Does people seem to neglect sound in arcade builds?

[AndersHP]

Hi y'all..

I'm constantly seeing people pulling apart cheap computer speakers for their arcade builds, and excuse me for probably being a pain in your b*tt's for saying this, but if there's one thing I've always known about audio, it is that computer speakers deliver(ed?) crap performances in this field.

I don't know if my knowledge on this area is outdated, and I hope so, because I can totally see the benefits from doing this (built in amps, built in volume control, built in 3,5mm headphone jacks), but is this really delivering proper results?

And the "you are playing 8 bit games, the sound doesn't matter" argument I cannot follow. I believe even the crappiest sounding games will always sound way better on a hifi-setup, than on a "2W speaker in a cardboard box" setup.

So I'm generally looking for your input here, since I'm having a bit of difficulty finding a setup that provides good sound, and still have the convenience of the headphone jack and volume control, and at the same time I don't think the audio setups are getting very much attention on these forums (?).

Is the 2.1 Logitech systems really doing a proper job, or do I have to get a dedicated amp, and fulltone car audio speakers to get what I'm searching for? And which amps does have the headphone jack outputs, without them costing too much?

I was thinking about 5-6" fulltone car speakers pointing down towards the LCD from the marquee, and additional tweeters in the marquee pointing towards the players. From my car-audio-days I believe this could provide enough bass to make a subwoofer redundant, and the tweeter would deliver crispness, since the treble is very sensitive to direction.

Any thoughts and opinions? Sorry if this thread was a bit provocative 

[Titchgamer]

Personally i dont think you have to go to nuts with cab audio playing old games.
The sound and music for 8/16bit games is electro grainy at best.

But I built my cab with a Car amp and 2x 6" car speakers.
I get ample sound from them and they look the part (infact its what most people comment on with my cab!)
However volume control is a problem with them, trying to get the right balance accross different games is hard.

And the first time I started my cab I up i nearly blew my bro in laws ear drums out due to the volume!

[05SRT4]

Logitech 2.1 works and sounds great in my cab. Honestly no one has ever complained that the audio isn't "crisp" enough.

Keep the audio components simple, no need to digitally enhance audio that was made in the 70's, 80's and 90's.

If you want to build something with nice audio then consider building a jukebox.

I have a headphone jack on mine but never use it. Thought id need it but meh, no need.

[yotsuya]

Original games had a 4" or 6" single speaker pushing mono and sounded just fine. A nice set of Logitech 2.1s is all you need.  Anything more is personal preference.

[Alejo I]

Most classic cabinets had trash-tier speakers (like, 25 years old white van quality ones), so it's not like putting a good set of speakers is going to magically improve the sound quality of your games. With that said, some NeoGeo titles do benefit from punchier setups, but even those cabs had rather modest speakers. I've been doing some experiments with audio while planning my cab since I have a ton of spares around and in my opinion you'll be fine with a decent set of stereo speakers or a cheap Logitech 2.1 system. Anything above that is a waste of money unless you want to run modern console and computer games like SFIV. Keep in mind that the people developing old arcade games weren't using 5.1 setups or anything crazy like that.

I recently struck gold as my girlfriend purchased an apartment with several old CRT TVs, which I intend to use once I finish my first cab. I'll probably reuse the original speakers since most of them are decent enough (a Sony, a Loewe and a Thomson), but I also have two sets of Pioneer car speakers already wired. I intend to drive one of them with a TPA3116 amplifier like this one:




(mine doesn't have output for any "sperkers", though, so there's that)

Costed me around €20 and I had to add a €10 PSU since driving an audio amp from a computer PSU is a terrible idea due to noise issues. I'm also going to experiment with a crappy HY-2001, which I bought for €13 including its own PSU and shipping costs from China.



I expect nothing but severe popping and terrible quality at high volume, but those Pioneer cones are pretty damn basic, so it may be enough to drive them at low volume levels.

Just don't bother with automotive-grade stuff unless you have the pieces around. That's not only overkill, but probably more trouble than they are worth to rig. From my tests, a couple of average car speakers are more than enough when connected to a proper amp; even some cheap computer ones will do the trick and save you some space. Or just get 2.1 Logitech set and call it a day if you want more bass. There's no reason to go bananas trying to supply power to a proper car amp and wiring the whole thing.

[yotsuya]

Most classic cabinets had trash-tier speakers (like, 25 years old white van quality ones), so it's not like putting a good set of speakers is going to magically improve the sound quality of your games. With that said, some NeoGeo titles do benefit from punchier setups, but even those cabs had rather modest speakers. I've been doing some experiments with audio while planning my cab since I have a ton of spares around and in my opinion you'll be fine with a decent set of stereo speakers or a cheap Logitech 2.1 system. Anything above that is a waste of money unless you want to run modern console and computer games like SFIV. Keep in mind that the people developing old arcade games weren't using 5.1 setups or anything crazy like that.

I recently struck gold as my girlfriend purchased an apartment with several old CRT TVs, which I intend to use once I finish my first cab. I'll probably reuse the original speakers since most of them are decent enough (a Sony, a Loewe and a Thomson), but I also have two sets of Pioneer car speakers already wired. I intend to drive one of them with a TPA3116 amplifier like this one:




(mine doesn't have output for any "sperkers", though, so there's that)

Costed me around €20 and I had to add a €10 PSU since driving an audio amp from a computer PSU is a terrible idea due to noise issues. I'm also going to experiment with a crappy HY-2001, which I bought for €13 including its own PSU and shipping costs from China.



I expect nothing but severe popping and terrible quality at high volume, but those Pioneer cones are pretty damn basic, so it may be enough to drive them at low volume levels.

Just don't bother with automotive-grade stuff unless you have the pieces around. That's not only overkill, but probably more trouble than they are worth to rig. From my tests, a couple of average car speakers are more than enough when connected to a proper amp; even some cheap computer ones will do the trick and save you some space. Or just get 2.1 Logitech set and call it a day if you want more bass. There's no reason to go bananas trying to supply power to a proper car amp and wiring the whole thing.

Well said.

If you want a jukebox, build a jukebox. Otherwise, a good set of 2.1 computer speakers is all You'll Ever Need.

[BadMouth]

Depends on what you're going to play.  I'm picky about sound, but a lot of original cabs in the 80's didn't even have a whizzer cone on the speaker let alone tweeters.

Once you get up to the late 90's early 2000's, it becomes more relevant.  A lot of people(maybe even the majority) don't run games that new in their cab.   I wanted good sound in my cab specifically for NAOMI shmups like psyvariar 2.  I also run a fair number of steam fighting games.
(Link to my cab in signature)