Shakers - Simple/Cheap Hookup - Visual Guide - Page 4

Okay. you are going to need to take the signal and get several y-adaptors and hook up to the direct 5.1/6.1 out (forget the .1) and put the unit into 5/6 Channel direct mode. That is how I have mine hooked up, I made a custom junction box to avoid all the y-cables.

The thing is that to drive all of those shakers, you will need to address each channel of that receiver directly.

If I use the DVD AUX out I will loose the Shaker effect for Xbox which runs through the receiver. I prefer not to do that.

I think I follow the logic. I will try it one channel at a time before I invest in the Y cables.

Anyone know how to hook up eight, 4 ohm shakers, all to one line out and keep it at 4 ohms? Would it be 2 shaker sets wired in series and then wire all the two shaker sets in parallel? Can you draw up what the wiring would look like for a newbie?

Does your Receiver have a direct in for 5.1 or for 6.1 because you could just ues it to drive 5/6 of the skakers and pick up a 2-channel one to drive the other shakers.

Here is to my 747th Post!

Mike, congrats on your 747 post, you are cruising!

Troy, my bad, I wasn't even thinking about your XBOX. You may try a switch box then.

Found out my problem with the pro shakers. Had my surround processor crossover set to 80Hz. Reset to 120Hz, and now the sofa can rattle the fillings out of your teeth. Gonna play around a little and maybe set it to 100Hz and adjust some levels.

In Road to Perdition, the early scene when Tom Hanks opens up with his Tommy gun was awesome! Good Shaker experience.

I want to use L-Pads to offer individual control to the shakers. I have 8 shakers (wired in pairs at 8 ohms per pair). Can anyone tell me how to wire the 4 L-pads togther to control these? Is it just parallel, or am I missing something? (I'll be driving them ith a 200 watt sub plate AMP from PartsExpress. I want to present an 8 ohm load and allow for individual control. Thanks for any assistance.

Ok, I think I finally figured this one out. The L-pads offer a constant impedance to whatever they are hooked to... so I just treat the two speakers in series (4ohms + 4 ohms = 8) as an ohm load. The rest of the rules about series vs. parallel still apply, and all I have to do is the math. So if I take 2 8 ohm L-pads and their attached speaker pair and connect them in parallel to each other I get a 4 ohm load for those two (8x8/8+8=4) speaker pairs. If I do the same with the second set, and then series wire the two sets I end up with 8 ohms (4+4=8). Sound right?

Anyone know how to hook up eight, 4 ohm Aura Pro Bass shakers, all to one line out and keep it at 4 ohms? Can you draw up what the wiring would look like for a newbie?

Please see the attached drawing of how I think Parts Express said to wire 8 shakers so they will run off their sub amp and be 8 ohms at the amp. Anyone see anything wrong with it?

Nope, that should be 8Ohms.

Can someone tell me or better yet draw for me the best way to do 1 BS Pro on each of 6 seats in two rows? Carpeting folks come next week, I can't put this off any longer! Thanks as always...

Added my bass shakers and got 'em running, thanks for the helpful diagrams. I hid all the wires and had some friends come over for a demo of my home theater. They didn't know the bass shakers were in the seats. Sat them down for the Depth Charge scene in U-571 and when the first explosion went off they really jumped out of their seats. These things definitely add a new dimension. Time to watch my DVD collection all over again!

Bob, I have a used 5.1 amp that can me set to stereo. I believe it's 8 ohm. Thanks for the help.

Great thread! The tactile shakers are my favorite cheap add on. Puts the "motion in the ocean!"

~josh

Cheap?

The carpet installers have pushed the schedule back one week. So if anyone wants to take a stab and help me out, I'd really appreciate it!

I think this answers my question. I thought I had read this entire thread, but somehow I missed this one. The answers are usually already here someplace, right?

I bought a set of these a few years ago from parts express. I never had the chance to hook them up. I saw this thread and decided to give it a shot.

I just got a new 5.1 H/K receiver to replace my dead ProLogic one. I don't have a sub yet. I hooked the sub-out to one channel of AUX-in on an old fisher rack system amplifier, then hooked up 2 25W Aura shakers in series to one speaker output. This receiver has a 5 band EQ, so I pushed the lowest (50hz) setting to the top and the rest to the bottom.

It does work. I'm not really sure if I like it however. I think the problem is that since I don't have a sub woofer, and since my speakers are pretty small, there is too much 'dead space' between the lowest frequency that speakers can go and the highest frequency that the bass shakers can go, so the whole setup just feels fake.

In addition, my couch is a futon and the bass shaker is lodged in the back, behind the cushion, exposed to back wall which is right behind the couch. Some of the bass of the shaker reflects off the back wall and sounds really hollow and boomy.

I liked it best with the shaker volume turned way down, so the vibration & boom was small.

I'm not sure if I'll keep it or not. I do have to return the reciver to the basement where it belongs however. The fact that it works at all is very cool.

I think you are right about needing a subwoofer and there is a great subwoofer shootout going on right now in the speakers section. An entry level sub of good quality (HSU, SVS) would most certainly be a great addition to what you already have. You will not regret getting one, I promise. I have never noticed any noise actually coming from my shakers but it may be unoticable with the sub playing at the same time. You are probably running yours at a much greater volume due to your set up. I suspect the sensation would be much better if the shakers were fixed to a board that attached to the length of the frame so the vibration is more dispersed and a lot less localized. Of course you don't want to see it or hit it while sitting down. I don't have a futon so maybe this is hard to do.

Will the the Aura shakers get really hot while playing? Right now I have the positioned in the back, right under the cushion.

Well, on a whim I bought 4 pairs of the these things from PE. Kind of a "eh, might use them some day" thing. I've got two fairly sturdy couches, and what I'd really like to come up with is a way to make these removable. I.e. construct some type of box which I can slide under the couch when I want them, or pull out when I want the wires out of the way. How much (if any) clearance do I give from the underside of the couch to the shaker? Or do I need to get it firmly in there? Not sure this will work, but I thought it was worth a try .

As for the actual wiring, I admit to being a little confused. I'm going to try and drive them with an Magnavox 5.1 receiver. So I would need to wire them in series to increase it to 8 ohms per line, correct? How many can I use in this method?

Thanks,
MP

I was listening to my system the other day and noticed that I could feel the vibrations of the upper frequencies. So I was thinking about hooking up my Bass Shaker Pro's full range to see if I would like it. Has anyone tried this and if so what is your opinion on this? Also will running shakers full range hurt them?

Interesting discussion. I've had shakers set up for a while and this thread is making me reconsider if I have them set up for the best effect. I too am running my shakers (4) thru an old receiver. When I set mine up I thought it
would make sense to just set the receiver decoding to "mono" as the signal is mono. I did notice that it gave the effect more thump if I activated the built in equalizer and set bass boost on. The receiver is an old sony
5.1 receiver with its endless array of specialized settings. Does it make sense to just set the thing to mono? The sony wants to cut out into a protect mode if I set the volume control too high (have it at approx 8 o'clock). The shakers have actually survived 2 sofas. On the original sofa I had them acting as legs between the frame of the sofa and the ground.
On the new sofa (sectional) I placed them on the frame of the sofa. Now that I am thinking of it, I think the original set up was more effective. Looks like I have a good excuse to start ripping up the furniture again ....

I have not noticed that the shakers get hot in my use but do not have them touching anything except wood either. I think that they definitely work better if only reproducing the lowest frequencies, below 40 hz. It ruins the effect is they are vibrating often and when people are talking or during the soundtrack. I find that they add more realism and a bit of a surprise if they only activate when there is a loud explosion or similar low frequency event. I added the shakers and then a very large (too large) SVS subwoofer and if I had to give up one I would trade the SVS for a smaller sub and keep the shakers. The sub sends low frequency vibrations through the house and disturbs everyone not in the basement theater if it is turned up much at all. The shakers with a smaller sub would be the best of both worlds in my situation.

Does anyone foresee that I would have a problem using this speaker selector switch Niles SPS4 (http://ww3.onecall.com/PID_784.htm) (switch requires an amplifier that is compatible with a 4 ohm speaker) with

four aura pro shakers (one shaker on each channel of the switch)

driven by this subwoofer amp (http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=300-804)?

Power output of this amp is 150 watts RMS @ 8 ohms 200 watts RMS @ 4 ohms.

I want to allow guests the option of having the shaker on or off.

Thanks.

By splitting the LFE out of the receiver to a seperate receiver eliminate these shakers from activating during music or TV in PLII mode?