So I know a lot of us here chase after the perfect RGB/video solutions, but it seems like audio quality rarely gets brought up. As I've got my video setup mostly how it needs to be, I started dabbling in audio more by getting my first dedicated receiver and speakers (upgraded from a $100 sound bar) and doing digital audio mods to some of my consoles. I'm assuming if someone is just using built in TV speakers that they probably aren't really noticing audio issues unless it's particularly bad. When I was using a sound bar I could hear some buzzing, but it generally wasn't prominent enough for me to think much about it.
After I got a receiver and real speakers, it makes the audio buzzing more noticeable and the intensity varies between consoles. On some of them is pretty annoying on silent/quieter scenes. Now I'm pretty inexperienced in the audio realm, but I know analog audio is never going to be perfect. However, I also don't know what the 'normal' level of audio buzz in an analog signal is suppose to be. The louder the volume is, the louder the buzz. I also have no idea if older analog-centric receivers have filters that help mitigate this and my modern receiver doesn't, or what.
Also, I wonder if on some consoles it's just "as good as it gets" if the console hardware designers never designed the things with the intent of being ran on much more than TV speakers. A lot of them will do the thing where the buzzing is louder on brighter screens and you can hear the intensity change with what's on the screen which I use to assume just meant the RGB cables weren't properly shielded, but it happens on stuff like my Sony MSX2+ that has a separate RCA audio port I use, so the audio signal is never in the same cable as RGB. Not every conosle
With the consoles I've modded for digital audio (PS1, SNES, Saturn) they sound amazing. Silence is actually silent no matter what the volume as it, everything is completely clean with no noise. However, not every console can be modded for digital audio since the DACs are built into the sound chip, multiple audio chips are used and only some of them use external DACs, etc. Then there's arcade boards with a supergun, where I wouldn't really want to go digital audio modding all my PCBs even if it was possible
So what's your experience with better sound hardware and retro hardware? Are there simple solutions I'm missing due to my audio inexperience, or is this a pretty complicated matter?
I used to play with headphones a lot because I lived in a small apartment so I couldn't really use a proper speaker setup. Buzz drove me crazy because it was so noticeable with the headphones. Digital audio mods were great for the systems that supported it. I've noticed that the NES / Famicom AV/ Original Famicom / Sharp Twin Famicom all have audio buzz and no matter what I've tried I couldn't get rid of it.
I also had buzzing with the Genesis, even when using the headphone jack for audio. I made a cable that didn't have the mono audio pin on the DIN socket wired, and now the buzz is pretty much gone. There's still some hiss from the headphone amp itself.
Usually associated with badly made scart cables. If it gets worse on a white video screen such as the ps1 bootup intro your cables require more shielding. You shouldnt get this with svideo or composite though.
This industry has become 2 dimensional as it transcended into a 3D world.
I think, generally, you should use digital audio whenever you can; and, when you can't, use the best-quality, best-shielded cables you can afford, and run your AV cables away from your power cables (I don't remember where I heard it, but run AV cables high and power cables low), but, even then, you may still end up with some kind of buzz or hum from the analog noise floor.
Until we can get digital from the source (ideally HDMI mods with built-in scalers and optional deinterlacing that can seamlessly handle resolution changes), I don't think we're going to have perfect compatibility solutions.
cr4zymanz0r wrote:So what's your experience with better sound hardware and retro hardware? Are there simple solutions I'm missing due to my audio inexperience, or is this a pretty complicated matter?
I love the PC Engine but man is the audio ass. It's the one system I play regularly that makes me wish there was a good solution. I have multiple pairs of higher end headphones and a couple nice speaker sets and it just sounds awful on all of them. I would say in general the better your audio set-up the more you are going to notice flaws on the audio coming from stock consoles.
Most of my vintage gaming is done with an old pair of Klipsch Heresy II. I don't really need anything beyond stereo and they deliver a kickass sound.
Btw for MSX check out the Midi-Pac2. It now supports PSG games too.
Steamflogger Boss wrote:an old pair of Klipsch Heresy II.
Nice pair of speakers right there
Yes sirrreee. They never disappoint. In general, Klipsch is a pretty good brand imo.
For newer stuff I have a different set-up. Magnepan also makes some real good shit. Just about every one of their products provides excellent quality for the price range.
The one thing I should really upgrade is my pre-amp. Pretty happy with everything else.
Steamflogger Boss wrote:Yes sirrreee. They never disappoint. In general, Klipsch is a pretty good brand imo.
For newer stuff I have a different set-up. Magnepan also makes some real good shit. Just about every one of their products provides excellent quality for the price range.
The one thing I should really upgrade is my pre-amp. Pretty happy with everything else.
I almost got a pair of Heresy II last year. I think I might grab some at some point, they've got such an interesting sonic signature. And yes all old Klipsch stuff is pretty much awesome. Didn't know about Magnepan, I'll have to check 'em out.
I rock old Pioneers ones right now. Not HPM series, but quite close in design and sound. Love 'em
Steamflogger Boss wrote:
I love the PC Engine but man is the audio ass. It's the one system I play regularly that makes me wish there was a good solution. I have multiple pairs of higher end headphones and a couple nice speaker sets and it just sounds awful on all of them. I would say in general the better your audio set-up the more you are going to notice flaws on the audio coming from stock consoles.
Most of my vintage gaming is done with an old pair of Klipsch Heresy II. I don't really need anything beyond stereo and they deliver a kickass sound.
Btw for MSX check out the Midi-Pac2. It now supports PSG games too.
How is the PC Engine audio bad for you? Are you referring to buzzing that I was talking about, or do you mean quality in general like a poorly designed sound amp/mixer circuit in the system?
ask for that MIDI-PAC2 for MSX, that sounds like a pretty neat device to give games "alternative" music which could be neat at times. However, if I want to hear the original game audio then I'm back to square one.
I don't really have any issues with any consoles besides the CoreGrafx, and even there I can live with it. Thankfully the PC engine wine seems to stop once there's silence. I have everything hooked up over optical, but the analog audio consoles (SNES, MD, NeoGeo, PS1, Saturn, N64, GC, DC) all have pretty good audio. I have some minor whine/buzz on the few systems where I did not opt for a fully shielded cable and/or did something like hooking up a SCART extension, but that's it. Never felt the need for a digital audio mod on these systems, even though I have a fairly beefy 5.1 system.
As for me : I don't have a problem with any of my retro consoles (NES, Genesis, SNES, Saturn, PS2, Dreamcast). I do, however, turn the audio gain down on the input that receives the Genesis signal. That works nicely. I use SCART cables from Retro_Console_Access and I get the audio out of the SCART cables and into an Extron Crosspoint. I don't hear any audio buzz whatsoever through my sound system, even at pretty decent volume.
But then again, I'm not the most anal when it comes to video and audio from these old consoles. "Very good" is good enough for me, I don't need them all to have "excellent" or "perfect" in audio and video. Right now they all perform at an at least "very good" level on those fronts, and that's good enough for me.
I like to keep my consoles non-modded as much as I can(don't ask why, that's just how my weird mind works), unless there's something terribly wrong with 'em. I really like having stock consoles
I looked up the Klipsch Heresy and the Magnepan lineup and they are some serious speakers. Massive overkill for retro gaming or even playing the current generation of games for that matter.
I use a Corsair SP2500 2.1 setup with no complaints at all.
CobraKing wrote:I looked up the Klipsch Heresy and the Magnepan lineup and they are some serious speakers. Massive overkill for retro gaming or even playing the current generation of games for that matter.
I use a Corsair SP2500 2.1 setup with no complaints at all.
Oh heh yeah for sure. I wouldn't have bought the Klipsch for old games. I use them because I already have them.
First thing, you gotta realize old consoles were never meant as hi-fi sources (for both video and audio).
You just have to look at the schematics and ICs used to understand this. Most use lowly amps normally used for guitar amplifiers and such and the quality is pretty terrible.
Of course they never bothered to improve the audio quality because those were meant as game consoles and even if you use, say, a SEGA MegaCD to play back some Audio CDs, you'll find the quality quite underwhelming.
As such, interference such as 50/60hz hum, noise from the regulators and the video circuitry is abundant in most of the consoles made back in the day.
Audio circuits are quite tolerant, which is why they managed to get away with just some filtering and your typical TVs had even more filtering on their audio inputs, which made the sound less noisy but also much more muffled.
Get a stock MegaDrive and hook it up to your hi-fi and you'll realize how bad those things were back in the day.
Luckily, some improvements can be made without even touching a soldering iron.
First thing, eliminate all the ground loops to remove hum.
This is done generally by making sure you have all the grounds correctly connected and by putting all the power sources to the same outlet.
Second thing, get a nice filtered power strip: this will get rid of any electrical noise in your house (especially if your house is pretty old this is really a night and day improvement)
Third, get a good power supply.
You don't need to go linear, but a nice regulated power supply is really all you need to get rid of most of the noise.
Fourth, get proper shielded cables. A word of warning: I've seen some overshielded cables which are insanely tick and those are BAD, because they start acting as capacitors and raising the capacitance level of the cable, adding up to those of the source itself.
Just get a normal, honest-to-god cable with proper shielding and you'll be ok. I discovered this the hard way.
Fifth, make sure to keep your consoles away from stuff which may create interference.
This includes: PCs, monitors, cell phones, PSU bricks, and big domestic appliances. Most consoles are not shielded, as such they are exposed to external interferences. I used to put a tinfoil sheet below my consoles to cut any possible interference from PSUs sitting below them.
Just by doing those 5 steps you'll have improved the audio quality of your console, mainly by lowering the noise floor.
If you want to get further, you need to get your hands dirty and start modding. New, better audio caps are the first thing you should look at. Try to replace the small electrolytics with good Polypropylene (WIMA, Ero, Panasonic, etc... you want to go overkill, shoot for film propylene like WIMA FKP series. Metallized like MKP are fine and way cheaper). Definitely replace the caps around the power regulator with newer ones with good ripple (I use Panasonic FC, cheap and they do the job right). You may want to replace the regulator as well: newer ones are more efficient and their output is cleaner.
Finally, the OpAmps. There's a *very* nice discussion going on sega-16 about rolling opamps for the new revision of the MegaAmp for the Mega Drive. IMHO, you can't do better than a NE5532, anything more is just plain overkill and useless.
In the end, you might want to completely redesign the audio circuit yourself and this will yield the best possible results.
Consoles with digital output, unless connected digitally (S/PDIF, Toslink, etc...) are still constrained by terrible pre-amplification in the consoles, but are definitely cleaner.
All of this is completely useless if you just use the tiny speakers your TV set came with, so don't even bother.
I want to get clean digital audio out of my consoles, but I'm hesitant about cutting any of the plastic for things like TOSLink or HDMI ports. If those solutions are as good as it's going to get, then I may consider it. Otherwise, I'd rather keep analog audio with well shielded cables and clean power supply with the plastic still intact. Because once you cut it, you can't go back.
donluca wrote:Second thing, get a nice filtered power strip: this will get rid of any electrical noise in your house (especially if your house is pretty old this is really a night and day improvement)
Have you got any recommendations? My whole power strip setup is due to be changed because I've been adding too many small extensions and daisy chaining too many times. After a quick look I see some fairly pricey ones like the Lindy / Tacima Mains Conditioner that get good reviews by audiophiles but there's also cheaper more generic branded ones on Ebay and elsewhere, with half the price tag. I imagine the "RFI Filter" is the feature we're after. As a general rule I know that ones with surge protection are best avoided for amplifiers/ receivers as they can limit the output somewhat. I use mine for vinyl and CDs but since its a humble setup I'm not sure how much that applies for my case scenario ( not using £200 speaker cables lol ).
Well the thing with MSX, is that each company did their audio design a little different. But also Yamaha screwed up their own documentation as well. Read here for details:
SuperDeadite wrote:Well the thing with MSX, is that each company did their audio design a little different. But also Yamaha screwed up their own documentation as well. Read here for details:
I wonder if there's any similar things instructions for my Sony MSX2+ (HB-F1XDJ). The audio from the RCA jack on it is pretty buzzy and when the floppy drive is running it seems to bleed some noise over into the sound circuit too. I wonder if a recap with higher quality caps would be enough.
donluca wrote:
If you want to get further, you need to get your hands dirty and start modding. New, better audio caps are the first thing you should look at. Try to replace the small electrolytics with good Polypropylene (WIMA, Ero, Panasonic, etc... you want to go overkill, shoot for film propylene like WIMA FKP series. Metallized like MKP are fine and way cheaper). Definitely replace the caps around the power regulator with newer ones with good ripple (I use Panasonic FC, cheap and they do the job right). You may want to replace the regulator as well: newer ones are more efficient and their output is cleaner.
I'm curious to hear of any examples of this you've done and maybe some specifics, such as "on X console I replaced the small caps with polypropylene caps and that reduced noise, etc." or "on Y console I replaced the 7805 voltage regulator with _____ and that reduced buzzing".
Unfortunately not much, I have my hi-fi system behind a black Belkin one which didn't give me any problems but it's not in production anymore. You may want to go for a newer one from the same manufacturer.
Also, don't skimp on the surge protection. I have €10k+ behind that power strip and haven't noticed any issue switching from the power outlet.
When you get into this hobby you start learning about electronics and stuff and realize how a 2€ per meter speaker cable bought from a specialized electronic supplier with the right spec is vastly superior to most of the 200€ bullshit they try to sell you as hi-fi.
For those curious, I've been modding audio equipment for more than I remember (10 years?) so I've got some vague knowledge about how this stuff works
*shameless plug*
If you want to hear how a beefed up Mega Drive sounds, you might want to give a listen to some of the old releases I've done http://16bap.theclassicgamer.net
For example: http://16bap.theclassicgamer.net/16bap/ ... e-dolphin/
This is one among the last release we've done before switching back to a stock Mega Drive. I don't remember exactly what I did to it, but I remember I went pretty deep with mods.
At a certain point I realized that I went too far and wanted to strive for a 100% authentic sound, so I went back to stock with just some small upgrades (which you can read about here: http://16bap.theclassicgamer.net/the-equipment/ although completely outdated, the part about the Mega Drive still holds true).
This is a great topic because I've never been able to eliminate buzz from some of the consoles despite switching the entire chain to the 'coaxial' shielded cables from Retro Access.
As far as the ground loop situation, I've wondered this, but a question-- I use two surge protectors with many outlets since I've got so many power adapters. Is it safe to plug two surge protectors into the same outlet to test whether or not that eliminates any ground loop I may have? I guess I can always do a quick test.
FriendofSonic wrote:This is a great topic because I've never been able to eliminate buzz from some of the consoles despite switching the entire chain to the 'coaxial' shielded cables from Retro Access.
Do you have a list of what consoles those thick shielded cables have and have not helped you with the buzzing? I don't think any of my cables are garbage quality, but I had considered upgrading some to try to get rid of the buzz. I'd rather not buy pricey ones and just end up with the same result.
FriendofSonic wrote:
As far as the ground loop situation, I've wondered this, but a question-- I use two surge protectors with many outlets since I've got so many power adapters. Is it safe to plug two surge protectors into the same outlet to test whether or not that eliminates any ground loop I may have? I guess I can always do a quick test.
Maybe my logic is wrong, but I ordered an inexpensive analog to digital converter (https://www.ebay.com/itm/302687065321)as a way to test if any of the buzzing I'm having is ground loop related. If I use the toslink optical connection, there's no ground connection over the cable, so no ground loop? . It's supposed to be in today so I'll probably be messing with it tonight.
FriendofSonic wrote:As far as the ground loop situation, I've wondered this, but a question-- I use two surge protectors with many outlets since I've got so many power adapters. Is it safe to plug two surge protectors into the same outlet to test whether or not that eliminates any ground loop I may have? I guess I can always do a quick test.
I am not an electrical engineer, but connecting two surge protectors to the same outlet should be safe, especially since they'll mostly be populated with wall warts, and I doubt you'll have everything on simultaneously.
What you need to watch out for is daisy-chaining surge protectors and power strips and connecting high-current devices (like window air conditioners and refrigerators), as many are cheaply built and not intended for that usage.
