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Speaker problem
codefenix:
It's really a shame you decased the speakers. I mounted a pair of Cyber Acoustics speakers, unmodified, in my cabinet. The speakers came with a subwoofer which sits in the bottom corner of the cab. The speakers themselves are held in place by a set of crude brackets I fashioned from pieces of scrap metal. No vibration noise because I applied some foam tape between the brackets and the speakers. Finally, I mounted 2 4x6" car speaker grilles to cover them. End result sounds and looks great.
Xiaou2:
FYI: Real Arcade speakers have no backing-case. They are simple 10 to 15 watt speakers, and use the cabinet as the 'case'.
Unless you are looking for Audiophile quality sound, then its doubtful any you have anything to really worry about.
(and even then, most cheaper consumer level speakers are not Audiophile level quality anyways)
The greatest part about classic arcade games was the sound resonating the entire cabinet. Usually volume has to reach a certain level for you to get the resonance, but once you do, its a beautiful thing :)
boardjunkie:
Any (woofer) speaker will sound like crap without an enclosure. That is because you get phase cancellation from the lack of any sort of baffle. Sound waves from the rear of the speaker cone are opposite in phase from the ones from the front. So when you combine those waves in open air operation, they cancel out. An enclosure only allows the speaker to move air from the front of the cone for the most part, and the enclosure's internal air volume *should* be calculated to optimize low freq response according to the speaker's datasheet.
Since the speaker in an arcade cab operates free-air (the cab doesn't act as an enclosure, only a baffle), not every speaker will sound great this way. Depends on how much low end you want.
monkey puzzle:
Thanks for the advice guys. I'm fitting my speakers now (without box at first). I will keep you updated.
Xiaou2:
--- Quote ---That is because you get phase cancellation from the lack of any sort of baffle.
--- End quote ---
I wont claim to be a sonic expert, but thats seems like a weak argument IMO.
An electric guitar without any power, sounds pretty lame (quiet, undefined) compared to an Acoustic. The reason, it seems, is because the chamber of air+material type, causes an amplification effect.
Air is pushed and compressed, and vibrations are transmitted to the cabinet. The entire cabinet resonating, is greater than merely the strings resonating, for example.
The electric guitars strings will still resonate the surface of the guitar, but the volume is still very low, because the material isnt able to resonate very much compared to a full hollow thin body of moving air.
Too little air in an enclosure, and the volume and resonate effect is reduced. Too much air, and you will need more power to create the resonance. There can be echos, distortions, and transmission losses because the vibration forces cant reach all the sides of the box well and fast enough. Echos and slight distortions are common with arcade cabinets. Its more of a feature, and Id be willing to bet that a lot of the sounds created were actually tweaked and optimized for the cabinets resonance.
Phase isnt really much of an issue. Its very hard to nullify sound. Even if you wire two speakers out of phase, the nullification is very minimal. To make noise canceling stuff, requires very acute capture of the sounds based on sampling the sounds at a specific point in space and time. It creates a lot of pressure, and seems to only operate decently in enclosed situations... such as headphones. Its also very far from perfect.
I could be wrong on this, but thats how it appears to me, based on what seems logical..
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