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(Topic ID: 79721)

Are new Stern pins in Stereo or not?

By Part_3

10 years ago

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115 posts
35 Pinsiders participating
Latest reply 7 years ago by kermit24
Topic is favorited by 2 Pinsiders

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#101 10 years ago

JDB

Joe_Blasi

Pinside member

Des Plaines, IL

11y 39,900 2,401

Quoted from SteveP3:
Iirc it was around the time that LOTR came out that the sound improvement happened /possible changes to the way they handled the BSMT. Anyone ever notice LOTR sounds a bit smoother than previous games? I also seem to remember that there was an extra rom required in pinmame at the time to make the sound work correctly, U8 maybe? Maybe I am misremembering all of this or getting it mixed up, but I remember asking Keith why it sounded nicer and I thought he mentioned something along the lines of an improvement being made.

LOTR was the first game to use the new sound system and it had an bios / flash that you updated by setting dips / and putting the chip in U8 with the update code

#102 10 years ago

BJD

roffels

Pinside member

Minneapolis, MN

10y 85,300 1,992 3 20

Quoted from wayout440:
But that's my point - that is not stereo that you are describing. That's panning. A mono signal that is panned somewhere between the two channels does not have the requisite phase information to be a stereo signal, although there can be a level difference between the two channels that simulates a position difference, it's a simulation.
This is why your home stereo system has a "sweet spot" between the two loudspeakers, where the level differences and arrival time differences are small enough that the stereo image and localization are both maintained. This sweet spot is limited to a fairly small area between the two loudspeakers and when a listener is outside that area, the image collapses.

I don't understand the point you're trying to make. The pinball machine is not trying to compete with a home stereo, it's providing some neat and simple sound effects. And it makes a difference when compared to a simple mono system. Is it that big of a deal? Not really.

#103 10 years ago

DAV

wayout440

Pinside member

Berea, OH

11y 113K 11,264 3 12

Quoted from roffels:
I don't understand the point you're trying to make. The pinball machine is not trying to compete with a home stereo, it's providing some neat and simple sound effects. And it makes a difference when compared to a simple mono system. Is it that big of a deal? Not really.

You can do effects panning in 2 channels of mono or stereo. I thought the complaints were about stereo music and fidelity/quality, not about effects. If you want an effect to be hard panned it is as simple as lowering the volume of that effect in one channel and raising its volume level on the other channel. That would give the illusion of motion that you are looking for (granted it's not much motion, but centered, leaning over the game while playing it would be noticeable)

Now for music, there is really no point in stereo without the separation. Most of the information between left and right channels is the same anyway. The investment is better spent on higher fidelity/higher quality mono components. The game will sound much better. Or, perhaps try to figure a way to stick in one of my company's audio processors. I have an extra one I don't know what to do with...

100_4035.JPG

#104 10 years ago

???

malcor

Inactive member

Unknown

10y 1,500 4

Quoted from oga83:
- The SAM pcb has 2 channels on the J10 connector; each one is driving a different speaker

The schematic of the speaker panel assy shows the speakers being wired as mono. So the two channels on connector J10 are probably used to separately drive the cabinet and back box speakers.

#105 10 years ago

OGA

oga83

Pinside member

Paris

11y 84,800 1,183 1

Quoted from malcor:
The schematic of the speaker panel assy shows the speakers being wired as mono. So the two channels on connector J10 are probably used to separately drive the cabinet and back box speakers.

You are right.
One channel for the 2 front speakers, and one for the bottom speaker :

AudioSch2.png

2 years later

#106 7 years ago

MAS

Swainer80

Pinside+ Frequent

Ballwin, MO

10y 86,800 920 32 28

Quoted from Rarehero:
Stern mono sounds a billion times better than DE Stereo. Listen to the scratchy-voiced midi-ness of GnR, then listen to AC/DC.

"You have my axshhhhhhh" Lotr. Hell my party animal has better fidelity. Yes they finally fixed it with SAM and spike sounds incredible, but give credit where credit is due.

#107 7 years ago

JCS

jeffspinballpalace

JeffSPinballPalace

20y 242K 19,062 556

Quoted from Swainer80:
"You have my axshhhhhhh" Lotr. Hell my party animal has better fidelity. Yes they finally fixed it with SAM and spike sounds incredible, but give credit where credit is due.

Still awaiting stereo, two years later bump

#108 7 years ago

MAS

Swainer80

Pinside+ Frequent

Ballwin, MO

10y 86,800 920 32 28

Spike is stereo. And oh is Ghostbusters like crack for the ears.

#109 7 years ago

JGI

John_I

Space Coast Pinball

19y 179K 9,072

Actually SPIKE is 2.1, so better than stereo!

#110 7 years ago

LIN

Linolium

Pinside member

11y 66,350 966 6

video games and arcade games use OGG (some MP3 or proprietary) compression all the time. You can fit an entire CDs worth of streamed BGM audio tracks (60 mins+) in under 100mb. More minutes if you boost track compression. And mono sfx don't require a lot of space to sound great. You can vary your sfx between 8k to 22k depending on what the data actually is and how it sounds. There really is little reason for these games not to have stereo music and panning SFX now.

As an example- Haunted Cruise uses 100 or so panning mono sfx (some are stereo for canned animation effects) and about 30 mins of OGG stereo music. You cannot tell there is audio compression with all the overlaying music/sfx/mechanical sounds going on. Everyone who's played it comments how awesome the sound is. The entire game package is ~210MB in size- BUT that includes the unity3d runtime, lots of large 1024x1024+ textures, 3D models/animations, and the game script.

Assuming stern dmd pixels are 4bpp- all the pixel art (properly lossless compressed) could easily fit in the space of 1 4096x2048 32bpp texture thus leaving ample room for game code, core/engine code, and audio (compressed and raw).

Now that stern is entering into real coloured video (lcd), they will need to support some form of streamed video compression.

Also, I use OGG as an example here only because it's a free algorithm. Last I looked, MP3 requires licensing fees to use.

#111 7 years ago

EWG

kermit24

Pinside+ Frequent

9y 123K 6,538

Batman '66, WWE, GoT, Whoa Nellie, Kiss - All Stereo

2 months later

#112 7 years ago

PAL

Sammy31

Pinside member

Ottawa, ON

11y 64,300 738 14 48

Has anyone heard if metallica will be upgraded to stereo ( since the licence got renewed)?

#113 7 years ago

JGI

John_I

Space Coast Pinball

19y 179K 9,072

Quoted from Sammy31:
Has anyone heard if metallica will be upgraded to stereo ( since the licence got renewed)?

Metallica is SAM. Very doubtful on the stereo upgrade. Maybe some day a SPIKE VE game will show up?

#114 7 years ago

JCD

dmbjunky

Pinside member

Odon, IN

8y 96,400 6,791 91

So all Spike games are in stereo?

Quoted from kermit24:
Batman '66, WWE, GoT, Whoa Nellie, Kiss - All Stereo

Is GB on this list then? What about Spidey VE? I can't remember if that was Spike or not. If WNBJM is stereo, I guess it's safe to assume PBR is too.

#115 7 years ago

EWG

kermit24

Pinside+ Frequent

9y 123K 6,538

Quoted from dmbjunky:
So all Spike games are in stereo?

Is GB on this list then? What about Spidey VE? I can't remember if that was Spike or not. If WNBJM is stereo, I guess it's safe to assume PBR is too.

All Spike games are in stereo. Spider-Man VE is SAM, so no for spidey.

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