Hats & Accessories
Published September 01, 2009
Over at the NASCAR.COM Superstore, there are always new items being added and, let's be honest, it can be hard to keep up sometimes. With tons of categories to choose from, it'd be hard not to let some products slip by. Well over here at PitPass, we thought we'd review some of those very products - the ones that maybe you didn't know we had, or the ones that you weren't so sure about.
And the first product we thought we'd try out is the ButtKicker (and yeah, we did this because it sounded like it would be fun, too). What exactly is the ButtKicker? The ButtKicker is a wireless home theater kit from the Guitammer Company®. Basically, it's designed to take your home theater to the next level - as the product description on the box reads, "Why Just Watch the Race When You Can Feel It Too"?
So we took the ButtKicker up on the offer. After all, any product can build themselves up, but can they live up to it? And we can honestly say, after alot of testing, that the ButtKicker does live up to it's bragging rights. The ButtKicker is designed to bring the whole effect of what your watching to your chair (and you) by syncing with your subwoofer/bass so you literally feel the action through vibrations. But we wanted to know if it would bring it in a way that adds to the program rather than takes away from it.
The ButtKicker can appear a little intimidating at first as you open it up and take all of it's components out of the box, but in reality, the quick setup guide helps make it a pretty cut-and-dry process. For someone sitting down with the project, having the ButtKicker assembled in less than 20 minutes is easy - for someone extremely savvy with electronics, we imagine they'd fly through the setup without a problem.
For the purposes of our testing, we testing the ButtKicker on a variety of chairs and programs. Sofas, chairs, recliners... race day, game day, music, movies, video games... you name it, we tested it.
The thing we found to be best about the ButtKicker is actually the fact that you can control the intensity. Let's be real, sometimes you'll be in the mood for going all-out while sometimes you might be feeling a bit laid-back. But this actually works best because it helps you adjust the intensity to match what you're watching and what you're watching it on. A recliner or a basic chair don't need as much power to really fire things up, while on a sofa it helps to have a little more kick.
All in all, though, we found that the ButtKicker can add something to any situation if it's adjusted properly. We tested ours on a large screen HD TV with our surround sound (a very basic model) and, grouped with the ButtKicker, it made for a complete experience. And that's really what it brings to the table, like they say. The ButtKicker can take you from simple television to being that much closer to the feeling of experiencing it. In fact, the intro to the free DVD that it comes with - Maximum Velocity - gave us some chills as it incorporated the pre-race jet flyover which was unreal. We managed to catch the Bristol Race and the ButtKicker added to the fireworks plenty during the collision between Michael Waltrip and Clint Bowyer.
Our recommendations for the best experiences (other than a race, which worked extremely well) were action movies, video games and - something that we tried on a hunch - music. Popping in a DVD of a live music concert was simply awesome and provided the full feeling of being there.
To sum it up, the ButtKicker is worth it - especially for anyone who is big into having that great television set up with surround sound. After all, why just watch the race when you can feel it, too? You can find the ButtKicker in the New Arrivals or the Home Decor section over at the NASCAR.COM Superstore. Check it out and let us know what you think yourselves!
