They clank no matter what you do. The open box is the main reason.

Swap in a Gottlieb or even Bally box is about the only solution.

If you're really industrious, you can tune the bars yourself - basically, you shorten them until you get the tone you desire.

Just a curiosity - since Wms sound clunky anyhow, how would wooden xylophone sound? Clunkier?

Those might sound cool in a game like Jungle Lord or something along that theme...

I'd just rebuild. The clanky William's chimes are all part of the experience for me.

What's important in getting good tone out of any chime is to get the right length of chime based on the spacing of the mounting points. Ideally the two mounting points of the chime are near the two nodes where the chime doesn't actually vibrate. Any longer or shorter and the tone will be compromised or muted.

It's the same principle as a guitar string. You can touch a guitar string at the harmonic points and still get it to play, but touching it anywhere else will mute it.

To better illustrate what's happening there's a short video at the bottom of this page to show the nodes in a vibrating chime: https://www.funwithpinball.com/learn/chimes-vibrations-and-pitches

Hi
I remember the arcade rooms back in the 1970ies (here in Switzerland) - jolly atmosphere - quite a few chimes - or from older machines the sound of the bell (bells) - and the Knockers were knocking here and there.
Now I own some pins - but mostly play alone or with one visitor --- odd / strange just one bell or one chime. EMs (for me) are noisy enough without chimes / bells --- usually I have them disconnected - or even have pins without a chime.
An American in Germany - read here https://www.chimeunit.com/about_us . And here https://www.chimeunit.com/chime-units we see the chimes he offers (?). (((Over the years I now and then bought me Williams or Gottlieb chimes in EBay - for 100 to 140 Swiss Francs - roughly the same in Euros (Germany), same in US-Dollars.)))
Disclaimer - or such words: I do not know this man - I do not know if he (still) sells his (new) chimes - I do not know if he ships to USA / outside of Germany - and I also have never heard one of his chimes. Greetings Rolf

I put a Gottlieb unit in my Grand Prix. Experimenting with hook up, basically one way the low is the predominate sound, the other is high. I like it with the high predominate, sounds smooth.
Going to rebuild the Williams unit for another machine that needs the clanky character.

I rebuilt my Liberty Bell chimes with the PBR kit, and the end result was much better than expected. I'd agree it's not quite as good as Gottlieb, but not nearly as bad as I expected from what you usually read.

Alternatively, if you have your spinners pretty juiced, consider just unplugging the chime unit. The sound of score reels turning over at lightspeed when you rip a spinner is a great sound in itself, and is unique to these late-70s Williams EMs.

Yep. Back in the day when I walked into an arcade with my friends I could tell just by the sounds what kind of the machines the had, and they all sounded sweet because of the variety and it was time to have fun!

The big 4 companies pinball machines all had different sounding chimes which is part of what makes pinball great, variety.

If all the pinball machines back in the day had Gottlieb chimes, at least for me the sounds of arcades would not ring with as much fun. Kinda like going to an amusement park and all you hear is the sound of roller coasters, sure they are fun, but what about the other rides sounds? Most were cool and fun sounding as well.

Bottom line for me anyways: A Williams that sounds like a Gottlieb does not sound right because that is not how it originally came out of the factory.

Just my 2 cents.

You could always put a Chicago coin door bell chime in it

Too bad Chicago Coin got cheap and went to the ding dong doorbells for sound in the mid 70's. The metal chime box they used in the early 70's like on Casino was a pretty sweet setup and sound with the wooden blocks toning the chime bars.

Has anyone researched/confirmed if Williams chimes were designed properly with respect to this node spacing?

Those are all good points fatpanda. I've only had one Williams EM so I've never done anything other than rehab it's original unit.

Would be nice to see what a homemade tone box, home Depot aluminum bars and maybe repositioning of the mounts and coils could accomplish. I am not a fan of taking Gottlieb assemblies for use in non-Gottlieb games.

My previous statement was wrong. Gottlieb chimes have gradually increasing dimension between posts from the 10s to 100s to 1000s.

Fatpanda was correct.

Question regarding mounting hardware. Has anyone found a better material for the mounting points to get better sound than with the standard rubber? I have seen a number of odd "hacks" of the mounting, from using play field post rubber, to metal washers, to plastic. Didn't really play with hearing how they sounded, just replaced.

I rebuilt mine with the rebuild kit from Marco. It no longer "clanks" like it did when I received it.

I think the key is the bit of heat-shrink-tubing-like material that hugs the mounting posts. It isolates the sound bars from the post. More importantly it keeps the retaining bar (not the sound bar) and the retaining pin spaced above the sound bar allowing it to ring.

I also think the material of the washer under the sound bar is important to the ring. Too hard or too soft and the ring may change.

My 74 Bally chime mounts have different spacing for each bar

Williams DC flippers will give you plenty of power. A rebuild kit makes a difference for sure but half the time I find a clean and properly adjusted EOS switch is what really makes the biggest improvement.

I will say that when the rebound rubber wears out on a Gottlieb chime and you hear the constant metal to metal contact, it sounds worse than any Williams chime unit.

Back to William's chimes. I am refurb'ing an OXO. Have had problems with previous William's chime boxes sounding bad. So tried something new. Put the chime bar grommets that normally fit tightly inside the holes of the bars, on the posts first. Then put the bar on top of the grommet. Cut the plastic post sleeve in half to shorten it, then put the small metal retainer bar and long pin on top of the cut sleeve. This isolates the chime bar from the retainer bar, and lets the chime bar kind of float on the grommet. Sound was much better on all three lengths of chime. Still not a Gottlieb, or anywhere near the 3 and 4 inch bells in my 1960's Mayfair, but better than normal for Williams.

Uh that's not true. Williams chimes hit in the middle. Not the end.

Not true on William's Grand Prix. The solenoids are on one end of the bars.

I am here to correct my mis statement. The Gottlieb chimes have different spacing for each tone. I swore I had reassembled one backwards.

So that explains why the Gottlieb chimes sound so good.

Sorry for the mistake.

I'm in the middle of cleaning up a Grand Prix, and now that the cabinet has been painted I'm starting on repopulating it. This thread has been helpful as I'm looking to rebuild the chime box next week.

Do you recommend a rebuild kit from PBR or marco, or simply go the Home Depot route and use the washers and shrink tubing?
IMG_20190604_132314_01 (resized).jpg
(shameless attachment because I"m happy how it turned out )

-Paul

Absolutely. No scrounging or improvising needed.

Try leaving off the silicone washer between the chime and retaining bars. Use the tube around the post to create a gap between the two bars. Yes they click together when the chime bar is struck, but only for a split second. This helped the sound of mine on OXO.

Do you heat-shrink the tubing? I don't see any directions that tell me to do so.

Oh that's interesting, I wonder if mine is wrong, because my smallest and largest chime bars are switched, the smallest being next to the wall mounting.