This will likely be long with a lot of useless information. In summary, buy some Pinwoofer kits.

I kept reading posts with people raving about the Pinwoofer kit. The reviews were overwhelmingly positive, kinda like the Amazon reviews where they give away free stuff if you give a positive review. Fakespot doesn't work on Pinside, so I had to give it a try. Unfortunately I had to pay for it. My Metallica already had a Flipper Fidelity kit, but a lot of the reviews were specifically for Metallica, so I'll jump on the bandwagon.

Audiophiles and wine experts are an interesting breed, and largely full of crap. I've fallen into the trap myself, expensive phono cartridges, preamps, constantly changing out components, etc. The question is, how can you give an honest review after you just spent a bunch of money and time? Of course you want it to sound better and will probably talk yourself into thinking it sounds better, especially if everyone is saying it sounds better.

The only way to make a fair comparison would be to A/B them side by side, not an hour later. You would need to record it. Cell phone video won't do, needs to be something with better quality.

I'll warn you again, this was an attempt at a scientific review attempt that falls short, just so you don't read 3 pages of crap to find little scientific results.

This is an Audio Technica AT3035 condenser mic. It's a decent home studio mic, not the cheapest, not even close to the most expensive. I have it at ear level. I ran it into a Tascam DR40. Cheap little handheld, but decent quality. I probably should have run a long cable to the DAW, but I was lazy.

The comparisons I was hoping to get were

1. Flipper Fidelity with external sub
2. Flipper Fidelity, no external sub
3. Flipper Fidelity speakers, Pinwoofer preamp
4. Pinwoofer sub, FF backbox speakers
5. Full Pinwoofer system

I chose Sad But True to do my comparisons. I'm one of those "I like early Metallica" guys and don't often listen to anything beyond And Justice for All, but there is no denying the production of the Black album is great.

2020-05-23 11.49.46 (resized).jpg

I haven't started yet, but if the posts start to get a little fuzzy you will know why....

I will post some Google drive links to recordings as I edit them down. This microphone might be a little too sensitive for this application, and I may have had the gain a little too hot. They all sound really boomy. I'm not sure they are of any value, but I tried.

I started with everything hooked up, got a recording and went to disconnect the external sub. It was already disconnected. I don't remember disconnecting it. Hooked it back up, its very noisy. Maybe it's the cable? Was it always this noisy? No idea. Recorded that.

Anyway, went to get set up for the next recording and realized I had the low pass filter switch in the "on" position. Not ideal when I'm trying to review a subwoofer. I re-recorded with the subwoofer and LPF off. There is a noticeable difference with the LPF off. Unfortunately I don't have the FF kit without the external sub, without the LPF on, so I've already killed the experiment.

Listen with some headphones, these will probably all sound the same on computer speakers.

FF Ext Sub LPF
https://www.dropbox.com/s/mdcpg2lizlfcfki/FF%20Ext%20Sub%20LPF.wav?dl=0

FF Ext Sub No LPF
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5dcim3j80at84lu/FF%20Ext%20Sub%20No%20LPF.wav?dl=0

FF No Sub LPF
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lea7c6155bozx0j/FF%20No%20Sub%20LPF.wav?dl=0

On to the install! I told you it would be long. There are a lot of parts, and a lot of instructions. Small criticism, but it would been nice to have one set of instructions for the game I was working on. There were 4 or 5 documents to read through and a pile of parts. It would have also been nice if the game specific instructions told you what parts were extra.

Everything is well packaged, and the directions were decent. The power connects to the same spot as the Color DMD and other mods. Luckily I had a splitter. Pinwoofer emailed me asking if I had the playfield support rails, which I do. Installed the subwoofer, lowered the playfield, doesn't fit. Support rails are hitting the speaker. The mounting bracket is universal and has lots of holes, I turned it 90 degrees and favored the speaker slightly to the left. Now everything fits. I'm not certain if my rails are in the factory suggested spot, it was a mod I put in, there were no drilled holes if I remember correctly. Not an issue.

I powered everything on holding the bare copper of the Pinwoofer leads to the FF sub.
HOLY COW!!
This wasn't a difference you needed some elaborate recording rig for. It's night and day. No comparison at all. Huge improvement.
I should have recorded this step, but I didn't want to waste any connectors. If I were to guess the Pinwoofer sub sounded better, but not by a ton. Hopefully the recording shows all the low mids that were previously nonexistent.

PW Sub FF Backbox
https://www.dropbox.com/s/62kuvozn7nusfbw/PW%20Sub%20FF%20Backbox.wav?dl=0

Backbox speaker install! The speakers needed to be rotated a certain way to fit, and I needed to break off one of the mounting tabs. They do mention this might be necessary for mounting in some games in the instructions. This took a little trial and error, but it was very late. I probably should have resumed the next day.

The amp install was awesome. They included magnets, it snaps on to the Color DMD, no drilling necessary (I'm assuming this works with metal backbox games as well). This is great because I'll probably keep this kit if I sell the game.

I was getting a little interference noise, I moved the cable coming for the LED OCD board and it went away.

Overall I'm very happy with the sound. This isn't a speaker upgrade, it's a sound system upgrade.

Here is a link to the folder with all of the files if anyone wants to do a comparison.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/v5qlp3x76l05tq3/AADwXQEBA1iS9vLM_NI0VkWla?dl=0

I bought 2 kits, 2nd one is going in Maiden. I think I'll just install that one without the elaborate recording and review...