Okay, we listened. For years I’ve quipped – “the AVS Forum guys like the ButtKicker better than I do” – meaning you guys know your stuff – you tweak, you test, you figure it out and you know your stuff and a lot of you know it better than I do. [I did finally finish my own home theater. Where did I go for a diagram for optimal in-ceiling rear and rear surround speaker placement? Where else? The Forum.]
Back to the issue at hand – our listening. So, we’ve had the original ButtKicker LFE Kit out for a few years now. It came about as a solution for people who wanted our product but wanted everything they needed in one box. So we “kitted together” our custom install home theater products, added a straight forward metal plate for your couch or chair, added some interconnects (including a clever way to connect to a passive system – Marvin our head engineer knows his stuff) and made the wireless Link an option.
And we put it up for sale. And whole lot of Forum members have been kind enough to purchase the ButtKicker LFE kit; and some have even been kind enough to tell us what they like and what we needed to improve.
So, when the time came to upgrade the Kit, we decided to totally redesign it with one goal in mind – make the best product we could – optimized from the ground up to shake a large three person couch. While at the same time making it more affordable and making it better, yet still maintaining the powerful, accurate and musical ButtKicker performance that we’re known for.
We also specifically heard – “you need a remote control for the amplifier than can be integrated into a [name the brand] master remote control.” The new Kit has that. Wireless IR remote with three Pre-sets on the remote. Battery included.
“You need a better amplifier.” The new Kit has an all new digital amplifier designed with and using BASH® technology. Not to mention the new amplifier has in and out’s for daisy chaining multiple amps. together and even has in and out’s for the IR (3.5 mini jack) for daisy chaining the remote control feature together if you want “one remote to rule them all”. It’s actually a really nice amplifier and we hope you’ll like it a lot. And, the new ButtKicker® Advance transducer has been designed in conjunction with the new BKA300-4 amplifier to provide the right balance of size, performance and cost.
Speaking of the new ButtKicker® Advance transducer, you told us, “you need better connectors on the ButtKicker” – the new Advance (alright so I watched one too many Nutri-System commercials this year, but hey, you pick a better name! And it can’t have “HD” in it.) has high quality push type speaker connectors but without the hole going all the way through so you can’t short the speaker wire against the unit’s housing (yeah Marvin thought of that too.) And the ButtKicker Advance features both a vertical and horizontal mounting plate – so you can attach it inside a piece of furniture if you like, or on your sim chair, or wherever you want it. Plus the beefier bottom plate makes the unit’s feet much harder if not darn near impossible to snap off if you happen to accidently over tighten a nut or screw (I’ve never done that myself, but heard that can happen…….).
You told us, “I have a sectional and want to try and shake two sections at once” and “my couch leg is bigger or deeper than the CMAK can reach”. We made the new die cast aluminum CMAK much nicer looking but more importantly more functional. The ButtKicker Advance seats into the new CMAK as well. And the CMAK is wider and deeper and has molded rubber fittings – esp. designed for optimal performance. And the new wider and bigger rubber isolators for the rest of your couch legs are made out of 55d rubber – again, tested and designed to compress and respond the way they need to, to provide an optimal ButtKicker experience. And yeah, we had to tool those specifically for us – to our specifications.
You asked us, “Why isn;t the ButtKicker Link included in the Kit and why isn’t it Bluetooth? Well, the new wireless system is Bluetooth (technically speaking it’s 2.4 GH ISM band, FHSS and certified for worldwide usage), the Receiver is integrated directly into the amplifier – simply plug the RF Receiver into the back of the amplifier using it’s USB type connector and that’s it – it’s powered and connected. The RF Transmitter (which looks like Star Wars helmet to use), has some great new features as well. Like a rubber pad on the bottom so it won’t slide around, like the ability to take either stereo or mono inputs, and not only that, but the Transmitter can be used as an IR Receiver for the remote. So you can hide the amplifier behind your couch, use the wireless system and still just point the remote at the front of the room to control the amplifier instead of having to reach behind the couch to point the remote at the amplifier. Clever, huh? That was one of the BASH guys’ idea – great idea we thought. And to avoid interference both the RF Transmitter and Receiver have reset buttons so you can “channel search” to prevent interference.
And finally, we knew we needed better interconnects – so we provided better quality RCA ‘s – a 1 meter male to male and a RCA “Y” connector; better quality 14 gauge speaker wire with banana connectors and tinned ends for easier use with the push connectors on the ButtKicker Advance. And we went fancy and had “ButtKicker” embossed on all the cables just because we could.
Finally, and you really didn’t ask for this but we knew it couldn’t hurt, we lowered the price. We figured less than $300 was the number – $299.99 to be exact. That’s way less than an average subwoofer costs and a whole lot of “ButtKicker for your Buck.” Real product, engineering, performance and our hearts and souls for what we hope you consider a real value.
So that’s the deal – we made a better product for our best users by listening to them and stretching ourselves (we don’t have Sony’s budget just yet) and we wanted to give our best users our best deal.
We’ll continue to do our very best to support you like “real people” would and we really will continue to do whatever it takes so that you are thrilled with our products. Look for Alan and the AVS Forum and us to do more together in the coming year, but for now, treat yourself and buy the new ButtKicker Kit at Amazon.com or link to it at www.shakemycouch.com and take advantage of the special offers on the Power Buy.
Thanks,
Mark Luden
mark@guitammer.com
(614) 898-9370, ext 101 – my office number
(614) 218-5396 – my cell phone
Tags: avs forum, bka300, ButtKicker, Home Theater, new ButtKicker Kit, power buy, Subwoofer, tactile, wireless
