Nice write-up once again, thanks Vireland! Is that a cropped version of the schematic for the Spike 2 CPU board!? How'd you get your hands on that, and can you post the full schematic?

Awesome job man, will be doing this soon.
THANK YOU!

Made myself the cable as per instructions - thanks Vireland! Really trivial if you have some .100 connectors on hand. In my case I routed the cable out of the top backbox hole (used for the topper wiring) as I am connecting the game to external amplification in the room.

Interestingly (and unfortunately), it is a volume-adjusted line out, meaning the volume + bass + treble settings of the cabinet speakers control this output. This is not ideal if you want to leave the stock sound system wired in the game at the same time and use this as a line-out to external speakers in the room. I'm having to turn the external amp volume WAY up as I have the game volume level set to not blast my ears out with the built-in amp+speakers

So, it looks for my purposes like the headphone out would be a better solution, as the system allows independent control of the speaker and headphone volumes.

Vireland, since it looks like you had access to a schematic, any chance you can dig up details on the CN3 headphone connector? I'd like to fabricate my own. Interested in particular on details on how the Stern kit's volume control is wired up - presumably just a pot, but it would be great to get the specs on it.

backbox.jpg

wire (resized).jpg

Interesting. Nothing on CN3 eh?

Didn't Gomez promise better Spike documentation at TPF?

Hey Vireland I never got any clarification on my question about why the music itself doesn't really clip (at 46+ it does), but at 33+ the fx clip horribly. Same answer---amp can't drive speakers?
The audio mix itself seems off. Speech attenuation does not resolve fx clipping. I've taken speech completely out and fx still clipping.
Just wondering yer thoughts on this.

I put the line-out on my Aerosmith into a headphone amp and listened with some good headphones - definitely doesn't sound super clean. Lots of distortions in the sounds which is either intentional per the sound designer, or distorting in the mix before amplification. A bit disappointing, but it's not the end of the world, still love the sound and music in the game. For my ears though I think Ghostbusters is the best sounding game from Stern I've ever heard.

Awesome. And actually I just bit the bullet and bought one of the Stern kits, so I should be able to reverse engineer it as well if it's as simple as it looks.

Andre you already got this jamming?
How does it sound man? Clipping lessened at high volume?
Shazam yer fast!
Edit: reread yer post about going line out to external speakers. C'mon man switch it up to bb for us homie! Inquiring minds wanna know!

If I buy a flipper fidelity speaker and sub kit should I still add one of these amps to my premium to improve sound?

Or should I buy some other type of speakers? I already have an external sub

I have the high-output 8" flipper fidelity kit in both Aerosmith and Iron Maiden. My volume settings is -14 bias to cabinet woofer (for bass, you can barely hear it at even 0 balance), and volume set to 20-25ish. At those volumes, there is no clipping from the on-board Stern amp, so not much point to piping the line out to an external amp wired to the cabinet speakers.

Like I said with Aerosmith there is some distortion in the sounds - I was pretty sure from listening it wasn't amp clipping, and listening to the line out wired to a headphone amp confirmed this.

That said I concur with Vireland: if your sound is noticeably worse at high volume *only* and not lower volumes (just like Vireland says in his original post), you can probably benefit from adding an external amp wired to the cabinet speakers. But that would only be at seriously loud volumes, especially with the stock Stern speakers which are way more efficient than the Flipper Fidelity ones (quality comes at the cost of efficiency as a general rule of thumb with speakers).

Wait...there's another way?

Hahaha Yes, yes there is. I for one would like to keep my hearing for as long as possible. Once it's gone it doesn't come back...

What?

You're either pretending you can't hear me from hearing loss, or we're totally not on the same page By "is there another way?" it sounded like you were implying loud is the only way to go

What?

best-hearing-aids-profound-hearing-loss (resized).jpg

Why in the hell would you guys buy parts & hack your $9K pin when Stern needs to make this right?! I have a LE,but there's no way in hell I'm doing this nonsense... Think about it.. Stern has to fix it..

Nah,
The Flipper Fidelity kit alone sounds so much better than the crap 25 cent stock speakers you won’t even need to crank it past 28.
Dare I say they sound even better than the JBL’s they spec’d on the LE?

Once you dial in the upper and lower speakers’ bass, treble and cab balance via menu, it really doesn’t need the external sub, OR amp.

It takes a bit of time to get everything “just riiiiight”, but the end result with the sounds, callouts and music is simply EPIC.

Hmmmm, Spike 1 game.

Funnily enough I think KISS ( also Spike 1 ) sounds night and day better than AS and Maiden ( Spike 2 ). For me KISS is the best sounding Stern I have heard.

No clue why.

The stereo in my truck needs an upgrade too

Just talked to Stern in they said there's a software update coming soon to fix it and it's not the amplifier.

Nice

Even if they fix the audio mix, I still prefer to have these speakers driven by an actual amp, not a power supply board. The Stern "amp" can't handle these speakers. It will only make it sound better. And most importantly, louder AND better.

Awesome!
My premium sounded like absolute ass out of the box compared to my GBP and SW pro, which coincidentally, still have their stock speakers intact...
The FF kit I purchased in my above post helped immensely on the latest 1.0 code but, I’m glad they will finally address the audio deficiencies for those folks that continue to use the original set.

So I did order my first set of flipper Fidelity speakers today and I'm psyched that they will sound even better with future codes!

Interesting. Wonder if this is specific to Iron Maiden, or if it’s a system fix that will apply to other spike 2 games...

Haven't they promised software fixes for hardware issues in the past?

Update: Ordered from the Stern shop, got an email the next day saying the kits are back-ordered with an expected stock date of early July.

New code came out today & now you can change the ohms from 8 to 4 to fix the sound clipping.

I have mine on 8ohm and at 38 volume no clipping....FUCKIN A.
My other settings:
Music attenuation: -50
Speech attenuation: 5
Bass: 90
Treble: 80
Gonna keep going up on volume and find the breaking point. Still interested in installing external amp.

Changed them out. Much better. Hope the new code helps too. I still have the external sub hooked up as well

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BEEFY

Well some of my stuff showed up today, I went with the Flipper Fidelity 10 in Sub upgrade. It comes with a mounting bracket, I can wait to hear it cranked up!

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So with 1.0.1 code I have my LE set to 4 ohm with:

Volume 40-45
Head treble 80
Head bass 50
Cab bass 110
Cab treble 20
...and the woofer connected to a Polk 10” powered sub cranked about 50%.

This thing absolutely rocks! The bass guitar parts are clear and distinct and whole thing just rumbles at all the right places.

I have my settings at 11.

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What's a good speaker replacement for my IMDN pro don't want to get anything that needs to many watts. Just want to replace the head speakers.

Here too.....using factory mounting.

These are perfect and they sound way better than the stock speakers.

https://flipperfidelity.com/parts-and-diy/speakers/flipper-fidelity-ff4-4-2-way-speaker.html

They don't want people buying the same speakers without the FF logo for half price.

I personally have never bought a pin speaker kit form FF or anyone else. I never liked the idea of buying without knowing the specs.

I’m not super familiar with the pros - my Premium sure as heck looks like it has speakers smaller than 5.25”; could there be some variation in the builds?