Wanted to share the setup I've come up with for my tiny gameroom with 4 very different machines. Many people only want to hook up a subwoofer to their games but I personally wanted to do that plus have each game's audio routed to two active speakers while also having the audio for each game play through their own, respective, internal speakers. It's not as easy as you might think. Especially when you have multiple machines from different eras aka which have different levels and sound quality/audio spectrum characteristics. For me being somewhat of an audiophile, I wanted a system that was controllable from all angles, set and forget it. I did a ton of research on this topic and couldn't find a perfect solution. So here's what I came up with. See photos at the end.

Machines:
Stern Jurassic Park / JPLE (2019)
- Audio System (Stereo): Spike 2
- Position: Far Left
The Big Lebowski / TBL (2016-present)
- Audio System (Stereo): Proprietary
- Position: Center (in between both pins)
Stern The Sopranos (2005)
- Audio System (Mono): Whitestar
- Position: Far Right
Raw Thrills Big Buck Hunter Pro Arcade / BBHPRO (2006)
- Audio System (Stereo): Standard PC Audio Board (not sure the model) - FUN FACT: BBH Arcades from this era have only one mono centered speaker but in fact the game actually produces a stereo signal.
- Position: "In front" of The Sopranos against the adjacent wall

Audio Equipment:
Speakers: Edifier S1000DB Audiophile Active Bookshelf Speakers (2 x L/R)
- L position: Far left on the outside of JPLE
- R position: Far right on the outside of Sopranos

Subwoofer: Polk Audio PSW10 (https://www.amazon.com/Polk-Audio-PSW10-Powered-Subwoofer/dp/B0002KVQBA)
- Position: Center (under TBL)

Mixer: Soundcraft EPM8 High-Performance 8-channel Audio Mixer

Machine Audio Mods (in order to simply route each game's audio output to L&R RCA while not affecting the sound output to any of the games' internal speakers):
For JPLE:
- Pinnovators PinSUB SPIKE Subwoofer Kit
For Sopranos:
- Pinnovators PinSUB WHITESTAR Subwoofer Kit
For TBL:
- Pinnovators PinSUB Multi-System Stereo (Side Note: I ended up working with the genius behind Pinnovators products to figure out and test this stereo system mod they recently put on their site.)
For BBHPRO:
- No mod needed since the cabinet's PC audio card has an audio out jack (more explained below).

As you can tell from my game list, the sound of all are quite different from one another--Not only from output volume perspective but to frequency spectrum as well. The JPLE is clean and crisp, the TBL is clean but mid-rangey, the Sopranos is dark and boomy, and the BBHPRO is somewhere in between.

Yes, with the Pinnovators mods and some RCA adaptors alone, I could Y-cable each machine out to send signal(s) to the external speakers and sub, then Y them them all out to a simple audio switch (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KXVBB3Q/). But I tried that and it became a cabling nightmare riddled with interference and headache. Plus in doing so I'd have to constantly adjust levels of each machine's internal volume settings, the speakers and sub themselves, as well as clicking that switch each time I wanted to play a different game. Also for example The Sopranos, being a Whitestar system is super "boomy" and would sound terrible through both the Edifier speakers and way too much for the Polk sub (I'd end up turning the sub off actually).

With the 4 games / sources to deal with, all with their own sound signature, to make things as flexible as possible I went with the aforementioned 8-channel mixer. Incorporating that was an epiphany. It allowed me to get rid of all the Y-cabling nightmare and now provides full control over everything with a "set it and forget it" setup.

Here's how I hooked everything up:
- For the 3 pinball machines (JPLE, TBL, and Sopranos): The Pinnovators mods did the trick of giving me L/R RCA Output for each.
- For the 1 arcade machine (BBHPRO): The internal speaker leverages the mini stereo jack from the back of the PC. So I used a stereo splitter to route the signal to a mini stereo to L/R RCA adapter.
- After this I basically had stereo RCA L/R output from all machines to work with.
- Since the mixer only allows for 1/4" TRS inputs for each line level channel, I purchased a bunch of RCA to unbalanced 1/4" TRS adapters for each RCA.
I of course also bought longer RCA female to male cables to account for the distance needed from each machine to the mixer.

To get all signals to the Edifier speakers:
- JPLE L/R Outputs > Mixer Line Inputs 1/2
- TBL L/R Outputs > Mixer Line Inputs 3/4
- Sopranos L/R Outputs > Mixer Line Inputs 5/6
- BBHPRO L/R Outputs > Mixer Line Inputs 7/8
- Mixer Main/Mix Output > XLR to RCA Adapters > Edifier Speakers L/R Input

For the Subwoofer:

- AUX 1 Output > 1/4" Balanced TRS to RCA L/R Adapter > L/R RCA > Subwoofer L/R RCA Input

The beauty of this: Each mixer channel has it's own AUX 1 Level. This allowed me to adjust the bass of each machine to exactly how I wanted it on a per channel (per machine) basis.

SIDE NOTE - For getting the bass of the sub dialed in: The Polk PSW10 is not friendly in that it doesn't have it's own crossover output via RCA. It has a crossover adjustment (mentioned below) but it's more of a home stereo type sub so it does have a crossover but in the form of speaker wire type connections.
The Sub's LPF nob: This depends upon what kind of speakers you have. The Edifier's have a pretty decent low end response so I have turned it all the way to the left/80Hz position = I only want/need the lowest of bass freq's from the sub itself. I'm still playing with this but that will depend on your setup.

EQing Each Game:

I now have control over the EQ of each game by way of each's respective L & R signal having its own mixer channel. I pan one hard left, the other hard right and use each channel's 3-band EQ to dial things in. Set it and forget it.

Ensuring the right volume level for each game (also given their position in the room vs. where the speakers are):

- With the whole mixer and speakers off I do what I can with the coindoor volume for each to make each game's internal volume is about the same--relatively low actually since I know the magic is going to come from the external speakers and sub in the end. It's important to note that changing the games' volumes' changes the overall output level to the mixer.
- So what I did was change all levels against their respective internal speakers to make sure that when standing in front of the game/playing it that each seemed to be the same volume. I then used the mixer's individual gain knobs to level the "real" sound heard from the Edifier speakers.

- By using 2 channels for each game I now have level control L & R over each on per channel basis. For instance, the JPLE is right next to the L speaker so I don't want that L speaker to be as loud as the right. So I turn down the fader of its L mixer channel (1) enough to where the balance feels like the L & R speakers are actually in my L & R ears at the same distance, leaving its R channel (2) at full. Then vice versa for the Sopranos being all the way to the right. The TBL's channels stay at the same fader volume since that game is in the center of the room, in between the two others. The BBHPRO stays at the same fader level since that's just how it is given the space I have to work with.

The end all beauty of this setup:
- Each game is eq'd and leveled correctly, turn them all on and play. No more tweaking settings or leaning down to change the sub or eq of the speakers.
- No more messing with each game's internal volume. Once set I don't have to open the coin door of each to adjust whatsoever. I let my setup do the work.
- No more changing the knobs/settings on the subwoofer or speaker volume controls. I have full control via the mixer for both if I need to make the sub quieter/louder or the speakers quieter/louder. I only have to adjust the master fader volume of the mixer if I want to increase/decrease overall volume in the gameroom.
- More than one game playing at a time: This is very rare for me. It's usually me and my girlfriend taking turns but there have been times where we are playing different games at the same time. Regardless, I don't have to adjust anything. The mixer does its job of making sure nothing is overdriven.

See attached photos and feel free to ask any questions or propose suggestions. I just wanted to post this in detail with the hope that it helps for HUO owners who have small gamerooms make the best out of the sound within. Believe me, while you may think what I've done is overkill, having the sound of these machines come from their intended stock speakers AND out to a good set of bookshelf speakers + sub in the right level and frequency increases the experience in ways you may not realize.
Gameroom Mixer setup (resized).pngGameroom Panorama (resized).png

Thank you! I have not tried that but now you have me intrigued. Yeah with the surround systems these days that can "emulate" surround from a stereo signal, that's definitely something to to explore. If I decide to go that route I'll definitely post an updated writeup, thanks for the idea!

An update I wanted to share: I swapped out Sopranos (moved it to the living room) and put my Champion Pub in its place. CP is a Bally/Williams machine so I needed a different kit from Pinnovators: PINsub Subwoofer Kit for Williams / Bally WPC95 Systems

Hooking it up to my mixer: I hooked it up basically the same way I described above with all the other machines are (L/R RCA out to 2 channels in that mixer).

Issue: "Oscillating buzz" and pitchy sound overall -- There's something up with CP's A/V board. It's actually a WPC95 replacement by Rottendog (Model WAV095). The game emits a pretty low, but noticeable "oscillating buzz" (even at volume 0) and the game is a bit ear piercing. This is not the PinSUB's fault. I reached out to Rottendog but they could only give me a list of why this might be happening (transformer, power supply/driver board, amp chip). I know my audio but I'm not an electronics wiz. So while I could go spend $600-$700 on a PinSound replacement, I felt like I could figure out a workaround.

Troubleshooting: There are two outputs on the WAV095 A/V board -- Backbox and Cabinet. After some troubleshooting, I isolated the buzz to only coming from the "Backbox" A/V board connection (which feeds the CP's main L/R speakers). While not as noticeable when audio is only coming from the CP's speakers, once hooked into my mixer and amplified through my external setup, hearing it from both CP and my external speakers became pretty unbearable. I tried a few things to no avail including adding a noise/hum eliminator b/t the RCA output and input on the mixer. Didn't help. Also even if I could kill it in this manner, it would still be emitting from the machine's backbox speakers at volume 0. I could only hear it when those were connected so I decided to negate it all together by detaching the Backbox connector altogether which in turn of course killed any audio from the SP's L/R speakers. So therefore, I was now only leveraging the Cabinet (machine's subwoofer) connection to provide audio to my external system. I was worried that there was a cross-over involved--meaning by using the Cabinet output only, I'd now only get low-end freqs out to my system (this is the case with the TBL board's "subwoofer" outputs). I got lucky though! To my surprise, that Cabinet connection outputs the full eq spectrum! I was totally happy with not having the machine's L/R speakers outputting audio since I have my L/R external speakers for that. I then thought I had it all worked out. However after increasing the gain of my mixer made the Cabinet output that I thought was "non-buzzing" actually did introduce it too, just at a much lower volume. I tried a noise/hum eliminator again but no dice.

Solution/Workaround: After connecting with Mark at Pinnovators, he had a genius idea: Put a SONICAKE Noise Gate Guitar Pedal (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B089KDCWPR) in line with the CP's output to the mixer inputs! Guitar pedals like this are mono with 1/4" ins/outs so a couple RCA to 1/4" TRS Cables (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B096YZNZG1) were needed too. Now, doing this means I'd only be getting a mono signal in the end (from the L channel), but these old Bally/Williams machines actually only output mono. The only downside of is that I can't control the level of each L/R channel independently (unless I wanted to buy 2 noise gate pedals but that seemed like overkill). A slight adjustment of the pedal knob and BAM! Buzz completely killed (aka gated)! So now I'm only using one mixer channel panned center (audio is now coming out of CP's cabinet sub, my external sub, and my external speakers). Plus I can finally control the eq of the game just like the others, reducing that pitchy-ness an boosting the bass. Sounds fantastic now!

SUPER kudos go out to Mark at Pinnovators for helping me sort this out and continuing to make outstanding solutions for outputting any given game's audio!

NICE please share the results!

I actually have had to amplify or lower the signal from each game to make them all happy. Sometimes that means upping the machine volume itself, other times slightly bumping the gain (red) nob on each machine's given mixer channel(s). But that's all in an attempt to create parity b/t the level coming from the machine speakers vs. the monitors I have.

I'm pretty sure CP is "mono" by nature so while splitting it to change the volume of the L/R speakers independently (of the same mono signal) would be nice, my room is so small that it really doesn't matter at this point. I have overcome the buzzing and hums overall through experimenting with different buzz and hum killer devices. I will say that having all games + audio equipment plugged into the same electric circuit/plug via a high quality power conditioner will save you tons of headache trying to get rid of such anomalies.