Donkey Kong on MAME - sound quality not accurate

apocalypto

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Hi guys, I wanted to get some opinions on MAME and Donkey Kong.

In current versions of MAME the sounds are distinctly muffled. It does not sound like an authentic DK arcade machine. The older versions of MAME that used the add-on wav file samples did sound more authentic, but that's very old MAME technology and not a good solution to downgrade to those.

MAME devs swear it is accurate audio emulation to the arcade machine. I find this hard to believe. Every recording I have heard of a real cabinet has had a loud, crisp sound, not muffled at all.

Please listen to these 2 recordings for an example:

This is a recording of DK Arcade Game:
http://www.mikesarcade.com/store/prod/ddk/sounds/dkwalkjump.wav

This is a recording of DK on MAME .141 I just captured direct from my pc.
http://fuelhousedemo.com/dkong-wav

Are any of you running MAME (without samples) and it is sounding like the original arcade game? Or is yours muffled also? What version of MAME are you running?

Thanks!
 
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You're right. DK on my MAMEUI 0.141 install sounds exactly like yours. The audio is technically correct but it still sounds like ass, like my speakers are being held underwater. I'd rather use samples than have badly emulated audio.

I use Wolfmame 0.106 because that is what Twin Galaxies settled on several years ago for MAME submissions to their scoreboard. That version works pretty well with most golden era titles, which is what I care about the most, so I don't use newer MAME versions for anything other than testing and research.
 
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I have a 4 year old version of MAME on my cabinet that sounded good. I recently installed the most recent MAME on it and noticed right away the muffled sound as well. It bummed me out but with absolutely no more space in my basement for games, it's the only way i can play DK. I hope in the future they fix it to sound better.
 
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