My audio solution...

[Level42]

Don't know if this is the right place, but wanted to share my audio set-up for my cab. I've bought a Lordsvale Leisure Jamma cab and converting to Mame (duh !)....

I set out with a couple of requirements:
1) sounds as good as possible. Want to use the cab as a jukebox as well
2) must fit in my cab
3) may cost only close to nothing

First I wanted to use my old set of B&W speakers but one of the bass units is defective and I didn't want to fiddle to make one central bass unit.

I also had a set of 70's Philips speakers which are actualy amazing good quality. Well built, heavy magnets. They cost me about 5 bucks when I picked them up from some fair about 10 years ago
Dismantling them meant also demolishing them, since everything was not only screwed with a zillion screws but also glued everywhere...
They are three-way speakers so I had to move the filters to the cab as well.

For amping I was thinking of an old Yamaha audio-set amp, good quality, and I think it will fit nicely...

The cab originaly had two very cheap speakers rubbish 5 Watt speakers mounted kind of behind the marquee, with sound "outlets" left and right from the marquee. There is a wooden construction behind the marquee that holds the lighting and original speakers. I decided to move the tweeters and mid's on that construction, and also the filters. Amazingly, there was enough room, although I had to fiddle a bit with the tweeters. I ended up using (very good quality) double-sided tape.

The bass units I positioned in the lowest part of the cab. There was a board carrying the cab power supply and a double mains outlet (handy), but under that, there was almost the pefect place for the bass units. A nice, closed box. I decided to mount them in the side panels, as there was not enough room in the front panel to mount speaker covers of the right size. Only after sawing out the holes I realised they took out a pretty big part of the lower side part of the panel, and feared this would weaken the contstruction, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

I will re-use the isolation from the original speakers in the bass unit. Bought nice metal covers.

I made some pics of the "marquee unit". I've got a couple of worries:
1) will moving the bass and mid/tweeter units have a big impact on the sound (I think it's good there's a mid though, only a tweeter would be worse is my guess)
2) the tweeters are positioned kind of oposite the mid's. Hope that will work OK. It doesn't have to be the most fantastic HiFi sound ever though...
3) will the TL lamp (and it's electronics) influence the filters/speakers. Aparantly this should be ok, couse the original speakers where there too, but they don't use filters of course.

All 3 questions can only be anwered by testing it.

Made some pics of the Marquee unit...

Let me all know what you think

[Level42]

Some more pics, the second shows the new mid and the original speaker back to back....what a difference !!! Look at those magnets.....

[webgeek]

That sounds like a sweet setup. Looks like you've done a lot of thinking about it!

1) I can't say for sure how much your sound will change when you reposition your speakers. What I can say is that high frequencies are very directional while low frequencies are not. I'd make certain that your tweaters are facing where you expect to be as much as possible. I'd suggest the same with the mids but it's not quite as critical. It doesn't matter nearly as much with your woofers.

Case in point: I recently started testing my sound system with a pair of component speakers (piezo combined with 5 1/2" and a passive crossover) along with a 12" subwoofer in a bandpass box. The components were laying on the floor facing straight up with the bandpass a few feet away. With the music playing and me standing over the mess'o'speakers on the floor, things sounded perfect. As soon as I moved even a few feet away, the highs became muffled and the bass started to really overwhelm everything. This is purely due to the physical orientation of the speakers.

2) Not quite following this one. Is this where you are showing them facing each other? Either way, my response to #1 still applies.

3) Possibly. I appologize if you already know this. For the most part, anything carrying current creates a field that can induce current in other conductors around it. This is how transformers work (plus a bit more). This means that your light MIGHT cause problems as it's so close. Try to keep the wires for the light as far from the speaker wires as you can. If they get too close, you will start to hear a 60 hz humming sound in your speakers. You can also use higher quality speaker wire that has been shielded but I would try and get it working with what you have first.  Also, keep your wires as short as you can stand them. Not only does this reduce signal loss and noise, it reduces the areas that can pick up interfernce.

Please let us know how it goes. Have fun!

Mike

[Level42]

Hey Mike, thanks for the feedback.

With speakers, the box in which they are are very important. Try run a loose bass unit  But my cab had the ideal "box" in the bottom for the bass units...

I am very aware of the #3 thing you mention, electronics is my day time job I was very worried about it, but there was no need:
I powered the whole thing up for the first time today, and it sounds even better then expected !!!!

Absolutely no interference from the TL lighting stuff OR the PC ! I think the TL transformer are operating at too high frequencies for the sound to pick up, or it's very well shielded. Remember the original speakers were also in the same spot.

Only got a problem with the right channel, the sound level is way lower then the left. Maybe some wiring mistake or something, I'll check that out tomorrow.
The amp is still outside the cab, I hooked it up just for testing. I will make some pics tomorrow too...

[Level42]

1) The bass units in the bottom part of the cab (rear view). Don't look at the wire mess, that will be fixed nicely.
There will be a board replaced above the bass units that now carries the power supply, but will carry the Yamaha amp.

2) Outside, side panel. I will make the inside of the board black. The scratch on the cab was already there....

[Level42]

1) the marquee unit back in place.
2) the amp, still outside the cab....

[Level42]

Well I (almost) finalised the sound system two days ago. The problem with the right channel was a bad output on the Yamaha Amp. Something I hadn't expected so I did a lot of tracing for nothing :/

So I had to replace the amp (no time to fix it now). Still had my old JVC amp around, so this was going to take the role of the Yamaha.

Regretflly the amp was too deep to be placed horizontaly on the board above the bass units. So I had to tilt it. But I couldn't tilt it too much since then it would hit the board carrying my PC parts. I ended up using this terrific stuff which I will call "hole wire" for now (please advice for a better word ) This can be cut in any length, is very strong and still a bit flexible. Screwed it to my amp using the two screwd on the sides near the front and to the board. I put an old mousemat with double sided tape on the carying board so it won't be damaged and will take some vibrations when the cab is in transport.

Now I still have to make a volume control.... I think I will make a control in the audio line coming from the PC going to the Amp. The Amps' volume control is motorised and has too much wires to move it to the front of the cab. Also I'd like to leave the Amp untouched.
I could possibly also use the remote control, but I always like a direct knob to adjust volume... here's more pics...

O the portable CD player was there for testing only of course. The board carrying me PC stuff is shoved up a bit for the pics..normaly it is just above the amp. Luckely the board is tilted the other way as the Amp so there's plenty of room for the heat of the amp...

[Level42]

Ow.....did I say it sounds FAN-TAS-TIC Really worth all the work

[webgeek]

Ha ha! Glad to hear it's coming together. Nice work!

Mike

[Level42]

Thanks Mike shame you seem to only interested

[ras2a]

I seriously need to rejig my sound setup...tis pap compared to this.

[Level42]

Thanks for the compliment !

Well, I was lucky to have all this extra stuff like speakers and amps that I didn't use anymore, else I would have ended up with something a lot less fancy I guess

For completenes sake, I include a picture of my full cab (before the sound installation).

[Jess--]

Nice solution,
I cheated on mine,
got an old creative 2.1 speaker system (badged up as Cambridge soundworks digital) and mounted that up inside the cabinet 2 sats behind the marquee firing down towards the monitor (sound reflects off the glass sheet and sounds like its coming directly from the screen)

Sub is mounted in the base of the cab next to the coin box, with the tube from the sub extended to come out through the cabinet case. Sounds nice and has more than enough power to make everything shake in my kitchen.

should say that the main use of my cabinet is mame not jukebox, although I would happily use this speaker system for music in general (I use the an identical set on my computer which is my main sound system)

[_) (V) (-)]

Wow, cool sound system Level42!
It's good to see other players also appreciate the sights & SOUNDS of gaming.

Usually the audio goes underdeveloped.

I am wondering if you had any monitor shielding problems with them big magnets so close?


I too opted for the Cambridge 2.1 setup because of great sound in a small self contained package.
Great for games like Defender or Robotron, Yeah!

[Level42]

Thanks !!!

Yes, I think sound is just as essential as the visual aspects. I am also a hoby mucisian and I have a great home-theatre sound system (if I may say so myself ) (B&W 600 series), so yeah sound and music is very important to me.

The very thing I always remembered from the early cabs were the great bass sounds. Space Invaders (uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh (moving of the aliens), Asteroids (crash sound) Donkey Kong (music), Ms. Pac Man (GREAT bass line on the intermezzo's).....they all feature a very nice (bass) sound. And this set-up delivers that true feeling very well ! It's also nice as a jukebox of course !

I had no problems with the magnets of the speakers at all in relation to the CRT. However, I do see some color problems when I shift the board where I mounted my PC parts on. This is very close under the monitor, so that makes sense. I bet it's the Power Supply that is making the problem here. However, as long as I dont move the board, there's no problems at all.

Funny you mention Defender and Robotron. It was so weird, I was on holiday in the US (just returned last friday) and I visited Funspot, the best collecion of classics there. I had never even seen those (like many others) in it's original cabs. I was completely puzzled by the weird control set-up of Defender. Why on earth didn't they just use a 4-way joystick ? 2 way joystick (up and down) , thrust button, reverse button.....and the fire of course. I found it almost unplayable.

Robotron was a different story. I LOVED the controls on the original cab !!! Still a very hard game, but great. It's pretty easy to simultate that as long as you have (at least) a 2 player CP.

Well the CP is my next focus. Also my biggest challenge. I am not much of a woodworker (that's why I bought a ready cab). I need to make a bigger CP tp fit my trackball, spinner and more buttons in....wish me luck !

[theCoder]

This cleaned up nice.  Great job.  Does your son play much?  What front end did you go with?

[Level42]

Thanks theCoder ! He plays regularly but not too much. He also loves to play outside and with his toys. So far we've been lucky cause there's little need to steer him in that way. His favorites are Suzuka and Ms.Pac Man.

To stick to this threads subject: I will come up with my Volume Control solution in a while...will be nice IMHO.

[_) (V) (-)]

Don't forget the ominous rumbling of the cabnet during the donkey kong intro! 

Re Defender's controls, I really liked this game back in the day and am still not happy with the mame configuration for it. Currently I have the 'reverse' control mapped to the joystick <-> L/R and it's not too good.  It there a better option?