Hi all,
I just received my 2nd pin ever, a brand new 2005 Stern Sopranos. It was only recently unboxed and played. I am trying to figure out if the audio quality of the machine is what I should expect or if there is an issue. My concerns:
- There is a low white noise when the machine is idle.
- The audio sounds rolled of on the high end and muffled/very low end heavy/boomy. Everything just feels dull.
- The voices are also crunchy/distorted sounding.
- The S's and F's of the actors words are super muffled. More like 'SSHH' or 'FFHH' with the annunciation of those letters
- The setting to decrease the background music seems to do nothing. I've left it at default 1 then moved all the way to 15 and I cannot hear a difference in level.
- All speakers are producing sound but everything seems mono
- The speaker test (described below) doesn't follow what's described aka I can't figure out how to test different speakers the way it's described
The ROMs are stock CPU: 3.02, Display 3.00. Nothing in the 5.00 readme file leads me to believe any audio changes were made after 3.00.
I don't have another machine to compare it to besides my JP LE / SPIKE system. It's very clear sounding vs the Sopranos. It's difficult to gauge the difference if any from the youtube gameplay videos out there but I feel like the ones I've watched sound more "vibrant" than my machine.
Would someone familiar with Whitestar audio be able to evaluate/tell me if this is the expected audio quality out of the box aka if this is just how 2005 Stern machines sounded back then? Or does this not seem quite right & perhaps something is wrong? Please let me know if there are any steps or troubleshooting I can do or if there's anything on the board I should post pictures of.
Here's a short video from the Speaker test diagnostics. The manual states something about being able to test each speaker/different sine wavs but I don't see these options. All I can find is the options shown in this video. In fact I'm not even sure if this is outputting stereo or mono. Hopefully you can hear what I'm describing. Really appreciate it guys.
From the manual (In bold are the statements I don't understand/see in the SPKR diag menu):
"To initiate, from the DIAGNOSTICS MENU, select the "SPKR" Icon with either the Red "LEFT" or Green
"RIGHT" Buttons and press the Black "ENTER" Button. The BSMT 2000 Sound System produces
true digital stereo sound from Backbox & Cabinet Speakers or "Mono" on the Cabinet Speaker (when
used by itself). After selecting this Icon, select the "-" or "+" Mini-Icons and press the Black "ENTER" Button to
activate the first test. Repeat to visually see & hear all tests. Select the "RUN" Mini-Icon to activate the test
chosen without moving to the next test.
Note: During Sound Tests, the display shows the speaker identification and the corresponding sound(s). The
sound functions allow verification that both channels are functioning properly & that the speaker connections are
correct.
Connections to each of speakers are polarized and each must be connected appropriately for the best quality
sound. If one speaker has the positive and negative connections reversed with respect to the other one, bass
frequencies will not be produced properly and the overall sound quality will be poor. To test for proper speaker
phasing, use the sound test to cycle through the Backbox & Cabinet, and Backbox Sine (repeated) functions. If
the Cabinet Sine produces more volume and bass than the Left Sine, the speakers are connected properly. If it
produces the same or less, one speaker is connected improperly. To isolate and correct reversed speaker
connections, one of two methods may be used..."