Have you ever been watching a movie in your home theater, and you find yourself getting bored? It starts with a blank stare and slowly devolves into closed eyes and—finally—snoring. Sound familiar? This could potentially be happening because you are not fully immersed into the film. While this can happen to the best of us, movies are supposed to be engrossing and captivating, vying to hold our attention for a typical minimum of two hours.
With a good home cinema setup, you will find yourself focused on movies for hours on end, fully captivated by the fictional world you’re experiencing. But there are products out there that can make your movie experience even more out of this world. Enter bass shakers. With their powerful rumbles and vibrations, you’ll feel more part of the movie than ever before. This article is here to introduce you to what a bass shaker is, why they’re a fantastic home theater accessory to have both for movies and gaming, and how you can use them with a Valencia theater seat.
What Are Bass Shakers?
The technical name for a bass shaker is a tactile transducer. Tactile transducers are electronic devices that transfer low-frequency vibrations into objects and surfaces the shaker is attached to—already sounds pretty interesting, right? Sounds at this low of a frequency—often referred to as tactile sounds—have a special quality: you feel the sound rumble and jolt throughout your body when your shaker is attached to your home theater seating.
Bass shakers are constructed to optimize this sensation throughout your body, bringing you more into the world you’re viewing on the big screen. While it’s certainly not virtual reality, adding a bass shaker to your new, premium entertainment room chairs can be worth the setup and expense, because they truly bring about a noticeable change to the way you experience movies in your home theater.
Bass shakers come either as standalone equipment which you would install with a compatible entertainment room chair (the process is a lot easier than it sounds, trust us), or you can purchase fully-equipped bass theater chairs, which saves you some time, and the chairs can be used right out of the box.
No matter whether you’re thinking of installing a shaker on an existing chair or if you’re in the market for a new chair with bass shakers already equipped and running, these powerful, rumbling machines elevate your home theater experience.
Are Bass Shakers Worth It?
Anyone who has experience with speakers must be wondering: why would you get a bass shaker when you can get a subwoofer? The thing about bass shakers is they make very little noise. Instead, most of the sound is felt—it’s kind of their thing.
Subwoofers and high-powered speakers are responsible for creating and amplifying nearly every single noise in a movie, which is also great for the immersion that people seek out. Bass shakers, on the other hand, tap into the noise being produced, but instead they create a physical sensation that can play in tandem with subwoofers and other speakers that help bring your movie to life. Long story short, bass shakers don’t perform the same functions as subwoofers, but they do play into one another well.
Bass shakers are meant to be placed on your home cinema seating so that as a movie plays, you feel the sound happening in the movie. For example, if there is a bass explosion in your favorite action movie, you will feel the explosion as it happens on-screen, making the movie that much more immersive. If you’re guilty of falling asleep during movies, bass shaker seating will have just the thing to keep you awake and engaged—there’s nothing quite like the jolt felt from a climactic moment on the screen to pry your eyes back open.
So, the question remains, are they worth it? If you get a high-quality bass shaker and install it correctly, they are most certainly worth it. A good bass shaker will make it feel like you are in the movie, along for the ride as all of your favorite moments unfold and are felt. Rather than just seeing and hearing the movie, you will feel it too. A good bass shaker-capable chair can make your movie experience that much more exciting and engrossing for everyone.
Bass Shaker Seats and Gaming
While bass shakers get a lot of attention in home theaters—and rightfully so—they can also be utilized effectively as a great entertainment room accessory for those who are into gaming.
Gaming can be just as much of an immersive experience as movies, if not more—just ask anyone who regularly games or streams online matches. Most games still have a story to them with emotional depth, high-quality graphics, and characters you can easily get attached to. If you’re playing against others, there’s even the adrenaline factor involved that makes it that much easier to become engrossed.
Modern gaming systems, particularly their controllers, already contain some level of haptic feedback technology within them. That haptic feedback makes it so that controllers vibrate and rumble during the big moments. That is to say that most gamers aren’t unfamiliar with the concept of a more immersive experience already, and bass shakers deliver on those already-present rumbles tenfold by making your whole body experience them rather than just your hands.
Because of these factors, bass-equipped seating absolutely has its place in the realm of gaming. Their vibrations and resounding rumbles will bring every cutscene to life, making every dramatic moment in the story that much more exciting.
Bass Shakers and Valencia Theater Seats
The best place to have a bass shaker is on your home theater seat—after all, how else are you going to feel those booms and shakes reverberate with every action-packed moment? At Valencia, we offer the option of having fully equipped bass shaker entertainment seats that will wow and amaze. This means that you don’t need to worry about all the hassle of properly setting up a bass shaker yourself. Each Valencia theater seat with bass capabilities will have its shaker installed in the optimal position to ensure that your movie-viewing experience is stunning and cinematic.
Ultimately, if you want to make your movie experience substantially more immersive, you should look into getting bass shakers.