Speakers

[Elfo]

Ok, I know there are several of you out there that have nifty sound setups for your cabinets, and I'm hoping to glean a bit of information from you

The intention is to hook up 6x9's underneath the marquee, just so you have an idea of where I'm coming from. Now, as I understand it, car speakers are unpowered, yet, standard soundcards do not have an onboard amplifier. For those of you who don't have sh- crappy computer speakers hooked up, how do you power them?

Do you purchase a seperate amplifier and wire from there? or have you found soundcards with onboard amplifiers? I've been told they're out there, I just haven't been able to find them on Google as of yet.

Also, what about monitor distortion? I wish Wells-Gardner would make their LCD monitors (or any damn manufacturer) larger than 19" in a 4x3 configuration, it'd really be nice to just get past the whole electron gun issues.

The two methods I've heard of are Bucking magnets, and shielding tape. Seeing as these simply redirect the magnetic field, how do they affect the sound quality? Has anyone noticed distortion in the sound produced? With sizable speakers, do you notice distortion at close range even with Bucking magnets?

Or, is there another option (or three) that I'm unaware of?

[Adultery]

I personally use 8 ohm speakers in my marquee. They're just like car speakers but use 8 ohms instead of 4. I have the sound card hooked up to an external amplifier, and I can control the volume from the receiver/amplifier with a remote. It sounds great, especially with the subwoofer I put behind the cabinet. I also rigged up a panel so I can hook up my PA speakers to it if I wanna blow some walls down.

All this was done with cheap parts at your local Radio Shack for under $25 in cables and wire. How much you spend on the reciever is up to you.

[shaunopp]

You may want to check out my post here about my cabs audio controll unit.

I run from the sound card into the controller and then back to the subwoofer and 5.25" speakers. The nice thing is for $10 I got a nice audio control on the cp box front with illumination, audio power, volume and a headphone jack. All together the components were under $100. Not the 'cadillac' if you will but a very nice 'all in one' sound control panel with very good sound. Of course this may be the 'cadillac' model to some, but if you're an audiofile the speakers are just ok. Using a computer speaker for the audio control panel is the way to go though whether you run into an amp with better speakers or no.

[katuuuz]

you can also go the easiest/ghettoist route like i did. i just took your everyday aiwa stereo unscrewed the speaker boxes and removed the actual speakers and drilled them into place. i stuck the stereo underneath the cabinet.

[iano]

I wouldn't bother with magnetically unshielded speakers (which all car speakers are) if you plan on using a CRT monitor. Someone here (HK) has tried the bucking magnet solution with little success and in the end had to buy an LCD monitor because screen discoloration was still present on his crt monitor.

[Elfo]

Thanks for the input. I was trying to avoid buying yet another component (amplifier), but it looks like that's what I'm going to have to do. Or, I could just give up on playing music through the cabinet and settle for computer speakers; seeing as games generally have pretty poor sound quality anyways. The issue there is that computer speakers also come in varying shapes and sizes, and I'd like to keep everything standardized, so that future upgrading/fixing doesn't entail any body work.

Just in case anyone was wondering, you can get shielded speakers in the standard car sizes, they're just called marine speakers. They're also sealed againt saltwater and stuff, but I don't think that matters for an arcade machine

[bkenobi]

There are a number of people who have gone the cheap route that doesn't require an automotive/home amplifier. I don't have the thread available, but I found a guide at BYOAC that was pretty good. Anyway, what I did was use some original shielded Atari 4.5" (maybe 5") speakers that were installed in a SF Rush machine and replaced the same size but unshielded speakers in my Championship Sprint cab. I took a 2.1 PC speaker setup and gutted the two satellites for their connections and the amplifier board. The speakers are the wrong impedance, so this could cause long term damage to my Atari speakers and/or my amplifier, BUT, at the price (free for both) I figured I'd give it a try.

The results are really pleasing. The subwoofer is decent and the speakers provide a pleasing sound. I wouldn't spend a bunch of money on this setup, but if you have stuff lying around, this is a nice way to go.

[The G-Man]

I installed a pair of alpine 5.25" car speakers and a 41hz Amp6-Basic amp (www.41hz.com). The amp6-Basic is awesome, but you have to be willing to solder it together. It was easy to build even though it was only the second thing I've ever soldered (1st was my keyboard encoder)! This amp has plenty of power, sounds amazing and 41Hz has a great forum too

The only issue is that it doesn't have volume nob by default. It's easy to add one or you could just use the volume control in windows like I do.

[Inigo Montoya]

I installed the cheapest car 6x9's I could find. Lightning audio or something. I then took an old set of 2.1 PC speakers with a powered subwoofer and snipped off the wires of the crappy speakers and wired them up to my new speakers. Sounds great. Very loud. The PC speakers I used have a wired remote for volume and bass, very handy. I did check the impedance of the original speakers before I hooked them up, they were the same as my new speakers.

I did have a problem with monitor discoloration and tried bucking magnets. They worked pretty well. There was still a little bit of discoloration in one corner of the monitor. I found a piece of fairly robust sheet metal that was leftover when I gutted my cabinet and just sat it on top of the monitor. That piece of steel shielded it enough for the discoloration to go away.

[bkenobi]

You might want to go back and find some shielded 6x9's. It may cost a bit more now, but in the long run, it could save you the cost of a new monitor AND new speakers...