Attention everyone who plays racing games!

Or any other game for that matter. Especially if you have a dedicated chair or racing rig. You absolutely have to get some tactile transducers. You are doing yourself a huge dis-service by not having them, especially if you use headphones for gaming. This can be done cheaply and it adds so much to the experience.

My install is detailed in my build thread here.

This is copied from my impressions in my build thread.

"I use a set of Turtle Beach PX21 headphones for gaming. The transformation of the experience is very hard to describe. Pictures and videos will not do it justice. It's nothing short of amazing. I can not imagine going back to the way it was, even after just a short time trying it out. I turned the amp off and it just felt so dead and lifeless, I immediately turned it back on again. Even after two hours of solid play the amp was only ever so slightly warm to the touch.

This is with GT6 on the PS3, other systems and different games may have different settings for audio and may have different settings needed.

I first set the audio output from the in game menu to "normal living room".

In normal mode the sound through the headphones was very loud. I had to turn the headphones way down. The volume control for the sub channel on the amp is extremely sensitive. From off to completely over barring is only about 1/4 turn. I didn't like this setting very much. It didn't sound good through the headphones and the response from the shakers was kind of muddy.

I tried "small theater" next.

The headphones sounded much better but the shakers were still too sensitive.

I tried "large theater" next.

The sound from the headphones was very low, I had to crank the most of the way up to get good volume. However the shakers preformed so much better on this setting. I have the ability to fine tune it from the amp. This is the setting I stuck with.

I tried all sorts of various cars. The muscle cars are cool because sitting at idle you can feel the rumble, this thing is awesome just shaking away. But even the four cylinder cars give great response, maybe not at idle but rev it up in neutral and it's just amazing to feel the harmonics and resonance coming up through the rev range.

Driving down the road these things give great response. Put the car on the edge of adhesion and you can feel it, It's so much better to actually get tactile feedback when your right on the edge, push a little too much and it all goes smooth and you know your loosing time. Same with the braking, smooth up to the limit of adhesion and then as the tires are struggling to maintain traction, the little shakers are just vibrating away, lock them up and it all goes smooth again. Combined with the sound in the headphones it's a very natural sensation. The wind noise when your really moving adds a little drama to the speed that you can feel in your body and gets more intense the faster that you go. Hitting curbs at slow speeds give huge response, less the faster you go. Get it all wrong, hit the wall and your whole world shakes. You get a nice little kick on bumps and transitions, also when you land after getting airborne. One other nice thing is you get a solid little kick on downshifts. I can't imagine a more cost effective and trans-formative upgrade.

I don't own any FPS games anymore so I went to YouTube and watched someone else playing Call of Duty MW3. WOW! is all I can say. The explosions rock you and you can feel the helicopter blades.

Lastly, I listened to some music. It's sooo good with music. I put on some bass heavy tracks and it honestly feels like sitting in a car with a good set of 10's in a tight box.

I'm completely sold on them. I will be installing some in my couch, tied into my home theater system very soon. Movie nights are going to be so much better."

The only problem for me is the one under the seat. Because a car seat is designed to try and eliminate vibration from reaching your bottom the effect is sort of muted versus the one mounted to the pedal box. Still thinking about how to handle that.

Do it!

hmmmmmm just don't fully understand the wiring side of what you did. I just couldn't justify it when I bought my racing seat but there was some buttkicker brand product that my seat was selling along with the seat as an option.

Your solution seems optimal but would have to make a bracket to secure it to the seat.

With regard to your muddy sound, like you said it will only be solved if you can find some super cheap hardshell seat otherwise the springs and cushions will damp out the feeling but I guess that would be how it really is in a street car.

You mean that my surround sound bass shouldn't be enough to offer vibrations?

Alright, you sold me..

Quick question, though, that says that's it's a car amp? What are you powering the amp with?

In reply to Advan046:

The amp inputs are the RCA outs from the PS3. The amp is a single channel amp on the subwoofer side. I simply wired the two 8ohm shakers in parallel giving a 4ohm load. It's just like wiring up speakers.

In reply to WonkoTheSane:

The amp comes with a 12V 3A power supply, just plugs into the wall. Some people are upgrading to a 5 or 6A power supply.

In reply to yamaha:

The wife and kid prefer that I don't shake the house while playing late at night.

In reply to Nick_Comstock:

Then race with only Hondas.....you'll never notice natural bass to their exhaust note anyways.

In reply to Nick_Comstock:

Ha man you know I am a licensed professional engineer that has designed engineered and built things that had +/-0.002mm tolerances, designed micro polishing processes for engine crankshafts, and hand ground Viper V10 valves.

But put a coil of wire and a power supply in front of me and I think I will burn the city down.

I still remember asking my brother to explain how cellphones work. I felt like he was talking in some mystical language of ancient aliens or something. "The amplitude phase is shifted so that the current peaks intersect at the catchpoint of the antenna to generate the dragon of life to bring light to the planet"

In reply to yamaha:

Strangely enough the Honda's I've driven give a huge amount of tactile feedback through the shakers up through the rev range. The sound guys must have worked hard to capture the 3500rpm drone on the Honda's.