On the topic of Bluetooth support... thought I'd mention that I hooked up an older Yamaha ATS-1060 sound bar that we bought at Costco several years ago. The specs say it has bluetooth "v2.1 + EDR" (whatever that means) and it's been working flawlessly. So maybe that's a clue? Perhaps the gear inside the pinball machine is more reliable with an older Bluetooth device?

Having played with the Bluetooth a little bit now I have to say I like the fact that the pinball machine remembers what volume you were at for the Bluetooth versus the built-in speakers. It is kind of a bummer that when you hit the Bluetooth button on the front of the pinball machine, the pinball machine doesn't automatically reconnect to something that you connected to previously but I really have to hand it to Keith and company for the way they implemented the Bluetooth connection menus on the screen, it is very intuitive and easy to use.

All in all, using the sound bar which I just placed on top of the head is really working great for me, and the sound is damn good. I also have a subwoofer-out RCA port on the back of the sound bar which I connected up to a 12-in powered sub that sits underneath my pinball machines, but it's almost not even necessary because this particular sound bar does have a pretty decent bottom end.

I agree with you 100%

That said, this is my first JJP pin in the 'Lawlor' redesigned cabinet. I had no idea just how much they'd broken the premium calibre sound platform as compared to e.g. THLE. Literally. WOZ and THLE are night and day better on this front. Bummer, but we can't live in the past.

I'm having a blast with it nevertheless. Love the light shows! It's just such a stark contrast (sound-quality wise) when I switch from e.g. R&M or TBL (or ever DPLE) over to GNRLE.

On the upside, oh boy am I having fun just staring at it while in jukebox mode. We really love live music here and the videos plus lightshows are such a great, unexpected feature. I made some short recordings of them to share with non pinheads and they think I'm nuts but yeah, cool stuff.

Yes it's awesome. When enabled in settings the jukebox starts up right after you power up the machine, and any time you're not in a game it picks a song and goes on again.

If you want to stop it, just hold the Action button till you see confirmation on screen.

Here are some examples, each are a minute or two's worth:

November Rain

Live and Let Die

Coma:

I can address these, one at a time...

Does it make a big difference
It makes a difference, but of course YMMV due to differences in brands, sizes, features etc of various sound bars. For example, highdef uses a similar but smaller soundbar than mine, and he is saying that even though his smaller one doesn't have discreet tweeters in it, it sounds good. That's a plus because the one I happened to have lying around is wider than the head of the pinball machine, which looks a bit off. I did just buy a cheap, off-brand soundbar that's 32" to test with as a potential long-term solution. I'll be messing with it later today and if it's any good I'll report back.

Does it sound good
Damn good, but IMO because it is situated above your head it won't be as impactful as other cabinet designs where a high-quality and amplified 2-way driver is installed aside the DMD/LCD display. It is difficult to make comparisons because it isn't a music pin but FWIW my R&M sounds clearer during gameplay. I hesitate to say that if R&M was playing music it would beat the soundbar atop GNR but it's possible. What I can tell you is that when I have the soundbar active on GNR and the volume is up it certainly fills the room. Not sure but that might annoy whoever is nearby playing a different pin. Just food for thought.

Does it automatically pair when you turn the game on
No. When the game comes on the internal cabinet audio is active. You have to hit the button that's on the left side of the coin door to make the change to use bluetooth every time you boot up the machine. You then need to use the BT config menu to select the soundbar as the source to connect to every time. This is something I hope they can add to what's currently in place - namely the ability for it to automatically re-connect to the last-used device if you simply hit the button on the cab.

Does it work in conjunction with the back box speakers
no. if you connect to bluetooth it silences all internal audio.

Is there a delay
Not that I can see/pick up on, no.

Finally, on the topic of splitting the signal coming off the motherboard... a couple of things come to mind which I observed during testing. First off, the intensity of the line-level signal takes a hit when you use a simple 'Y' splitter. The line-level signal also takes a hit when it passes thru the ground loop isolator. (it just does, it's seems unavoidable.) Soooo, when I use a simple Y splitter and configured both halves of the signal to employ a ground loop isolator, I found that it was difficult to get the overall volume to where I wanted it. As another Pinsider mentioned earlier, the better approach is to use a headphone amp with multiple outputs as opposed to the simple Y splitter. They start at about $25 on Amazon, I just don't have one to test with. Of course the point of wiring a soundbar up this way (as opposed to via bluetooth) would be to make it so you could send the signal to the soundbar via an aux input on the soundbar, avoiding the need to re-connect via bluetooth. Be careful though, as many modern soundbars don't include an aux input nowadays. One other advantage to choosing bluetooth for the soundbar connection is that many soundbars also integrate DSPs that expand the theoretically compressed audio being shared via bluetooth. In theory, and with all else equal, for some soundbars it could just 'sound better' if you play it via bluetooth.

I suspect that's a question for JJP support because what will work must surely depend on what hardware the OS can recognize, and that is likely all up to what Keith & Co chose to load into the image... shouldn't it?

What's the make/model of the dongle you swapped in?

ha. PinMonk beat me by 15 seconds.

Guess I'll go see if mine is gonna work. Been using bluetooth a bunch but hadn't bothered with wifi.

--- update ---
Wifi setup worked on first try. I connected it to our guest network which only runs on the 2.4Ghz band and does require a case-sensitive password. It authenticated using WPA2 with no problem. We have ASUS routers in mesh but I suspect from where it is located in the house it likely used our RT-AC5300 access point as that is closest.

After updating to the new bits the first thing I noticed was the improvements they made to jukebox mode. I'm stoked.

Shuffle used to always start with the same song - Estranged, and after three weeks like this I was hearing that song in my sleep, so this is a relief! They also improved the song-title overlay to something more befitting this amazing machine. These little touches really speak to their dedication. Now I just need to Play Better.

FWIW, this hasn't been my experience for about 90% of the re-connections via bluetooth.

I did, on one night, have a tough time re-pairing a previously paired soundbar. It just wasn't coming up in the list of 'available devices' onscreen, so I power-cycled the game and tried it again, but same thing. (Using my smartphone to confirm, I knew the soundbar was available but the pin wasn't seeing it.) I power-cycled it yet again and yep, there it was.

I could also swear that sometimes the list appears to be cached versus real-time but yeah, having spent a couple of weeks trying out roughly six different products, a process that involved me connecting a new one, then disconnecting, switching it out for another one, re-connecting, going back to the first one, etc. etc. etc. I'm here to tell ya that my experience hasn't been the same as yours. (All while the pinball was up and running - none of this swapping in/out required me to bounce the system save for that one time I described above.) Note that one soudbar was clearly incompatible. No clue why but it was tough to pair and once I did get it to pair the audio was absolutely corrupted and cut out completely at least 80% of the time. The rest were fine.

I agree it would be great to get this sorted. What would really be better than just making sure the list of available devices is consistent would be to introduce an option to set one as preferred so that when we re-power up the game the device will reconnect automatically.

Will it be an issue for me long-term? Probably not because I figure that now that I'm pretty much done and have made my selection I will change the connection to wired and it won't matter anymore. I left it as wireless so I could always go back to the internal speakers for comparison with what I thought would ultimately succeed them.

Is it just me? (and yes, it might be) -- I find that OOTB Axl's vocals are simply too dominant. Certain pitches he frequently sings in seem way too loud, comparatively speaking. I wasn't under the impression that they were high-enough to be picked up by the tweeters but perhaps yes?

Suffice it to say that's what pushed me down the soundbar path in the first place. Now that I've gone there I will add that the addition of more bass is also a plus but, yeah, maybe my ears are just overly sensitive to the octave Axl sings in? IDK.

OTOH, if JJP would add even a rudimentary parametric equalizer to the settings menu (or find a way to expose anything that the audio circuitry has built-in like DSP pre-sets) I'd bet that would suffice too.

Anybody have any ideas regarding a homebrew topper for their LE?

Right now I've got this sound bar up there, held in place via some straps that connect to two of the countersunk bolts that help mount the built-in speaker enclosure to the head.

I'm not 100% sure I need something with another copy of the GNR logo that you see on the backglass... so, what else might tie in well?

PXL_20210130_235049378 (resized).jpg

Mirror blades look good and my old eyes appreciate the small amount of extra reflected light that they contribute too.

I found there was plenty of room to install the set with the pf in the upright position, and there's also a little side to side play that you can use to your advantage when installing. Meaning that you can move the pf oh, maybe a quarter of an inch towards the opposite side to make it easier to work the blades into position, then switch sides and do the same thing.

I had some poor-man's mirror blades still in a box from easily seven years ago. Took them out and saw the fit was close but not perfect so I grabbed a pair of tin snips from the garage and trimmed the top-back corner of the blades so they would fit.

Like I said, these were early, experimental ones. Are the real ones sold these days not made of a material that can be trimmed similarly? (I'm asking not to troll but because I'm envious of how mirror-perfect the ones sold today seem to be.)

Does it auto-reconnect to the pin when you power the game back up? I noted that in the features list but I am sorta thinking that the pin needs to support this as well. LMK.

Between last night and today I must have failed a dozen times to get the download to be successful over wifi. It kept seeming to time out and return itself to the 'check for update' stage. That caused me to question the quality of my wireless network, etc and leads to this question - on the Network Status screen (see pic below), sometimes it reports on the health of the wifi connection including security method (e.g. WPA2), signal strength and data rate. What I'm curious about is what the value for strength is reporting - is it on a scale of 0-100 or is it reporting the strength in terms of dBm? So for example on mine, just now, it was reporting 90. If that's strength on a scale of 0-100 then yaay me, 90th percentile. But if the value should be read as -90dBm, well, that's terrible. Hence the need to know.

BTW - unfortunately on 1.12 it only reported those wifi signal-related stats if you made an initial connection to your wifi network during the session. In other words, for a reconnect to an already established connection those values are blank. Tell it to forget the connection and re-establish and they come right back. So, if you are looking on your system and see these as unpopulated, now you know why.

Finally, for folks keeping score... on my LE and using a wired ethernet connection the download of 1.13 took ten minutes or less, and after the reboot, the stage that reads, 'Finishing Update' also took less than ten minutes to complete.

PXL_20210211_025750235 (resized).jpg

Just to be crystal clear, if/when the download fails to complete then this error-state can't happen, can it?

Three nights ago, with coin door left open, my repeated attempts to download 1.13 were not finishing and at some point the system was reverting to 'check for update' which didn't adversely affect the state of the overall system, it just wasn't getting an update to either be applied, or (if the installation never began) to goof up the timing and cause the 'finishing update' stage to kick in at the wrong time.

w/r/t the actual download process... If there is a timeout coded in, how long is it and could you add anything that would indicate what had happened as opposed to just returning to the 'check for update' message?

I'm pretty sure it is mentioned in this article as well:
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-lists/50-wildest-guns-n-roses-moments-149883/

BTW, that's a fun read. I never even knew the article existed till last week.

Nice write-up MT45 and I bet that sounds really great. It looks great too.

As you did, I also noticed that the line-out sound level coming off the PC's motherboard is really low. However Bluetooth is not, in fact it is about twice as strong per my highly unscientific analysis which involved looking at where the on-screen horizontal volume-slider level needs to be set when using line-out in order for it to approximate what you get when connected via Bluetooth. In essence, if you put the line-out volume to 98% the Bluetooth will match it when it is set to about 50%. No idea what's going on there, but yeah.

FWIW, for my solution, and because the LEs lack that sweet mounting plate that you have on your CE, I found an amplified sound bar (on Amazon: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B08DYZB8PC/ ) that is 30" across and sits almost even with the width of the head itself on its small rubber feet. Best I could do, but still a notable improvement over stock. It also comes with a wireless 'woofer' (I think the driver is 5" so yeah, won't call it a subwoofer but at least it makes itself heard) while also allowing for an external powered sub, like the Polks that are popular here, to also be connected and active at the same time as all the rest which was perfect for what I needed.

Yours sure looks sweet

PXL_20210214_195807181.MP (resized).jpg

Bluetooth is indeed a tad out of sync. I hear that JJP is aware and plans to address it.

While playing the game it isn't noticeable at all, so whenever they get to it is fine, there are surely more pressing aspects of their software dev that should/will come first. Give it a try, and LMK if your results are not the same as mine... (if the volume levels aren't noticeably different when you use the external volume control to set bluetooth vol vs analog.)

FWIW I would prioritize adding an option/preference to auto-reconnect a paired BT connection over the latter. That addition, IMHO would be immediately beneficial because the quarter-second lag isn't noticeable during gameplay, at all.

First time I plugged into ethernet it auto-detected, got a DHCP address and I thought I was GTG. I flipped over to the update code menu and it failed. I went back to the network status (topmost menu) and it said network disconnected. I believe you can restart the network on that menu - somewhere I found that option - and after that, it stayed stable and I was truly able to use the network. See if yours is the same.

I sold my AC\DC LE to buy GNR LE and am not disappointed at all. The sound-system in particular is over the top better. It's what I'd dreamed AC\DC could be like, but back in 2012 Stern just wasn't interested in amping up the sound processor and amplifier. Sure they added a 12" sub to the cabinet's BOM but that really didn't do it.

First thing to really blow me away was the video-jukebox attract mode plus the lightshows. OMG. And the in-game songs each being different in terms of light shows, shaker integration, overall difficulty is just great.

The only downside to this pin is the fact that I've had one GNR song or another stuck in my head constantly since I took delivery of this impressive machine. Not a complaint, just an annoyance and proof that this thing gets under your skin. I knew and liked oh, maybe five of their chart toppers prior to owning this pin. Now I've really come to love a few I'd never even heard before like:
- Coma
- My Michelle
- Better
- It's so easy
- Out ta get me

I'd really like an AFD album-jacket to use as a topper. I've already bought the remastered 2-disc CD but yeah, want vinyl.

Don't forget that in lieu of Wi-Fi, if you have a long enough network cable you can use the ethernet jack on the motherboard to cable it up to a nearby LAN wall jack, ethernet switch or router. The machine will autoconnect and use DHCP for an IP address and after that, the online software-update menu option works exactly the same as if you were using Wi-Fi.

Dangit now I'm more pissed we didn't make it to one of their shows. I'm always happy to see a band paying homage to their contemporaries via the inclusion of a cover or three in their sets. To me it just reinforces the idea that they're musicians because they love music and they recognize that great songs an audience will enjoy do not necessarily all have to be their own.

Was at Costco Friday and saw they've dropped the price of their Klipsch 400W 12" subs to $150.

Overkill is good. Just saying.

When I installed my set (from a different mfr) I did need to trim some material off the top rear edge so that I could get the blade to line up. Tin snips FTW.

You're not doing anything wrong. The game, when in shuffle, ALWAYS starts with Estranged. (which drives me crazy too)

The good news is you can mash on the action button (on the lockbar) to immediately skip to the next shuffle song and that one, and all the rest, will be random.