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Mark Muschett puts Imeron's Intensor LX 350 Gaming Chair to the test. |
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Intensor LX 350 Gaming Chair - Mark Muschett - Last updated October 23, 1999
Installation:
The next stage of the installation is hook up the Intensor Power Unit to your sound card. The power unit is a mid sized dark gray box with a standard power cord (no wall wart), 3 RCA connectors, a permanently attached 9 foot output cable with a 25-pin connector cable and a power switch. The actual controls for the chair are located on the chair itself. Two of the RCA jacks are used to connect to your audio source. In my case that was the sound card so it meant using a stereo mini-jack to dual RCA cable which was provided. If you require any other connectors, such as RCA to RCA you will have to get them from your local electronic's store or raid your stereo. Just how you connect it to your sound-card will depend your mode of operation. What I mean is if you are going to hook it up to a a single output soundcard and want to continue using your existing two or three piece speaker system you can do this by using a dual stereo headphone adapter (what I used) or a 1/8" stereo to (2) 1/8" stereo Y-adapter (as noted below) and have one output go to your multimedia speakers and the other go to the Intensor Power Unit. Again, in both cases you are on your own in terms of the additional connectors that may be required.
Alternatively you can hook the Power Unit directly to the sound card and use the Intensor without any additional speakers or use the headphone jack that's on the chair or if you have a sound card with dual stereo output or a quad output card you can take advantage of the extra outputs depending on your existing configuration. Sound Blaster Live owners who use the FPS2000 or DTT2500 system can also keep the analog outputs free to use with the Intensor LX by using the DIN connector to for the main speaker. Suffice to say that connecting the system is not an issue. What remains to be seen is how the different options perform, what the impact on 3D sound, and what mode works best with respect to 3D sound. The last part of configuration is adjusting the volume and tactile feedback of the chair. That's done via sliders on the right side of the chair. There is no right or wrong for those levels as its just personal preference. So lets see how the Intensor LX 350 performs. Performance: Tactile Feedback The heart of the system is the Intensor Power Unit. This contains the 4 channel amplifier that feeds the actual chair While the specifications don't list the detailed specifications of the amplifer it does indicated that its 20 watts x 4 channels. I have surmised that the four channels are as follows. A left and right channel powering the midrange speakers on either side of the chair, a channel powering the full range speaker that sits between your legs as well as the tweeter behind your head and the fourth channel for the tactile feedback driver. The tactile feedback is coming via a 5.25" bass driver located in the Intensor LX unit. In addtion to trying the chair with games, movies and music, I used our standard low frequency test tones to find out just what makes this seat shake. The results show that 190 Hz gets a good tactile response then there is response but not as good down to 100 Hz and 95 Hz which is again very noticalbe then down to 85 and 80 Hz which is by far the strongest tactile response of all. It then gets weaker again down to 45 Hz which for some odd reason has no response given that 40 Hz has some tactile repsonse. Below 40 there is nothing. I am not sure why the variability in response but the bottom line is the combination in games and movies means the chair shakes when it should. But how does it sound? What about 3D audio? Those results and more follow so please keep reading. |
Speaker Reviews Altec Lansing ADA880 Dolby Digital Cambridge SoundWorks FPS2000 digital Cambridge SoundWorks 2.1 Digital Cambridge SoundWorks DeskTop Theater 5.1 DTT2500 Cambridge SoundWorks DeskTop Theater 5.1 DTT3500 Cambridge SoundWorks MegaWorks 510D Diamond Audio Technology ProMedia 3205 Klipsch ProMedia 5.1 Initial Review Logitech SoundMan Xtrusio DSR-100 Philips MMS305 4.1 Initial Review Yamaha TSS1 Dolby Digital / DTS 5.1 Sirocco Crossfire vs ProMedia v.2-400 Evergreen RumbleFX force feedback headphones Jazz Speakers DE-005/DE-006 Digital Audio Decoders Boostaroo Headphone Amplifier / Splitter |
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The first part of the installation is very much different from your typical
sound or video card install. That's because you are assembling the chair base. Its a
pretty simple process as the chair ships in a very large box partially assembled. All I
had to do was flip the actual Intensor unit upside down and attach the tilt plate for the
chair to the unit. Then it was a matter of inserting the wheels into the chair base,
inserting the pneumatic cylinder and then placing the hole on the tilt plate onto the top
of the pneumatic cylinder. That's it! Then you sit on the chair and adjust the tilt
and height, just like any other quality computer chair. Its also worth noting here
that the back of the chair folds down when not in use. 
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