With the "ButtKicker" maybe I can stop my girl friend from riding my sub-woofer, just kick back in the chair!!?? Crank it up baby!! No really the article read well, good info. I'll look for the "kicker" at Best Buy after I return from this 2 day trip I'm on. Two days off before my next trip. Thanks for the write-up Beach, good intel!

I have had a buttkicker gamer for about 4 months now and here is what I think ....

Awesome. A great piece of kit. Flying a Beaufighter or Bf 110 in IL2 would not be the same without it. The low freq throb of prop engines is superb and when you open up with cannons it is like the whole aircraft judders.

When flying through ack-ack it tends not to have too much effect, that is until it actually explodes very close to you. The first time that happened I literally jumped out of my chair.

In Armed Assault the kick from a rifle or LMG is akin to recoil, also just superb. Although the "thump" comes through your butt, because it is low freq you feel it through your whole body.

In Lock-On you can feel a slight rumble from a jet engine albeit subtle but the cannons on the Su25T shake the airframe.

In FSX it depends what you fly but all aircraft are good with it, props especially.

In motor racing - RACE The game - you feel the rumble strips.

So, having said all that, are there any flaws?

Well, yes.

Some might consider the fan in the amp noisy. I use headphones so don't notice too much when "in game" and I do switch the unit off when not "in game".

The cable to your chair is A CABLE, it must be nearly a centimetre in diameter. However, it can be disconnected from the chair as there is a connector. I use a centre, metal post chair so cannot comment on other types of chair.

The amp is quite large but can be mounted in a upright position. I find I need the amp close to me as I need to switch it off when not gaming and at times when "in game" I need to adjust the volume ( amount of kick ).

My first unit blew its amp after 2 months ( even though I never had the volume above 50% ) so, I don't know if I was just unlucky or whether there is a design issue.

I purchased mine ( in the UK ) from The Shakercentre who have given me excellent service. The postage was free, the unit arrived virtually by next post and they replaced my blown unit immediately ( including postage ) and also apologised.

In conclusion.

Forget about Force Feedback devices, this is the only one you need. I recommend it.

For flight sims and game immersion then
1. Get TrackIR
2. Get a buttkicker.


Suvv.

I have a quqestion regarding buttkicker:
How does the Buttkicker behave while Teamspeaking? I mean i dont want to get a rumble from every fart anyone shoots into his mike:)
I somewhere read that using a second soundcard could do the trick but how should that work while using a headset? I mean i could get the gamesound from one card and TS sound from the other. But how can i get the Gamesound (wich must obviously be the same card the kicker is connected to) AND at the same time the TS sound wich will be coming from the second card to my headset?

Any clues?

Winger
Image

In general, TS voices aren't low enough to trigger the buttkicker. But, yes, you will get a little extra rumble now and again. More of a consideration is the bass from any music you might be playing via iTunes/winAmp/whatever.

I have not heard of running two apps on different sound cards but if you find any info, please post it.

I have exact same issue... there are two ways to solve it, if you are using Ventrilo you are in luck, all you have to do is go to options and in SFX options there is Directional tab and in there you can sellect each individual speaker output for Ventrilo to use... so just sellect front and rear speaker (left and right) and leave out centre output and Ventrilo output will no longer be going to the buttkicker amp... if you are using teamspeak you need to use 2 sound outputs then merge the sound from both into your headset... downside to this is you will get lower volume through teamspeak so you'll need to lower the volume in game to be able to hear comms... I was hoping for teamspeak 3 to have some option for equaliser os being able to select specific output like in Ventrilo but I'm not puting my hopes up since its been a while of teamspeak 3 release and there is still no such plugin made.

PS: I just remembered one more thing that's possible and that's to use actual 2 channel mixer... have both outputs into the mixer and plug the headset into the mixer... it costs extra money so not a very good solution but at least this way you don't get any issues with loss of volume or sound quality when merging the two outputs with Y cable