take scads of power to pull it off. If properly constructed, even people outside of your "cell" in your house won’t be too bothered, because you don’t need windows and instead of sheet metal on the outside you can use fire rated ⅝” Sheetrock on the inside and outside, and of course if built well, you can fill the insides of the walls and ceiling with sand or some other such vibration dampening material. So essentially a soundproof booth. Frankly, I’m glad you brought this up, because I’m going to design one for my garage and build it. I love thunderous Rock and Classical, as it’s the best anti-depressant I have found. 😉 And I can execute a tasteful low wattage prissy system for my family room for showin’ off. 😂 A spectacular system could be built for around $5-6k. I dub thee the “Sound Cell Supreme" listening room. ©️2021 William Pietrzak. 2- Scan-Speak 32W/8878T11 Revelator 13" Woofers, $1,400. 2- Hypex FusionAmp FA501 (250W 8 ohms mono), $1,000. 5- Seas Excel C18EN002/A (E0060) 6.5" Coaxials, $2,500. 1- $2,500 5 channel surround sound receiver of your choice. 1- Building supplies for room and speaker enclosures, $2,500. Total, $10,000. And peace of mind that no one will bother you, and you will bother no one. (I already have an Arcam surround receiver and 2 KEF subs to handle the power end and bass, so I’ll settle for those in mine.) |
@dizbuster Funny you should say that because in my original music room (with double hung windows from 1957) I had to chase down all the buzzing and mitigate as I went. Then I could finally let the Hartleys rip and amazingly to me I cracked all the windows playing DSOTM. Not due to sound pressure, just those bass notes vibrating them so hard. Sounded wonderful. And for those of you who have not heard DSOTM on a system that will play below 20hz you would be surprised how much information is down there. Regards, barts |
Go william53b and absolutely right. Dave Holland uses a cabinet with 4 10" drivers and close in it is pretty potent. This is for your routine jazz clubs which are not all that large. You do not need to resort to huge drivers to get the best bass. They take up way too much room when you factor in the enclosures they require. Today's subwoofers are way more powerful than drivers of old. Their Xmax is much higher, up to 2 inches is not uncommon. The old drivers you were lucky to get 1/4 inch out of them. The larger drivers also tend not to move straight in and out. They wobble! I have seen it with high speed photography. In a 16 X 30 foot room four 12" drivers in corners and along the front wall (were they are most efficient) will do fine given enough power and a little EQ. Eight 12" drivers would be definite overkill. The one concept I really dislike is the one that requires different bass for different functions like theater vs 2 channel. My 2 channel system doubles for theater and I do not make any adjustments between these functions. Last week I almost scared the projector tech to death with Star Wars then next I put on Dave Holland. No adjustments. Accurate bass is accurate bass regardless of what you are listening to. Maybe people like juicing the low end for theater because they think it's cool like oversaturating the colors. Definitely, there are way more theater people than us audiophiles and you always want to buy equipment that was designed especially for your purpose which is marketing garbage. A good is a good amp regardless. Accuracy is exactly the same for theater and 2 channel. Maybe some of us audiophiles are thinking we don't have to go down that low. You don't have to do anything but in regards to the performance it is a vital part of projecting realism and making you think you are really in a much larger room. Many systems start dying at 100 Hz. The specs might say 28 Hz to 20 kHz but that is at one meter in an anechoic chamber not three meters in a 15 X 25 foot room. Just get a measurement microphone. Actually, don't do that. It can be very depressing. Sh-t! I was listening to that?? |
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