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Cabinet speaker questions (what to do about volume)
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mamefreak2:
Hey folks,

I've had a cabinet for years but it's been on the junky side. I've recently decided to finally finish it properly. It is an old Street Fighter cab and I have the control panel, wiring, front end and marquee ready to go. I'm going to have a friend help me with the monitor and bezel so I should be good to go.

The one thing I am struggling with a little bit though is the speakers. I have a great PC sound system from Cambridge Soundworks. It's a 2.1 system and it should be fine. The speakers are small enough that they should fit above the monitor behind the marquee. However, I'm not sure how to control the volume on this.

I'd really like to get a volume knob for it and I'd like to hear people's opinions. The way the speakers are now there is a volume dial that kind of hangs from the wire that leads back to the amp. I don't want this thing hanging off the side of the cab so I'd like to hear what people think. I want this unit to double as a jukebox so sound is important to me.

Here are some of the options I'm considering.

1. My friend has suggested using arcade  speakers with a pot? I guess it's a potentiemeter? And has said that this would be wired into the computer? Can somebody explain how this works? Is there a volume knob I can connect to this?  Also, how good would the sound be on this?

2. I go with the PC speakers (they are great and I'm happy with the sound capability) and find some way of hacking the wires into a volume knob? Anyone know how to do this?

3. I try something like a Griffin Powermate. If I do this I have to rip it apart to mount it correct?

Please, I am absolutely useless when it comes to this stuff and would love to hear from some folks who know what they are talking about. Thanks in advance for the help!  
Grimoz:
One option is to get a set of Stereo PC speakers that come with a volume controlled subwoofer and 2 speakers and stick the sub in the bottom of the cab and control the volume from that, I did that on my mame machine and it works fine. I hacked the speakers and wired them up to original arcade speakers I already had installed and its great, has a very authentic sound.
mamefreak2:

--- Quote from: Grimoz on December 14, 2011, 12:41:03 am ---One option is to get a set of Stereo PC speakers that come with a volume controlled subwoofer and 2 speakers and stick the sub in the bottom of the cab and control the volume from that, I did that on my mame machine and it works fine. I hacked the speakers and wired them up to original arcade speakers I already had installed and its great, has a very authentic sound.

--- End quote ---
Sorry, I don't follow you here, like I said I don't know any of this stuff. You say you have two PC speakers and two arcade speakers?

 Do you have two arcade speakers on the top and then two PC speakers somewhere else? How do you have the volume control? Is it inside the cabinet?
Cynicaster:
One thing you should really figure out is whether you want it to sound “good” or you want it to sound authentic.  I put the first descriptor in quotes because it’s obviously subjective, but what I’m saying is I think a half decent set of modern powered 2.1 PC speakers (i.e., L/R with subwoofer) is typically going to provide a higher-fidelity, fuller sound than the speakers built into most classic cabinets. 

The thrust sound in Asteroids and the sound of Qix whipping about the screen both produce a hearty rumble from my cabinet’s subwoofer, which I happen to enjoy, despite the fact that I know the original hardware did not have a subwoofer and sounded quite different.

Another consideration for me is that I enjoy playing tunes on my cabinet; both as a standalone jukebox when friends are over playing darts or whatever, or as background music while I’m actually playing MAME.  Having a mix of my tunes and the game sounds coming out of the speakers right in front of my face while playing a fun game is a really cool, immersive, and relaxing experience.  Of course, this works better when you have a game without its own constantly-playing background music, but I digress.  What I’m getting at is, my desire to play music on my cabinet made the 2.1 PC speaker system an obvious choice due to the totally decent sound for both games and music, and dead simple integration into my project (i.e., no need to shield the speakers, no need to buy/install an amplifier, etc.).

As for volume control, I’ve seen this question numerous times in my fairly short membership here.  You’re going to get a bunch of different answers, all potentially valid depending on your specific situation, but my stock answer is don’t overthink it.  My speaker system has the volume knob built into the left speaker, so I simply made removable speaker grilles (they attach with magnets).  If I want to change the volume, I just remove the grille, turn the volume dial on the left speaker, and replace the grille.  It takes 5 seconds to do and there’s no need for a volume dial cluttering up the look.  I find that I rarely ever change the volume anyway—it’s largely been set-it-and-forget-it.  After several months of heavy use for my cabinet, I’m very glad I didn’t waste a bunch of time trying to wire up some fancy external knob because, for me, it’s just not used enough to be worth it.   
drventure:
Cynicaster's response is spot on.

Doesn't the cambridge system have a volume knob on it somewhere.

Worst case, you dismantle that element, desolder the pot that the knob is connected to, and solder in a long pair of wires so you can relocate the pot (and the knob) somewhere else on the cab.

You'll ruin the speaker set for use in anything else, but it'd work just fine.

The Griffin powermate is another great alternative, and it's REALLY easy to implement, just a tad more $$$

And finally, if you want to get hackish about it, you might consider what I'm doing for a jukebox build

I picked up some old USB wheel mice for 1$ a pop, dismantled them and am connecting a rod directly to the wheel itself, and a knob connected to that rod.

Soooo, you turn the knob, the wheel turns and registers mouse wheel rotation.

Then it's just a matter of a little AutoHotKey script magic to take the wheel rotation input from that specific mouse and raise or lower volume, move next prev track, etc.
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