Headphone jacks, vol/mute buttons

[edub]

Hello all,

I am in the process of building my first arcade cab and had a few questions about volume control, mute and headphone jacks. Let me know what I'm missing. Thanks.

First, I am planning to use small bookshelf speakers and a subwoofer amp'd by a receiver. Decent sound, but not over the top. The input will come from a laptop running Mame via 1/8" stereo to RCA (hooked into the headphone jack of the laptop). Other threads on this forum recommended attaching the audio from the PC to the TUNER, AUX or TAPE input due to the low amplification from a laptop sound card. Good idea. Here are my questions:

1. What is the best way to control volume? I have heard of cabvol and I also downloaded the volume tray plugin where you can assign hotkeys to vol-up and vol-down. If I map these to a button for vol-up and vol-down, easy enough. I can also do the same for mute - hotkey and a button. The downside is this adds 3 buttons to the panel or under the panel or somewhere. I don't intend to wire in a pot because I'll be controlling the PC's volume vs. having a 2.1 PC speaker system to hack into. Another person uses a 1-3 audio switch. 1 is to his receiver, 2 is to his headphones and 3 goes nowhere (mute). However, this switch needs to be exposed to quickly mute the sound or quickly plug in headphones - and, it doesn't solve the vol up/down. Any suggestions or can you point me to some?

2. When I plug in the headphones, I'd like the external volume (to the speakers) to automatically mute and go directly to the headphones. With PC speakers, this is quasi or actually built in. If you expose that plug to an external part of the cab, that works great. However, I'm using a receiver driving speakers/subwoofer. The receiver does have a headphone jack (larger size - 1/4", but there are adapters). I have not tested this yet...but if the headphone jack on the receiver senses something plugged into it, it could mute the output to the speakers. However, if I want to hook an adapter from 1/4" male to 1/8" female (which is exposed on the underside of my CP), wouldn't just having something plugged into it mute the sound? Has anyone used a receiver/amp with a headphone jack and set it up this way with success? I'm sure this problem has been solved many times before - I'm just looking for help or someone to point me to the answer.

3. Do most people use buttons to control vol up-down-mute or is it "in the eye of the cab-maker"? I'd like to do this in a slick way - I'm just too new to think of those slick solutions. I know others on this forum have used combo keys (hold down player1 and use the joystick for vol-up/down/mute - essentially using controls already on the control panel vs. dedicated buttons). This is a possibility but wondered if there were other ideas as well.

Thanks for any responses in advance. I have yet to order my controls - just trying to iron out these details so I'm solid on the solutions before making it all happen.

Cheers,
edub

[edub]

After looking more on this forum, maybe using a set of PC speakers is the easier route. However, I prefer the sound of a real amp with real speakers and a real subwoofer. And I'm sure there are others out there that have solved this problem using this setup.

Thanks,
edub

[Space Fractal]

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Audio/Audio-Mixers-Synthesizers/VolumeTray.shtml can been a idea and use a compo keys, so you can use a shift on your control panel. Its wa ssomething like that I did for the volume.

[mountain]

I use a Powermate for my volume control. Super simple and easy to use. As for the muting for the headphones, I recommend this part from FrontX. I include it in some of my Jukebox kits. It is a very easy solution.

[MB]

Mountain,
Can the headphone socket on that Frontex part mentioned be easily installed in a panel?
For example 12mm MDF. I guess I could also try a metal plate if that is easier since the
headphone jack on my cabinet will be out of view.

[mountain]

Mountain,
Can the headphone socket on that Frontex part mentioned be easily installed in a panel?
For example 12mm MDF. I guess I could also try a metal plate if that is easier since the
headphone jack on my cabinet will be out of view.

Sorry MB, totally missed this somehow. The HP jack will only mount in a thinner panel like 1 - 1.5mm. On trick is to flush mount a metal plate in the front of your panel and pocket out the back side to make room for the jack. Here is an example of what I did on my 1st MAME cabinet.

[MB]

No problem!
I forgot about my question too and happened to stumble upon it today!
The metal plate seems like a really good solution and I if I go with the frontX part I
will definitely try it out.
Thanks!