What's required to install one of these in a pin? Do you need a secondary amp of some sort?

No... tie it in to the bottom speaker or unhook the bottom speaker and go directly to the sub. Big improvement!

hands down best upgrade money can buy.

Hey thanks guys, I just ordered one to play around with. Not even necessarily to use in pinball. Looks like a good buy. Todd Scott

Don't forget if you have a chase freedom or discover card you get 5% back in points

This sub is $49 shipped from Newegg with code NAFTECHMAS46. Will sell out quick.

Chris

The code has expired .

That's the cheapest I've ever seen it. I knew it wouldn't last long. Got one though!

Chris

It's back down to $79.99 on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0002KVQBA/nuondome

What kind of cable do you need to hook one up to a pinball machine?

Speaker wire or RCA cables will work.

Also, check the used area.. 71 and change and if you have prime, free shipping and you can order more than one.

Thanks

How would you use RCA wires with pinball? Speaker wires go right from the bottom speaker to the sub.. I do not know of any RCA wire outputs on a pinball machine.

We used speaker wire plus alligator clips $3.50 for pack of 8 at radio shack.

Clip the speaker wire to cabinet sub that's it.

Cut one end off of the RCA cable solder the - to the - on the cab speaker and the + to the +.
I drill a 1/8" hole next to the speaker push the cable through and tie a knot in it then solder to the speaker.
I put these drops on all my games and it makes it easier to move the sub around.
If the cables are the long ones you can cut them in half and get two out of each one.

spdrmn 009.jpg

Anyone connect this to multiple pins yet?

Yes, I set the sub between two pins and one RCA goes in the right and the other goes in the left.
Works great and both pins can be played at the same time.

You will find the sound much cleaner if you run the pin's speaker to the sub's Speaker Level Input, instead of the RCA inputs.

So has nobody tried taking the Polk's guts out of the box and mounting it in the pin itself? I've just ordered one and this is my plan. Simply replace the sub with the 10" speaker (yeah, I know it's bigger than the hole) and relocate the amp section into the pinball cabinet. Might remove the studs for the current speaker or just space above them if there's room, not sure yet. Then just find a way to wire in a 110V outlet to switched power inside the cabinet.

Any reason this won't work?

--Donnie

I believe a factor in a sub's sound quality is the cabinet. Of course the speaker and electronic crossover are also important factors, the sonic engineering of the electronics is based on the combination of the speaker and cabinet. Therefore, the idea of removing the cabinet from the Polk PSW10 may work to a certain extent, but probably not as good. However, it'll be interesting for you to do a before and after test.

The amp circuit is "tuned" (some might say "EQ"ed) to that speaker driver in that enclosure with that porting.

If you move the speaker to a larger box, it won't be able to drive and excite the same frequencies that it could in it's own custom box.

I've had external subs hooked up for a couple years. I recall someone on RGP saying that if I wanted to make it sound even better, I should use the RCA inputs. I haven't tried it yet, but was going to attempt to do it soon. You're saying I should continue to run speaker wires from my pinball sub (just using alligator clips) to the speaker level inputs? Do not use the RCA inputs?

Oh sure. There's no doubt about that. I may try it before I do the conversion just to see if I can tell the difference. But like I've posted in another thread, there's zero chance I'm using it externally. I just don't want the thing sitting under the cabinet. I'm not condoning those that don't mind, it's just not for me.

I guarantee that there will be a quite noticeable increase in performance with adding the amp and higher quality speaker, even if it isn't as good as having a sub in a ported and tuned box. The amp circuit in the machine itself is crap for making much bass, period.

--Donnie

The cabinet the sub is in makes a difference though... also the sub being on the floor makes a big difference as well.. keep these in mind.

Also, the RCA VS Speaker wire will not make a difference in the sound.. the speaker wire approach is fine, you can use the clips or just splice the new speaker wire into the existing and that works fine too.. that is what I have done on each sub.

Err, if you plug the speaker level outputs into the RCA input you're going to over-drive the input at all but the most modest of volumes. The speaker level inputs are much better attentuated and protected from over-driving (assuming a well designed amplifier, anyway).

And as I said, I know the sub being in its cabinet is better. I'm saying putting it inside the pinball machine is going to be "better enough" for me to not live with the downside of having the thing dangling on the floor with extra cables and crap to deal with when I want to move it around, and more to clean around.

--Donnie

Yes.

The RCA inputs are expecting a max of 2v input (they call this low level input).

But your pin might be sending 12v to that poor RCA input, giving a more distorted (overloaded) sound.

The speaker level inputs OTOH can accept up to 50v input, they are designed to accept a high level source, and thus produce a more clean sound from the pin speaker connection.

I know some people like distorted bass (I hear their crappy car sub boxes buzzing along every day on the street), but once you get an "ear" for nice, tight bass, you will never go back.

Do you or any of your home theater friends have a db meter?

It would be fun to compare how much more output the proper enclosure will develop over the pin cabinet.

I do have a dB meter.

But I don't care that much. It's not about "how much" I can get. It's about improving the subwoofer of the stock one by a decent amount, which I'm sure any high quality cone and halfway decent amplifier will do. I know you can do better. I could connect one of my Aerial subs to it if I wanted to, but I'm not. It's worth about $80 to improve my sub *some* as long as it doesn't dangle out of the bottom. And I still *almost* balked because I'm going to have to hack the AC wiring inside to get some switched 110V power. Not that I can't do that hacking, just that I don't want to do it in a non-reversible way if I can easily do that, so it'll take a little time.

--Donnie

C'mon, it's science!

How would you propose we have the machine give us some consistent bass to give a repeatable and stable reading?

--Donnie

Leave the volume control at X level.

Go into the sound test and find a nice bass heavy sample.

Measure 3 feet away with the sub pulled far away from the wall (so we don't get any boundary reinforcement).

Measure 3 feet away with the sub replacement after installation in the cab.

-

Best to leave the subwoofer in one piece, the whole point is its designed to work as a cube, not just a single large speaker. Plus you'll likely rattle your pin. It's un noticible under the pin. I have all kinds of crap under my pins such as lift cart, empty computer box etc..,

Thank you. I'm glad I read this thread as I was going to attempt this shortly.

Hahaha. Some would say it's "best" not to mod your pin at all. *shrug*

--Donnie