Here at the ButtKicker offices on the last day of 2008 I came across our founder Ken McCaw sitting on a drum throne in the middle of the office with piles of our new ButtKicker Advance transducers wired together around him. Noticing my quizzical look, he informed that this strange setup was actually some sort of test for an AMC Theaters installation we’re doing next month. Every seat in all six auditoriums of a new state-of-the-art AMC Theater complex will be ButtKicker enabled. It’s in KC and it’s opening early next year.
Row of ButtKicker Advance low frequency audio transducers
His setup was pretty interesting. Each pair of ButtKicker Advance transducers (mounted base to base with a piece of foam in between) were ‘canceling’ each other out. If you’re not familiar with how a ButtKicker transducer works, read this article on www.thebuttkicker.com.
Basically, a ButtKicker transducer has a magnetically suspended piston inside it that responds to an amplified low frequency audio signal. So the weighted piston moves to the audio signal, creating the feeling of the audio, but without any sound. It’s a similar concept to a speaker, but there is no cone involved.
Getting the ButtKickers to cancel each other out is as simple as mounting them base to base and feeding them the same audio signal. This causes the piston in each ButtKicker to move up and down at the same time, or in this case, out and in. As both pistons move out (away from each other) or in (toward each other) their forces are effectively cancelled.
Later, Ken told me his reasoning for the strange setup and the purpose of the test. “The purpose for mounting the ButtKickers end-to-end, canceling each other, is so that 12 units can be tested on one amplifier without ButtKickers walking all over the office like a dozen little R2D2’s on steroids. This allows for “shake-free” amplifier and wiring tests.”
Tags: AMC Theaters, bka300, ButtKicker, ButtKicker Kit, Movies, New Year, Technology
