Arcade speakers

[gaffner]

About 2 years ago, I purchased an arcade machine from a local arcade shop.  Converting it to a MAME machine was a snap; I used Ultimarc's J-PAC and ArcadeVGA, and it was up and running!

The only issue I have is with the arcade speakers.  When I plugged the cord connected to the speakers into my PC, it surprisingly worked; however, even when I crank up the sound on my computer to the highest levels, it isn't very loud at all.

I remember having a similar issue about 15 years ago with external speakers connected to a computer, but I never did resolve it.  Does anyone have any ideas as to how to fix this issue (or even what is causing the issue)?

[bkenobi]

Amplifier?

[shatteredzman]

You need an amp.

[garnerb350]

Amp, or replace with PC speakers

[gaffner]

Thanks for the responses; I didn't know they made computer amplifiers... (not much of a sound guy myself)

Actually, I like the idea of just going with PC speakers; they are cheaper and would produce the same noises...

[garnerb350]

Does the orginal cab have speakers grills, or can you see the speaker?

[bkenobi]

The easiest thing to do is just gut a pair of PC speakers so you can connect the arcade speakers up to that amp.  Technically this is a bad choice since the impedance won't likely match (PC speakers are mostly 4 ohm and arcade speakers are 6 or 8 ohm).  However, in practice you will probably be fine.  The worst that will likely happen is that the amp/speakers won't last as long as it would have with correctly matched impedance.  I did this with my Atari cab and it's still running fine.  Sounds good too!

[garnerb350]

When I constructed mine, I gutted the pc speakers and hooked the amp up to two 5.25 car speakers...They came with speaker grills and the color of the speakers were different than the color scheme i desired...so i went to wall-mart and went to the craft section and bought some black felt to hide the ugly speakers......( placed felt between the speaker grill and the speaker)...


If I could have done it all over then...I probley would have used the grills with the felt and just mounted my pc speakers behind it...

[gaffner]

The easiest thing to do is just gut a pair of PC speakers so you can connect the arcade speakers up to that amp.  Technically this is a bad choice since the impedance won't likely match (PC speakers are mostly 4 ohm and arcade speakers are 6 or 8 ohm).  However, in practice you will probably be fine.  The worst that will likely happen is that the amp/speakers won't last as long as it would have with correctly matched impedance.  I did this with my Atari cab and it's still running fine.  Sounds good too!

I'll have to look at my arcade machine tonight, but this seems like a cheap, easy way to go.  I don't typically play games really loud, so I don't need anything big to make this work.

Thanks!

[bkenobi]

My speakers are ~4-5" arcade grade speakers (meaning they are cheap IMO).  Anyway, the amp in the 2.1 mid quality PC speakers I have push plenty of volume out of these speakers.  Add the fact that they are mounted in a small enclosure (behind the marquee) and pointed straight at your head, they sound just fine!  I suppose if you use super cheapo speakers, your results might vary...dunno.

[CheffoJeffo]

Which brings us to what I consider the only weakness to the JPac -- audio. JAMMA standard is amplified mono. Your PC (typically) puts out unamplified stereo. Andy's advice has been to use amplified speakers instead of the speaker installed in the cab. It's a reasonable thing to do, especially if you want to use the cab as a jukebox. What I do is run the sound card output to an amplifier circuit (something like these), which I power from the +12V from the power supply and then into the speaker inputs on the JPac.

Not rocket science and there are plenty of nice 4" speakers out there.