The Screen Savers gang loves Home Theater equipment! We've shown you some of the best speakers, receivers/amps, screens, and projectors, but being the tactile creatures we are, it still doesn’t seem real if we can’t feel it. So I decided to kick my home theater system up a notch by adding a few transducers.

Transducers are devices that transform one type of energy into another. In my case, I wanted to use technology that started out in high-end military simulators and amusement park rides to literally shake my rump.

Here is how it works.
In your typical 5.1 surround system, you have a receiver/amp(s) powering five speakers consisting of front left, front right, center and two rear/effect channels. The “.1” is the subwoofer or LFE which supplements the other speakers' bass output. Given enough juice, a powerful subwoofer can produce enough low-frequency sound to rattle your house. But this type of bass doesn't make you feel it the way a transducer does.

When you add transducers to the system, you have the choice of using the LFE signal, the other speaker’s signals or a combination of both. I chose a combination of both. The three Clark Synthesis Platinum TST429 transducers I used were capable of handling up to 400 Watts each. These transducers require their own dedicated amplifiers and the receiver/amp needs to have pre-outs for connecting the transducer amps.

For my setup, I connected one transducer to the LFE pre-out, and used the pre-out on the transducer amp to get the LFE signal to the sub-woofer. I connected the other two transducers to the front left and right pre-outs respectively. The front channel speakers should be set to “large”-type speakers for best results.

What does all this mean?
When you will hear a loud bass effect from the subwoofer, you will also feel it in the couch. The really cool part… Since we hooked it up to the L/R channels also, when the effect comes from one side you feel it on one side of the couch. Giving you that total immersion we are looking for.

Here is a nice article from Clark Synthesis on setting up a transducer system in a couch.
Enjoy!

by Yoshi DeHerrera