Quality Arcade Audio Amplifier?

Christoph1

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I just installed some really nice full range drivers (new speakers) in my cabinet and they still sound equally as shitty as the old stock ones. These are literally the nicest full ranger drivers in this size range on the market, so its not the speakers - it has to be lack of a quality amp.

Is there any hifi or high quality amp for arcade cabs? Has anyone messed around with this kind of thing before?
 
its not the speakers - it has to be lack of a quality amp.

Not necessarily. A lot of old arcade hardware lacks high quality sound generation. So even if you amplify it perfectly, it still may not sound too good.

What game(s) are you trying to amplify? In many cases, if it has an off-board amplifier, you could just feed the low-level signal to any external amplifier, including a conventional stereo hi-fi. A pre-amp (i.e. for a photograph input) may be needed, depending on the level of the signal.
 
Understandable.

Most of the games I am playing were made in the years 2000 and up, definitely nothing older than the 90s.

They are either cartridge based systems (Neo Geo, CPS2, Atomiswave) or CAVE games.


My goal was to replace the old shitty drivers with new nice ones in the same speaker enclosures. I accomplished this. They all fit nicely. There is a good amount of room in there too. I wonder if there is an amp out there that I could install inside the enclosures themselves? I'm trying to do it as clean as possible without hacking wires etc.

If we were to conclude that it isn't the game itself that is producing shitty sound, what would be the best way to solve the issue?


I was looking at something like this and this but I'm sure there is one out there that would fit what I'm trying to do the best, don't know if its this one. Any ideas?

The second amp I linked to is 25W per channel which is the Nomanial power handling spec on the drivers I am using:

FR89EX-4-specs.png
 
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Arcade machines never had great audio, even the later ones, better audio just consumed more ROM space, and that was not cheap. Their natural habitat was usually a cacophany of other machines. There was no incentive to make them hifi quality as all that would cost money and would add nothing to the games earning potential! Better quality sound would probably be lost in the noise far more than raspy low bit rate audio.

Putting in high quality amps and speakers is really just putting lipstick on a pig.
 
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Yeah I was afraid that could be the reality of it, but I still think that its possible to make it sound significantly better than it does. Its also not very expensive to do it this way so not much to lose.
 
Well you might get a better reproduction of the poor quality audio but that may just let you more accuratly hear how bad it is, it may not sound actually better.
 
If the speaker enclosures are too small your not going to get much low end out of them unless you really overpower the drivers. That said if the audio information is missing to begin with (hence poor audio GENERATION) then your never going to get good sound from them.

Take a pic of one of the enclosures and post it.

FWIW there were some good sounding games from the 90's and they did it well with on board amplifiers. KI1 and KI2 come to mind. When those games were turned up loud you could feel the impacts.

I recall some CPS2 games that sounded pretty good. But, the Atomiswave games have always sounded thin to me. You might also want to make sure that the polarity is correct on both speakers. Some cabinet manufactures wired one of the speakers in reverse polarity which nullified almost all bass but put a surround sound effect on what was left. In the sweet spot it sounded like the audio was coming from all directions. Coot effect but the lack of low end irritated me.
 
Outside of picking up a nice CPS2 audio amp or a Naomi audio amp you should look at some simple Velleman kits that run off of 12v.

Also, you'll get crappy sounds if you have poor quality caps on the +12v line in the switcher as the noise from there will make it to the speakers.

Have you recapped your Neo Geo board? They are notorious for audio issues due to bad caps.
 
Outside of picking up a nice CPS2 audio amp or a Naomi audio amp you should look at some simple Velleman kits that run off of 12v.

I picked up a velleman kit to use between the sound card and the cabinet speakers in a Mame machine. After I got it, I figured out it was a mono amp....
 
Another thing you have to watch out for is that the output power on a video game amplifier is pretty low - a watt or two maybe. If you're trying to feed it into power hungry speakers, it's just going to clip and sound awful when you turn it up loud enough to hear. Also, be sure the new speakers aren't too low an impedance for the board. It's hard to find proper 8 ohm speakers these days, most of the bare drivers you find now are intended for cars, and are 4 ohm. If you tried to wire two in parallel, it's going to put a real strain on the amplifier on the board.

Some video games had fantastic sound - Space Invaders is one that comes to mind. That one had good bass.

But some of the later games just plain sounded crummy. The digitized voice on the fighting games always sounded terrible. Definitely check the caps on the Neo Geo board, I've seen failures there too - common problem.

Also, sometimes new speakers just sound bad. I tried to replace the speakers in my car once - and bought some supposedly good aftermarket replacements. They sounded tinny and raspy - worse than the old stock speakers with completely missing foam surrounds. I returned them and got my money back, and the foamless speakers are still in the car... I should probably work on that one of these days...

-Ian
 
DIMENSIONS:

DRIVER SPECS:
PASSIVE
4 OHM
10W NOM
25W MAX

DRIVER DIMENSIONS:
3" HEIGHT
3" WIDTH
2" DEPTH

SPEAKER BOX DIMENSIONS:
5.25" HEIGHT
3.75" DEPTH
3.75" WIDTH

PORT DIMENSIONS:
INTERNAL PORT DIAMETER 22.5 MM (.880 inches)
EXTERNAL PORT DIAMETER 25.9 MM (1.018 inches)
PORT LENGTH 54.5 MM (2.150 inches)

NEW DRIVERS/SPEAKERS I HAVE INSTALLED

Fountek FR89EX 3" Full Range - 4 ohm

FR89EX-4-specs.png


STOCK SPEAKER AND DRIVER PICTURES:


234201d1312683044-installing-right-quality-speakers-arcade-cabinet-replacement-driver-help-img_0478.jpg


234202d1312683044-installing-right-quality-speakers-arcade-cabinet-replacement-driver-help-img_0485.jpg


234203d1312683044-installing-right-quality-speakers-arcade-cabinet-replacement-driver-help-img_0486.jpg


234204d1312683058-installing-right-quality-speakers-arcade-cabinet-replacement-driver-help-img_0487.jpg
 
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I picked up a velleman kit to use between the sound card and the cabinet speakers in a Mame machine. After I got it, I figured out it was a mono amp....

Did it sound good?

Outside of picking up a nice CPS2 audio amp or a Naomi audio amp you should look at some simple Velleman kits that run off of 12v.

Also, you'll get crappy sounds if you have poor quality caps on the +12v line in the switcher as the noise from there will make it to the speakers.

Have you recapped your Neo Geo board? They are notorious for audio issues due to bad caps.

Can you recommend one? I wasn't even using a Neo Geo board, I was using a CAVE pcb (EspGaluda).

I've had my eyes on this amp: Sure 2x25W @ 4 Ohm TPA3123 Class-D Audio Amplifier Board

I am thinking the problem is that the new drivers I have, their specs show NOM WATTs @ 25W. The stock drivers are 10W. That would mean I need an amp to make up that difference to fully power them. Either that or try to find nice drivers that only need 10W. Which I wasn't able to do.
 
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