Smaller 60-in-1 board: how distorted is the sound?

Ace9921

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I'm new to this forum and am just getting into collecting various arcade boards(I will build a cocktail cabinet once I get a board), and I figured I'd start with something simple and go for a 60-in-1 board because I can easily use a PC power supply to power the board and hook up a VGA monitor without the hassle of finding/building and using a 15KHz RGB to VGA converter(I've got a brand new ViewSonic 17" CRT monitor just begging to be used somewhere) on top of being readily available(there's an arcade shop in my area selling various arcade parts, cabinets and boards). Now, I've been doing a lot of research on this board and have noticed just how nasty some games can sound on this board and have discovered several sound inaccuracies(some slight flaws in Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man, Galaxian is missing the shot sound and the sound pitch is considerably lower, 1942's "music" has the square waves dragging on for a little too long) and a graphical error in Arkanoid(no shadows on the Vaus and ball). I've also found several different board revisions of the 60-in-1 and today, I've come across the new reduced-size revision. My question is: has the heavily distorted sound of older 60-in-1 boards been fixed? Would it be worth it to go for the newer board or would I be fine with the older board as well?

The games I'm most interested in are 1942, 1943, 1943 Kai, Time Pilot, Gyruss(distortion seems to vary from board to board from what I've seen, and can sometimes be tolerable or ear-shattering) and Arkanoid. If it's at all possible, provide an audio recording taken from the 3.5mm audio plug.

Just in case your wondering, I'm gonna go for a 2-player setup with 3 buttons per player(I'll be purchasing some arcade boards which require 3 buttons later on) and a trackball for games with trackball support on the 60-in-1.
 
Sounds seem to be exactly the same as the original larger board. Gyruss is just as distorted as normal...
 
That's lame... very lame. People have complained numerous times about how the sound gets distorted on the 60-in-1 board, and yet, the manufacturer doesn't have the decency to fix the problem no matter how many times people complain.

This is the complete opposite of what I see Famiclone(NES clone) manufacturers do: when people complain about their product long enough, they'll secretly release an updated version and stop production of the inferior older model.

Well, I can live with some distorted sound so long as the distortion doesn't completely kill the sound. I don't like sound inaccuracies and especially not distorted sound, but if it still sounds good to my ears even though it's wrong, I won't mind. Then I'll purchase the original board of whatever games have heavily screwed up sound. I just want to start with the 60-in-1 board because it's readily available, it's less of a pain to set up and most of the arcade boards I'm looking for are very hard to find or not available in North America.

On that note, how's the sound in 1943 Kai on the 60-in-1? Since that game is a Japanese exclusive, finding the original board will be pretty damn difficult.
 
That's lame... very lame. People have complained numerous times about how the sound gets distorted on the 60-in-1 board, and yet, the manufacturer doesn't have the decency to fix the problem no matter how many times people complain.

That's because, despite the bad sound (and I agree - it's lousy on those games), they've sold tons of them. If I were them, I wouldn't fix it, either.
 
Chinese companies being cheap bastards as usual(pardon my language, but that's what I think). Shows they don't give a damn about quality.

It's time some American manufacturer steps up and makes something similar to the 60-in-1, and this time with LICENSED games. Hell, if I had the know-how and resources to make my own multi-game board, I'd do it. But, you might be a seeing a little too many side-scrolling and overhead Shoot-em-Ups if I were to decide on my own what games to put on the board(Raiden, Gradius, R-Type, Thunder Force AC, etc.). Which is why I'd ask around forums for which games people like best and mix what I like with what others like.

Even with this 60-in-1, I'd disable many games that I just don't give a damn about(Pengo, Bomb Jack, QIX(I DESPISE this game), Mr. Do's Castle, just to name a few). Most of the time, though, I'd just use a single game at a time, and with Free Play mode disabled. I'll have my cabinet set to 1 coin 2 credits with a quarter sitting on the cabinet to insert into the coin box(and I'll leave the coin box unlocked to go and pick up the quarter). That's how I'll set the coin settings for all games with 2-player gameplay, otherwise, it'll just be 1 coin 1 credit. It just doesn't feel right to leave a cabinet on Free Play for me.

And a slightly off-topic question: which version of Gradius is on the 19-in-1 board? The Bubble System/GX400 version or the Nintendo VS. System version? If the Bubble System/GX400 version is on the board and is reproduced more accurately than in MAME(Gradius is a mess in MAME sound-wise, but the rest is fine), I'd pick up the board in a flash. If it's the Nintendo VS. System version, I'll pass and just purchase the Gradius daughterboard for the VS. System to use on my NES turned VS. System board(you can convert an NES into a VS. System board since the hardware is fairly similar).
 
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Chinese companies being cheap bastards as usual(pardon my language, but that's what I think). Shows they don't give a damn about quality.

If their consumers really cared, they wouldn't buy the boards. *shrug*
 
You're surprised the "pirates" aren't more concerned about customer satisfaction?
 
I think I've been around Famiclones a little too much, and those have been legal since 2005 when the patents for the NES' hardware expired.

But this 60-in-1 board is a different story. Modessitt, Pookdolie, you do make good points. Pirates just want to get things out the door as fast as possible and as cheaply as possible, and they can do that because people buy their stuff.

I tried to get the volume of the games around the same as the 60-in-1 in MAME v0.36(people swear the 60-in-1 is using an old version of MAME), and it seems some games, to my ears, at least, don't sound too terrible when their sound is distorted. It might be different on the 60-in-1, but I don't think what I'm hearing right now is that bad.
 
The sounds will never be "right" on these multi-boards.....it would be too difficult, and costly. A lot of these games are using discrete audio circuits.....or custon audio chips in the audio circuits. You're not going to reproduce these sounds exactly......without the discrete circuits/customs. Hell, look at legally produced stuff. Anyone here think Galaga sounds "right" on the Namco combo machines? The explosion sound isn't even close.

Edward
 
The sounds will never be "right" on these multi-boards.....it would be too difficult, and costly. A lot of these games are using discrete audio circuits.....or custon audio chips in the audio circuits. You're not going to reproduce these sounds exactly......without the discrete circuits/customs. Hell, look at legally produced stuff. Anyone here think Galaga sounds "right" on the Namco combo machines? The explosion sound isn't even close.

Yeah, some of the Pac-Man and Ms Pac-Man sounds on the Reunion PCB's are off too. As far as the 60-in-1's go, I think the worst ones are Gyruss, Phoenix and Millipede. Most of the others aren't too bad, but those 3 are horrible. Gyruss is full of static and cuts in and out, and Phoenix and Millipede so far off, they're awful.
 
Why not just use a PC and MAME if you're going to use a PC monitor anyway?
With the flexibility of using whatever ROMs you want and the better emulation in the newer versions of MAME (xxx-in-1's run an ancient version), MAME on a PC is superior in every way.
 
Why not just use a PC and MAME if you're going to use a PC monitor anyway?
With the flexibility of using whatever ROMs you want and the better emulation in the newer versions of MAME (xxx-in-1's run an ancient version), MAME on a PC is superior in every way.

I second this opinion. Plus you can go way beyond 60 games.
 
I will only use 1 computer in my cabinet, and this one will run Zero Wing because older versions of MAME(v0.36, for instance) will play FM Synthesis on games with the YM3812 or YMF262 on any sound cards equipped with YM3812s or YMF262s or equivalent clones. Instead of using the emulated YM3812 or YMF262, the real chip on the sound card(or a clone if you're dumb enough to use a sound card with a cloned YMF262) produces the FM Synthesis.

Not to mention most of the games I'd like the purchase the original board have VERY inaccurate sound in MAME. In fact, I had to stop downloading the official releases of MAME because they were not fixing any of the problems(and I reported them to MAME Testers), download the source code, modify it, and compile a custom version of MAME for myself. There are some games for which I can tolerate accuracy issues, but some others(the Gradius games, in particular) MUST be 100% identical to the original hardware, no exception. And some games will never be identical to the original hardware unless the emulation of a specific sound chip is completely redone(VLM5030 in particular - this sound chip produces speech in Salamander and Life Force, and in MAME, due to its poor emulation of the VLM5030, the speech is way wrong).

And I'm also using a VGA monitor because that's all I have at hand and I don't want to use an arcade monitor. I'll just get an RGB to VGA upscaler when I get an original board.

By the way, where's the cheapest place to get a 60-in-1 board, preferably the smaller ones? I went to the arcade shop in my area and there's no way in hell I'm buying a 60-in-1 board there. They're asking for $300CAD per board! That's insane!
 
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