Home Theater Hacks

Hack #42. Use Subwoofers as a Poor Man's Bass Shaker

If you love the idea of shaking to low-bass frequencies but can't afford a "real" bass shaker, you can make do with some low-end subwoofers and clever placement.

The Aura bass shakers [Hack #40] can easily run more than $200, and some folks won't want to mess with the extra cabling and connections [Hack #41]. For those of you who want bass shaker theaters without going the extra mile, you can use a second sub to accomplish the task.

I discovered this trick as a result of my house being built on slab. Unlike wood subfloors, concrete slab doesn't conduct bass very well. My seating (a loveseat) was not shaking as much as I wanted, but I didn't have the dough for professional bass shakers. As an experiment, I moved my 15-inch front-firing Velodyne sub from the front corner of my listening room to where I could point it directly at the loveseat we use to watch movies. I played parts of Star Trek: Insurrection that contained low-end bass and I was nearly thrown onto the floor with all the shaking!

Then I turned the sub down to one-quarter volume and turned the adjustable crossover down to 80 Hz. This produced incredibly deep shaking, but the bass was lacking elsewhere in the room. At this point, I realized I needed my trusty Velodyne to produce bass and a smaller sub to handle bass shaking.

It wouldn't take much of a powered sub to accomplish the task. I went to Best Buy and found two that I hoped would do the trick—a $149 Infinity ...