CPS2 question

[stratjakt]

Ok, so my wife (!) bought a new X-men vs Street Fighter, and the plan is to have it ship-shape by Christmas.  It's in a converted Sega 25" cab with a 3-slot coin door The System-16 filterboard and cage are still in there.   I can only think Golden Axe?  Anyhow, that's the backstory.

Aesthetically the conversion was a good one.  The CP looks great, marquee was tastefully cut to fit, and so on. 

Insides, the AC wiring hackjob has "wrongful death lawsuit" written all over it.  No filter (not a big deal), no power switch (?) no fuse (a small deal), and what looks like 24AWG or thinner wires running AC power to the monitor and PSU (!).  At least he doubled up on the wire.  That's not my question.

My question is about CPS2's Q-sound.  I can't seem to find a manual anywhere, but I was under the impression that CPS2 either outputted mono audio on the jamma harness, or Q-Sound via the Left/Right RCA jacks on board, and you selected one or the other.

The RCA jacks in this system are not being used, yet in the setup menu, it's set for "Q-Sound, Stereo".  The cabinet has two speakers, and there appears to be two seperate sets of wires coming down, although I haven't crawled deep enough inside to see if they're spliced together anywhere. 

My question really, is can you get amplified Q-Sound stereo out of the board?  Maybe on the auxilliary connector?  There are 8 wires hooked up to it, I was thinking 6 buttons + 2 grounds, since the dude who wired this wasn't a fan of using sanely color coded wires.  White/Purple is 12V.  Blue is ground.  Etc.  I find it doubtful that the trained chimp that converted the cab actually would take the time to wire it up properly.  Is there a left/right sound test in the menu that I can't find?

I think I'm just going to go ahead and rewire the entire cab, JAMMA harness and all - as it is, the Jamma "harness" is just a cardedge hackjobbed onto the Sys16 filter board.

I want to know if I can plan on wiring stereo audio directly from the board, or if I should use an external amp.  And, is the amp itself just your run of the mill amplifier?  I have a good 2.1 comp speaker setup I was thinking of hacking up and using.

Also, anyone who can point me to a manual/install or conversion guide, any CPS2 literature (other than CPS2shock - I know about the battery), then bonus points for you.

[Dave_K.]

Its non-amplified out on the L/R stereo outputs, so you'll need an external amp and all will be good.

[MaximRecoil]

RCA outputs nearly always indicate a line level unamplified signal. Any two channel stereo amplifier will do the trick, just make sure you match the impedance of the speakers to the amplifier. For example, a typical car audio amp and speakers are 4 ohms, though the amps are usually 2 ohm stable in stereo (4 ohm stable when bridged mono). Home audio amplifiers are usually 8 ohm stable and the speakers are generally 8 ohms as well. I don't know what arcade cabinet speakers usually have for an impedance, but probably 8 ohms?

You can go higher with the speaker impedance safely (like 8 ohm speakers on a 4 ohm car amp) but you will overwork the amp if you go lower (like 4 ohm speakers on an 8 ohm amp) and depending on the amp's hardiness and/or protection circuitry and/or the type of audio signals you are feeding it (audio is dynamic; the impedance will jump all across the board but the amp should see a rough average impedance of 4 ohms if hooked to a 4 ohm speaker for example); you could fry the amp.

Keep in mind that if you use a higher impedance speaker than what the amp is rated for, you will get less power from your amp, though it is perfectly safe; "easier" on the amp even. For example, a 2 channel car stereo amp rated at 25W x 2 @ 4 ohms will only give you 12.5W x 2 @ 8 ohms. On the other hand, if you use 2 ohm speakers you will get 50W x 2 assuming no current limiting protection circuitry to prevent it.

A cheap 25W x 2 @ 4 ohm car audio amp would be great for an application such as this. No hacking of PC speakers required and car audio amps are designed as modular devices in the first place, with input screw terminals for all connections that accept bare wire or crimp/solder terminals as well as being self-contained with an integral heat-sink and mounting feet. They are built tough for a car environment and being 2 ohm stereo stable for even cheap ones, you're likely to never kill it.

[stratjakt]

My wife won't tolerate too much noise from the arcade anyhow.  2x25 is probably overkill.

I actually have a set of good boston acoustics PC speakers I scooped from work that I was going to hack for the task (gateway used to ship them with all the new PCs so we have about a gamillion sets).  They're plenty loud, and I plan on using a hole-saw on the bottom of the cab and mounting the sub in there.  I'll bolt it down nice and tight and the whole cab should boom.  The auto-muting headphone input will certainly come in handy.

I just didn't know if the "capcom" amp had any part of the q-sound circuitry within it, like how stereo speaker sets have the "surround" delay circuit within.

http://cgi.ebay.com/CAPCOM-AUDIO-AMP-TESTED-F-52_W0QQitemZ6222113579QQcategoryZ13718QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem Here's the original amp capcom used, at least I think so?  Too bad this guy's such a wang-hole about shipping.  24 bucks to ship something which probably wieghts a quarter pound, tops?  At least it's a good photo of the thing, looks like a regular old amp to me. 

This guy's actually screwed himself out of a lot of my business by his moronic shipping policies, I'd have been interested in a lot of his auctions.  He's listing the speakers to match this amp too, oh well, such is ebay.