Well - I'm a proud owner of a black arrow edition Hobbit as of today. Got it home and set up and everything seems to be working as intended - with one exception. I'm getting static through the speakers, and the noise seems to change with the playfield LED pattern changes - though it's possible its the LCD screen scene changes. When I tested it prior to purchase at the sellers house I didn't hear this, but it's possible I may not have been paying attention.

Any thoughts on what may have slightly jostled loose during transport? I'm a musician and I've run across all kinds of interference issues. This isn't 60 cycle hum - sounds sort of like slight RF pickup or something? Could be dirty power from the house, but I used to have a WOZ plugged in there and it never did this. Also I should note the noises are much more pronounced when the machine is booting up and reading from what I assume is the HD. Im running 3.1.

Can try that. I noticed when I was going through the menu settings and pulled up the digital version of the manual the noise got much worse

Checked the wires and connections. Everything looks good. The sounds all sound similar to what I used to hear in older pcs when you'd heard the hard drive being read through the speakers. I will give the isolator a try. I did find one plug unplugged in there but no obvious connection - ground, power and common wire going to a plug coming off of the line filter box assembly. Line filter sounds like line conditioner to me (which would be the obvious issue if something isn't plugged into the power line conditioner/filter. It was labeled "AC power box" - but the AC power box by the coin box has power and ground going to it already. Maybe that's just a plug for a topper or something?

Question - did the hobbit originally come with an isolator? The reason I ask is on page d-77 of the manual. for the sound amplifier board, the J2 connection says"3.5mm audio cable from CPU board (audio out). through Ground Loop Isolator.

One other question - this machine came with yellow and red flippers and a gold Smaug. Did some machines come with black flippers and a red smaug and then others were like mine?

Well as I wait for my isolator to arrive, I wanted to eliminate the house power. So I plugged the pin directly into my energy kodiak solar generator (big lithium battery with inverter) which is 100% pure sine wave and clean power. Same issue. It's really significant noise and in no way subtle. I sure hope this isolator works.

Actually JJP was extremely helpful today. I called them and left a message, and two different really great technicians called back and they are sending me a GLI at no cost. Also I learned that they made some changes to BAE after the initial flyers were printed and the initial run of BA editions were shipped. Evidently the early versions shipped with black flippers, but they later changed to the yellow/red ones. Also is sounds like the Smaug may have been red on some of the earlier ones, and on the more recent ones is gold.