Taken from: http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayReleaseContent.aspx?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/03-31-2009/0004997994&EDATE=

New Technology Gives Fans the Feeling of Being In The Driver’s Seat

CHARLOTTE, N.C., March 31 /PRNewswire/ — In an effort to bring the ultimate viewing experience to race fans, NASCAR and The Guitammer Company have partnered to give fans the feeling of being in the driver’s seat using “ButtKicker” brand products and technology.

The new wireless ButtKicker Kit is a complete, consumer-friendly, do-it-yourself “silent subwoofer” for home theater and gaming that quickly and easily transforms any type of furniture to become part of a “4-D” theater. The wireless ButtKicker Kit allows viewers to literally feel sound that is ideal for NASCAR televised race coverage, NASCARsimulated online racing, video games and watching DVD’s.

The ButtKicker(R) product compliments a listeners home theatre system with low frequency audio transducer s to recreate amplified audio signals through the product which attaches to your couch, seat, or even floor sending low frequency sound directly into the listener’s body. The product is available on Amazon.com and other retailers, visitwww.shakemycouch.com for more reseller information.

Additionally, taking this technology to the next step, Guitammer has worked with the NASCAR Media Group and NASCAR broadcast partners for this patent pending television broadcast technology, ButtKicker Live!(R). This product enables fans to feel that action on the track while they watch the race at home in a natural, integrated way.

“This product is another example of how NASCAR is providing innovative ways to bring the sport to its fans,” saidBlake Davidson, managing director of licensed products for NASCAR. “Not every NASCAR fan can make it to the track each week, but with products and technology like the ButtKicker Kit and ButtKicker Live!, our sport will come into their living room packed with a unique and realistic experience. “

ButtKicker Live!(R) and ButtKicker(R) enabled NASCAR(R) race footage will be featured in the NCTA’s ‘Broadband Nation’ booth in the Off Broadband Theater at the National Cable & Telecommunications Assoc. CABLE SHOW, April 1 -3, 2009 at the Washington D.C. Convention Center.

Mark Luden, President of Guitammer, states, “We are very pleased to announce that the ButtKicker Kit is now an officially licensed NASCAR(R) product and look forward to working closely with NASCAR, its partners and especially the fans to provide the most realistic racing experience possible – whether online, DVD or broadcast based. We will be releasing the first ever “ButtKicker enabled” NASCAR DVD as part of special “Collector’s Edition of the Kit” in the near future with more and more enhanced media to follow as we together add more value to the fans. Additionally, we will continue our sponsorship of numerous online racing leagues making the NASCAR racing experience even more realistic and exciting. We are thrilled to be able to work with a leader like NASCAR and look forward to doing more and more with the league and its fans in the coming year.”

“Over the years the technological enhancements made to the sport allow NASCAR to maximize the ButtKicker product,” said Jay Abraham, Chief Operating Officer, NASCAR Media Group. “Everyone that has ever been to a NASCAR race knows that our sport separates itself from others as an extraordinary sensory experience where sound and feel are part of the experience – you not only see and hear the sport, but you feel it too. With this new product the fans can now feel the roar of NASCAR from their own home.”

Used by Disney, IMAX, Universal Studios, The Kennedy Space Center, dozens of Grammy Award-winning musicians and thousands of home theater owners worldwide, ButtKicker brand low frequency audio transducers provide high quality low frequency audio and realistic special effects, adding a powerful and exciting effect to sports, movies, music and games. ButtKicker brand products are award-winning pro audio “silent subwoofers” that provide powerful, musically-accurate low frequency effects, without airborne sound.

About NASCAR(R)

The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, Inc. (NASCAR) is the sanctioning body for one of North America’spremier sports. NASCAR is the No. 1 spectator sport – holding 17 of the top 20 highest attended sporting events in the U.S., and is the No. 2 rated regular-season sport on television. NASCAR races are broadcast in more than 150 countries and in 20 different languages. NASCAR fans are the most brand loyal in all of sports, and as a result more Fortune 500 companies participate in NASCAR than any other sport.

About NASCAR Media Group

The NASCAR Media Group is a rights management, content licensing, distribution and entertainment company designed to better enhance the fan experience with NASCAR. NMG develops, produces and distributes a broad range of programming and content for NASCAR fans and provides a range of new services to its media partners and to develop new content platforms that will expand the reach of the sport and bring additional value to its partners while managing its partnerships with media outlets such as Fox television, ESPN/ABC, SPEED, TNT, Turners Sports Interactive, MRN, PRN, SIRIUS Satellite Radio, DirecTV. NMG is based in Charlotte, N.C. with offices in Daytona Beach, Fla. and Los Angeles. NASCAR was the first sports sanctioning body to establish an office in Los Angeles, which is charged with injecting the sport into mainstream media through relationships with film, television and music industries.

About The Guitammer Company

Located in Westerville, Ohio, The Guitammer Company is the leader in low frequency sound products for the home theater, pro audio, music, amusement and entertainment industries. ButtKicker brand products are used by industry leaders such as Disney, IMAX, Universal Studies, Warner Bros., The Rolling Stones, Shania Twain, Green Day, Maroon 5, along with home theater, gaming and car audio professionals and enthusiasts in more than 50 countries. For more information visit www.shakemycouch.com or www.thebuttkicker.com. ButtKicker(R) and ButtKicker Live(R) are registered trademarks of The Guitammer Company.

Whether your an avid ButtKicker user, or you’ve never even tried one out, this shirt is completely awesome.

"ButtKicker, Feel What You've Been Missing" T-shirt.

The shirt is made of 100% heavyweight cotton and is preshrunk.  I also makes a great gift for a friend or spouse. 

Get one here ->

Feb. 18, 09  through Feb. 28, 09 – The new wireless ButtKicker Kit will be on sale from ButtKicker Direct (www.buttkickergear.com) – the official ButtKicker webstore. The regular retail price of $399.95 will be temporarily marked down to $319.96 – 20% off of the retail price. This promotional pricing will not effect any coupon discounts.

ButtKicker LFE Kit (left) ButtKicker Kit (right)

There are several differences between the new ButtKicker Kit and the ButtKicker LFE Kit that can help you determine which ButtKicker package is right for you.

First of all, even though the ButtKicker Kit is new, it’s based on the same tried and true technology as the ButtKicker LFE Kit and is not necessarily better, but each has different strengths and is geared toward slightly different applications.

The first major difference between the two kits is weight/power.

The ButtKicker LFE Kit comes with the ButtKicker LFE transducer which weighs 11 lbs. and the BKA-1000-N power amplifier which puts out 1000 watts at 4 Ohms (one ButtKicker LFE transducer). This setup is very powerful and is used to shake huge structures like floors, stages, platforms and also large couches and chairs.

The new ButtKicker Kit comes with the ButtKicker Advance transducer which weighs 4.5 lbs. – less than half the weight of the ButtKicker LFE. The included amplifier, BKA300-4 puts out 300 watts. Together this setup is ideal for shaking one couch or chair. The ButtKicker Kit is actually the result of customers telling us that they didn’t need all of the power of the LFE Kit, just something with the guts to shake their entire couch and a few extra features.

The next major difference is expandability.

The ButtKicker LFE Kit comes with the BKA-1000-N amplifier and one ButtKicker LFE. One ButtKicker LFE running on that amplifier receives the full 1000 watts. You can, however, run up to 4 ButtKicker LFE transducers on that same amplifier. The power that each ButtKicker LFE sees will drop to around 250 watts though. This type of setup is used for rows of home theater seating and can also be purchased as a factory installed option in Berkline Seating and other seating manufacturers.

The ButtKicker Advance and BKA300-4 are made to work one to one – you cannot add multiple ButtKicker Advance units to a BKA300-4 amplifier but will instead need to purchase additional kits.

So, if you’re trying to ButtKicker enable multiple pieces of furniture, or want to add more some time in the future, the ButtKicker LFE might be the right fit for you.

Conclusion:

There are a few other feature differences between the 2 ButtKicker packages that I won’t go into full detail about in this post. For more information about the features of each kit, see this post here, this page here and also spend some time Googling the subject to see what other customers are saying.

If you have an unusual setup or are still on the fence about which ButtKicker package is right for you, give us a call: 1-888-676-2828. We’re here M-F, 9-5 EST.

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.”

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

Westerville OH, November 17, 2008  — The Guitammer Company announces the release of the all new wireless ButtKicker® Kit for home theater, gaming and music. The new ButtKicker Kit is a complete, consumer-friendly, do-it-yourself product for home theater and gaming that quickly and easily transforms any type of furniture to become part of an affordable “4-D” theater, allowing viewers to literally feel sound… including movie soundtracks, concert quality audio and video game explosions, bumps and thumps. As more and more families satisfy their entertainment needs in their own homes, the ButtKicker Kit will provide an exciting tactile addition to basic setups and for home theaters already equipped with HDTV flat screens, surround sound, an Xbox and a Blu-ray player. It’s not expensive, but it is a first class performance upgrade.

Used by Disney, IMAX, Universal Studios, The Kennedy Space Center, dozens of Grammy Award-winning musicians and thousands of home theater owners worldwide, ButtKicker brand low frequency audio transducers provide high quality low frequency audio and realistic special effects, without loud volume, adding a powerful and exciting effect to movies, music and games. But don’t let the name fool you… ButtKicker brand products are serious, award-winning pro audio “silent subwoofers” that provide powerful, musically-accurate low frequency effects… without airborne sound… perfect for apartments and close living quarters.

As anyone who goes to a concert or movie theater with a good audio system knows, sound that is felt is an essential part of accurate and pleasing audio reproduction. The Guitammer Company is the leading expert in low frequency audio and its ButtKicker family of products is sold worldwide. You have most likely felt these devices at amusement parks or dance clubs, perhaps without knowing what produces such powerful low frequency audio and special effects. Now, for less than $300 you can experience at home what thousands of movie theater-goers will experience at select new AMC movie theater complexes beginning in January 2009, which will be equipped with ButtKicker units for all the seats.

Guitammer is working closely with sports leagues and broadcasters developing a patent pending television broadcast technology called ButtKicker Live!®, which will soon allow ButtKicker Kit owners to experience, live and in real time, what it feels like to be inside a race car during a race… or what the quarter back feels when he gets sacked… or what the boards at a hockey game feel like when players are checked into the wall…or what it feels like in the stands at a drag race…or what sound feels like on stage at the Grammy Awards.

About The Guitammer Company

Located in Westerville, Ohio, The Guitammer Company is the leader in low frequency sound products for the home theater, pro audio, music, amusement and entertainment industries. ButtKicker brand products are used by industry leaders such as Disney, IMAX, Universal Studies, Warner Bros., The Rolling Stones, Shania Twain, Green Day, Maroon 5, along with home theater, gaming and car audio professionals and enthusiasts in more than fifty countries.ButtKicker® and ButtKicker Live!® are registered trademarks of The Guitammer Company.