Not since I waited nervously for my first Voodoo graphics accelerator card have I been so excited about a new hardware technology to bring on an added dimension to my flight sim gaming experience. What is this new product from BSG Labs Inc. called the INTENSOR chair?

It is quite literally a mega-audio and tactile sensory gaming chair. In lay terms, its a stylized chair with integrated sound system. The bass and treble speakers are built into the chair much the same way a home stereo system makes use of the reverberation of the speaker box to enhance the low frequency bass tones. The treble is dealt with by strategically placing tweeters in the lower and upper wings of the chair. Thus enough separation is provided to allow for stereo effects. One of the tweeters is place behind the head of the chair to enhance a surround effect.

Integrated speakers and pitch/volume controls

So what are the technical specs on this system that can also be used with other sound systems such as TV, VCR, CD, DVD, DSS with mono or stereo audio outputs? Here is what is built into the chair itself:

(1) 5.25" full-range driver (1) 5.25" bass driver (2) 2" left and right mid-range drivers (1) 2" high-end driver (tweeter) 20 Watts x 4 channels, Total Harmonic Distortion (THD): .0032% at 10 watts, 70Hz

And here's what the optional sub-woofer's specs are:

Dual 5.25" bass driver Tuned port enclosure 40 watts RMS at 8 ohms Adjustable level control Variable cross-over control

The Intensor chair, without optional base

OK you say, enough of the technical jargon. What added value does this thing bring to me in the context of my flight simming experience? Glad you asked, this was the central point of my looking into this chair. In short, it adds to the immersion of sitting on a rocket that the sterile world of flight sims on the screen cannot by themselves provide.

Click to continue . . .

The complete chair with sound system.

To test this theory, I loaded up the most loud and obnoxious (wife's perspective) flight sims I own: Jane's LongBow2 and F15E, DiD's F22-ADF, IMagic's iF18E CSF, and SSI's Panzer Commander. Then I pumped up the volume, and jumped into each of these sims. The beating of the blades in the Apache reverberated through your body.

Now you know why Jane's accurately portrayed the bouncy cockpit effect in its virtual cockpit. In F15E, you feel the shudder of the twin Pratt & Whitney F100 afterburning turbofans (10K lbs thrust each). Nobody does explosions on ground pounding better than ADF. The carrier cat shot actually feels real with iF18E. The rumble of the Tiger tank jitters your teeth (amongst other things) in Panzer. Squeeze off a 88-mm round and you get the idea of what "big guns" really means.

Packed up and ready to rock&roll!

To sum it up, the Intensor chair and sound system is probably the best solution for adding what can be considered force feedback technology for the virtual pilot him/her self - and not just through the hand tactile senses as is currently in some joysticks. The cost for this system ranges from $300 - 600 USA, depending upon the purchase of the optional woofer and chair base.

It is pricey, but try putting together a comparable system that can be folded up for those LAN meets. My only negative about the chair were the thin chair padding and non adjusting chair back angle. There is an optional 1 inch padding and the chair base does tilt to address these issues. But the tilt of the whole chair isn't the same as allowing the back of the chair to tilt independently from the base. The Intensor does have volume and pitch controls, and a headphone jack plug, this technology has to be heard and felt to be appreciated. It is quite literally, a "kick in the pants".

Till we meet in the skies, Check Six.