Okay...
admittedly its been kind of a lazy start to the summer, but things are getting better all the time. Last night I had a chance to do a little experimenting with the Aura Bass Shakers. Got a few snaps in and decided it might be a good time to post a mini tutorial on how to install them for the home.

Originally, the Aura Bass Shakers were designed for cars. This presents a couple of unique problems, but nothing that cant be overcome. They were designed to be mounted on surfaces of the car floor and under seats in areas where panels had a mild amount of flex. Car stereo installers will remember searching for these areas and listening for the "Thummmm" sound. The ABS also are designed to take car stereo wire plugs and come in a 4 ohm flavor. Unless you have a receiver that will run at 4 ohms, You will want to wire these in series to increase the ohm rating to 8.
The ABS are designed to reproduce subsonic sound that would result from heavy bass in a small space. As such, they dont make sound, only vibration. These make them ideal for mounting into furniture. Heavy wooden frames make the perfect transmission material for the vibrations these make.

So on with the show...

First thing you need to do is check them out.



As you can see they are not very large, but they are designed to handle 25 watts comfortably and their smaller size gives you more placement options. They are sold in pairs and can be had for about 30.00 dollars US.



The first thing you will want to do is remove the kick cover from the shakers. This is done by removing the four long screws at the top of the shakers. Since these are long screws and there is a magnet right next to them, they can be a hassle to get back on, which is why we are modifying these a little bit...




This is the inside unit of the ABS. You might be tempted to leave the cover off and try to use these as is. Dont. They are not bonded to their case. The contacts are designed for car audio so we will have to attach the speaker wire with a slightly better solution.



A slightly clearer picture showing the inside of the ABS.

Now we are ready to attach the wiring. Since this is going into a couch, we want the wiring to be as tight as possible. Once its in, you dont want to fuss with it. Its a pain to crawl under your couch to puch a wire clip back on so we will solder the wires onto the contacts.

TIP: If you dont have one of those really expensive solder iron holders, a wine bottle or any bottle with a heavy base will do...



Thread your speaker wire through the hole in the side of the ABS cover. This will save you the hassle of having to drag 30 feet of cable through that hole.



Now your ready to solder. See the solder already on the contacts? Dont use that. Dont heat up the metal tabs either.


Make good use of the rosin flux designed for electrical connections. Twist the wire into the contacts and fold over then put a tiny drop of flux on it. Then touch it with the soldering iron. It will bubble and smoke and the flow onto the wire. The flux helps the solder adhere to the wire. I use the copperish wire for the + terminals and the silver for the - terminals. Now place the end of your solder on the wires and place the solder iron on top of the solder. When it heats up, it will flow into the wire and quickly cool down. They key to it is to not heat up the metal its going to bond, but to heat the solder and then flow it onto the posts.



Now we are ready to reassemble...

Assembly for these little bumpers is the reverse of taking them apart...
Except for one thing.
You will want to bend the tabs with the solder joints inward just a little to make sure they dont contact the kick cover.

It can be tough to find the screwholes sometimes so line the cover holes up with the mount holes and try it that way. If that fails lift the cover slightly and sight in the holes.

Now they are set to mount to your couch, chair, bed headboard, whatever...





Mounting these babies is a really simple job. For couches and chairs you want to mount them closer to joints than away. If you put them in the middle of a long board, they tend to rattle. For the best bump, you want to mount them in a sturdy spot. They have four holes that take deck screws quite well. Choose a few good spots and mount up. Run your wires and then tack a few cable holders over them. Its best if you do this so you dont vacuum them up while cleaning...trust me on this...

Once you are mounted, you have to connect them to an amp and adjust them. Right now mine are connected in 4ohm mode to a small amp taking output directly from my subwoofer output. If you can try to get the amp for the ABS's next to your couch so you can adjust the levels.

These are odd little creatures and it will take a little time to get them tuned right. Its a cute trick at first, and it feels cool but eventually you will be looking for them to be as unobtrusive as possible. Set your levels low at first and then play with some of your favorite movies. I tested using The Matrix and Jurrassic Park. Dont expect to hear any noise from them, its all vibration designed to augment the feel of lower bass impact. You will know you have it tuned right when you get the impact from the T-Rex , when the water in the glass moves, you should feel it.

Boooooommmmmm......

You can read more here

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=392656

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread....&highlight=aura

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread....&highlight=aura

Also, BE SURE TO CHECK THE POLARITY of your shakers BEFORE installing them by wiring them up and touching them together back-to-back(or top-to-top depending on your point of view). If the vibration stops when they touch, they are in phase. If the vibration increases, they are out of phase and one of them will have to be wired in reverse to bring it back in phase with the others.

Out of three sets of shakers, I had one shaker that was out of phase with the other 5.

Be sure to test the effect off shaker installation location on phase when installing several units in a single piece of furniture as distance and opposing orientaions can also cause the waves generated by them to be out of phase. This shouldn't be an issue when installing all shakers to one flat board but things get trickier when installing on multiple surfaces within a single piece of furniture.

If you install these and cranking the volume on your driving amp produces little effect, you probably have a phase issue(the waves are cancelling eachother out).

I've had aura bass shakers in my ht for about a year now. I've had them set up using a spare carver tfm-15 splitting the sub out from my pioneer (one to carver, one to subwoofer). The carver has a gain knob on it so often I am always turning up the gain to near full or full just to get any output from the shakers.

So I've read that using the PHONO input from a receiver might give me more gain to drive the shakers, apparently PHONO is much more sensitive than using either a TAPE or CD input. So I brought in an old Kenwood receiver, removed the carver from the system, and plugged the shakers to them using the PHONO input from the sub-out.

HUGE difference in response! Now the shakes are almost TOO strong! I'm literally finding myself turning them to near whisper levels on the Kenwood everytime I crank up the system.

So in short, if you find yourself wanting more responsiveness from your shakers and currently using a receiver to power them up, try the PHONO input instead of the TAPE or AUX or CD. It will make a difference.

hey i bought one of these and now i relize i should have bought two. so i am wondering what will happen when you connect a 4 ohm speaker to a 8 ohm amp and can i just put in a 4 ohm high watt resistor. to compensate?

If you run one of these off an amp that can handle the load difference, then they will work fine. Im running my first pair off an old hitachi and they are quite nice. Once I get the second pair in, they are going to be wired in series. That will bring the resistance to 8 ohms...
I only have half the couch wired for subsonics now, but the girls always fight about who gets to sit "on THAT side of the couch!"

Boooooommmmmmmmm...

so i guess since you didnt say anything ,im going to assume that you mean nothing bad will happen if my amp cant handle the load. it just wont work right. right?
also, what if i wire it to my mirage hx-s10 in box sub amp. should i go parallel or series with the subwoffer?would you reccomend i do this?or am i in danger of screwing up my sub.

If your amp wont handle it one of two things will happen. It either will start clipping and resetting or it will play but it will be VERY warm. Either one of those conditions is cause for alarm. Your best bet is to look on the back of the receiver that you are going to power them with and check to see if it has a 4-8 ohm switch. Or if the Speaker terminals are marked as 4-8ohm. Probably best to wait till you get the second one or buy an amp that can do 4ohms. Mine does 4-8 so its not a problem. I dont recommend wiring the sub and thumper is series just because there may be funky wiring in your sub box.

If I were you I would buy three more Bass Shakers, wire two pairs in series and prepare to have your mind blown out.... ( 30 dollars a pair. Cant go wrong.)

My wife keeps looking at me and going "We really should turn this down! The tenants!" Then I tell her to stand up and she looks at me and smiles. "Oh yeah..."

where are you buying them for 30.00 a pair? mine was 29.99 for one from parts express.
i was asking about hooking to my mirage, because my denon reciever does not have high output sub channels only low output, so i guess i need another one and cheap sub amp.

I bought mine last year from parts express for 29.00 a pair...did you buy the pro's by any chance?

Like this?

thats the one i got. its the only aura model that parts express had. i noticed it went up to 38.00 today

so i got another bass shaker and an a 100 w bass amp from parts express. the amp has one mono channel at 100w at 4ohms and 50w at 8 ohms. sould i hook these up in parallel or series? i have them mounted to the chair and they do work. they are pretty cool. on racing games it rumbles to the road noise not the engine so much. it also shakes you when you crash and feels like your in a car with 4 15" subs when the music plays.

Reading back, your shakers are 4 ohms, that being the case, hook them up in series for an 8 ohm impedance. If you hook them up in parallel, the impedance will be 2 ohms, and that's probably a bit on the low side for the amp.

Some amps can do it, others can't. If the specs on your amp don't specifically say anything about running into 2 ohms, don't risk discovering the smell of toasted amplifier and/or burnt shaker coil.

50W should still get you a nice thump in the butt.

When you get another pair, then you can wire the pairs in parallel, and have a 4 ohm load, which you say your amp says it's designed to drive.

thanks for the info. i did hook them up in parallel to try it out and it does work, but if you turn it up to much it will turn itself of, some sort of safty circuit thank god. though at that point they are almost moving my simulator around the room they are vibrating so hard.its like those old football games.i am going to try them in series now.

thats a good idea about the four speakers. i could run my couch and chair also with the same amp.

Well...im sold, next payday, im gettin me 2.......or 10

put'em under my bed

BOMP..Chica..BOMP..Chica....BOOOOMMMMM!!!

Just curious......are they 25w RMS and 50w MAX, Or 25w MAX?
Everyone on ebay says something different.

I wonder if I put enough of these in my bed, I would finally have something that could wake me up in the morning!

you can borrow my 4 month old... if you sleep through her screaming you'd have to be declared leagally deaf...

... i'll be ordering my bass shaker's soon... ... good 'ol tax return season... gotta [especially] love having kids this time of year..

Anyone have any idea where you would be able to get these in Australia. Can't seem to find anyone who stocks them.

Found em',, and damn they're awesome.

Okay, I have them, but when I connect them to my amp (a spare one I have), they work quite well but they try and play the high frequencies (you can sorta hear it). I was wiondering if anyone knows how to fix this? Or have I done something very wrong .

I should add that my ampy is 8 om

Connect a big inductor inbetween the amp and the speaker. That's one way to cut highs.

DJ

You can use the Sub output from your stereo or you can order a pair of "low pass modules" from partsexpress.com....

Wow I didn't see this until just today.....the sad truth is that I would (probably) be able to go to sleep, and stay asleep through that.
Edit: I have a very loud sister so maybe thats why I'm used to continuous 'noise'