It's #3 in Pat's list, which if you add in live acoustic drums, in order to get similar thunder from drums, you have to beat them. At our church we finally put the drums in a Clearsonic booth. I was getting 95 dBC at the mixing board at the back of the church (approx 50'-60' distance) with just a shield in place.

So, it's a sort of chicken or egg thing, particularly with the drums thrown in.

Cool overdriven tone can be had by small amps (just google ZZ Top fake amp ), but big rock drum sound is pretty hard to accomplish without either V-drums, or enclosing them in a booth. Both are expensive and out of league for most bands.

Richard is right about the 'frisson' effect, we hear with more than just our ears. In psychoacoustics, it's called a cross-modal response. When your chest cavity gets bumped and clothing moves in response to acoustics which then causes sensation in the skin/hair cells, it adds to the overall psychophysical response. Here's something that used to be in old Brüel & Kjær booklets on human vibration: http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=501607

See that chest cavity resonance at 50-100 Hz. Boom go the subs.

As for subs and where the energy is audible/tactile that it completely dependent on the room standing wave modal behavior and speaker placement.

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