Multi-player machines will only make extra noise during the switch to the next player and that's only taking a few seconds at worst. Maybe the machine you heard didnt have a rear door fitted.

Gottlieb player units (which are only on multiplayer pins) result in a fairly loud sound with each player advance. When it’s just a single player on a 4-player machine, it will step three times in rapid succession between each ball, as it moves through the unused spots for players 2-4. Williams multiplayers don’t do that, and I don’t think Bally or Chicago Coin do either.

While this makes Gottlieb multiplayers a bit noisier, I don’t find them to be ridiculously loud. But I concur that a missing back cover can greatly increase the noise, so maybe that’s what you experienced.

The OP might have been hearing the Gottlieb player unit, which on a multiplayer machine, can make a LOT of clacking noises that a wedgehead doesn't necessarily emit. If the back door was off or didn't fit tightly, the sounds can really resonate.

if you love the 70's Gottlieb EM's that "noise" is just heaven............just me

Try listening to one counting down a bonus, especially a game like Hot Shot that has a feature that skips unlit balls in the bonus but still has the stepper moving. Multi players are more complex and are definitely louder than a wedgehead.

It’s also worse if there is no back door on the head or if you’re playing with the glass off.
Pinball machines are not quiet. It’s not really the goal.

Dave

Exactly what I was thinking. I've owned several Gott multiplayers that had noisy player units, including Jumping Jack and Surfer, but the Hot Shot/Big Shot on bonus countdown sounds like 3 kids re-enacting the St Valentines Day massacre with toy Tommny guns. Far more noise than any wedgehead I ever owned.

That's not noise. It's EM music. It's like Rock n Roll. Play it loud.

Did you ever notice, in a lot of TV shows and movies, when someone is playing a modern solid state game in the background, they often use sound effects from EM reels and bells. It's iconic.

The only thing I consider loud on any of my EMs is the knocker in the backbox on my 1976 Aladdin’s Castle. It could wake my neighbors next door if they were ever sober.

Those Bally knockers mounted in the head are crazy loud. I have a friend with one lone game (Supersonic) in an empty concrete basement. Whenever the knocker fired it would scare the sh*t out of me. Ha ha.

The two loudest knockers I've ever had are Bally. Old Chicago, mounted in the head. But even that doesn't compare to the pure gunshot that is Flash Gordon.

Every time the FG knocker goes off, Firepower next to it hangs its head in shame. Fabulous game, wimpiest knocker ever. And it's bracketed by those two games, lol

Every time FG knocker goes off, my Firepower next to it hangs its head in shame. Fabulous game, wimpiest knocker ever.

those EM Gottlieb's were loud for a reason too.....when they were made they went into arcades, in confined areas, with a lot of other machine noise ,so when yo pushed the start button, that machine was heard from everywhere, saying someone just stared up the Cadillac of pinball's (at that era of time), and everyone knew it, and everyone wanted to play it.they didn't have a loud knocker just a quick snapping noise.......again that's just me, from being around in the that.......EM'S FOREVER

Talk about wimpy...
In the world of knockers, the sixties Ballys are Twiggy!
They just make a little "click" sound. I wonder why Bally even bothered installing them.
Gottlieb "Gold Strike" has a great sounding knocker with a distinctive "thwackkkk"!

Keep in mind that the sounds any game makes can be easily tempered with some foam insulation.

I think the loudest knocker I have is on my Williams High Speed. My Gottlieb El Dorado has a great knocker sound. Loud enough to be rewarding, but doesn't scare me. The knockers on Bally's Fireball and Time Zone are so soft by comparison. Little clicks of a knocker. I've tried to make mine louder and I'm tempted to buy an El Dorado knocker assembly and install it in those two Bally EMs.