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What % tint is best?

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Beretta:
the longer tinted piece on the bottom ain't bad. i still like clear best though.

spacegoogie:
The glass place by me calls the dark stuff "smoked glass" I have used it on a cocktail build and on my first MAME cabinet a few years back. It sure beats spry painting or other methods of making a bezel. I think it also gives the cabinet a really nice look when its off. Just crank up the brightness and contrast and your good to go. Since I got my KI2 cabinet I have not needed to use any kind of smoked glass, however a few days ago I had to pull out the 25" monitor and put in a 22" LCD so now the bezel  does not fit, and you can see behind it and you can see the LCD frame. So as soon as I get some extra cash I will be ordering my smoked glass. In the pics it looks like your lose allot of the brightness but you don't because the brightness and contrast is just turned up so high if not all the way.  :cheers:

sman26:
In agreement that the greylite #14 is a bit too dark.  Used this on my first cabinet from reading what others said back in 2006 but on my CRT with brigthness/contrast cranked it just always seemed too much.  Some day I will drop the $45 and get the next grade lighter #31 I believe. 

releasedtruth:
I went with 14 several years ago and on my CRT it really was a good fit. The screen is relatively close to your eyes so it relieved strain for long play and pops colors on a bright CRT. I'd consider trying 31 on my next cab

RandyT:
Dark acrylic (or glass), is used for three purposes.  The first is contrast enhancement.  CRT's make pretty good blacks, but still not perfect.  But by the time you cut down the amount of light being produced at black levels by 85%, it's virtually a dead black, which is very nice.  While the rest of the colors aren't as blinding as they would be otherwise, the increase in contrast makes them "pop" more without looking overdriven.  It's also more comfortable to look at, especially in subdued lighting environments.

The second is the lack of a need for CRT shrouding of any sort.  For example, I have a 27" RGB monitor wedged into a cabinet that was originally designed for a 19" monitor.  Very little room for a shroud, and it would probably look silly if I cut one into the narrow strips that might have a chance of fitting in there.  With the dark acrylic, there is no indicator of a monitor edge at all.....which brings me to...

The third reason is that on a 27" horizontally mounted monitor, a 19" vertical game (there were lots of them) appears at almost actual size.  But the thing that always spoiled the look of those games was the fact that they looked "pasted" into the center of a monitor that was turned the wrong way.  With the dark acrylic, there is no indication of monitor orientation.  19" vertical games just appear in the center of the view window of the cab, at pretty much actual size.

Going with lighter material will give you benefit number one, albeit to a far lesser extent, but does nothing for reasons two or three.  So the choice becomes quite simple, when you understand why those who go dark decided to do so.

RandyT (a former optician who pioneered the use of dark view window material in arcade cabinets many years ago....)

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