Tactile seat vibration substitutes for about 3 dB of headphone bass.

Evidence

Simon et al. (2009) compared automotive sound systems subjective evaluations using both in situ and binaural reproductions over headphones. Listeners reported there was less bass in the binaural reproduction even though the signals at the ears were identical in both methods. When the tactile or whole-body vibrations produced by the audio system were measured and then simulated by a shaker in the seat, the bass in the headphones was judged to be equivalent to the in situ experience. The tactile effect produced an equivalent effect of 472. adding 3 dB of bass to the headphone. Simulating the right amount of vibration to achieve equivalency with the loudspeaker experience depended on bass in the music and the mass or weight of the listener. There is a limit to how much whole-body vibration a listener will tolerate, and beyond that listeners prefer it to be turned off. — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 1677

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: real bass in cars and home systems is felt as much as heard — a piece on how reproduced bass is a whole-body event and what that means for headphone versus loudspeaker design.
• XREF: The shaker-in-seat bass equivalency connects to the tactile-vibration discussions in earlier chapters and to whole-body vibration in hand-arm/pavement context.