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Pinsound? worth it?

Silverpaolo

Silverpaolo

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Joined
Sep 17, 2020
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Burnley
hi

thinking of giving my jm a sound upgrade during the refurb process , how do people rate the upgrade ? eg value for money is it worth it ? the kit looks to give the machine a serious upgrade ? any thoughts or advice appreciated thanks
 
Definitely worth it for film license pins - but research the mixes available first. It’s a mammoth job to do your own.

I just went for the board and speakers on mine. Replacing 30 year old speakers is good by itself.
 
Pick Holder said:
YES

But buy car speakers - dont waste your money on pinsound speakers.

Just remember to wire the backbox up with new cables in stereo.

Pick Holder said:
YES

But buy car speakers - dont waste your money on pinsound speakers.

Just remember to wire the backbox up with new cables in stereo.

They do a 2.1 cable kit but it is easy to make.

Also do not get the strip down version on pinsound. You really need the bass/treble controls.
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They do a 2.1 cable kit but it is easy to make.

Also do not get the strip down version on pinsound. You really need the bass/treble controls.
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so the plus board then the one where you can tweak the bass etc ?
 
The hardware is great but worth signing up to the pin sound site and checking out the available packs first, I got one but went back to the OG board as I wasn't really into the remixed versions.
 
Silverpaolo said:
its the full kit new speakers and sub, new board, shaker motor etc full jazz
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I went for the full kit minus the headphone add on on my T2. Definitely one of the best upgrades I did. I’d go for the PinSound Plus as well.

Really good bit of kit. I had to turn the shaker setting down to 1 from 2 though as it was shaking the **** out of everything in the room 😂

I do agree though, I would check out to see what sound packs are available for your game, as some are questionable imo.
 
Ant-H said:
I went for the full kit on my T2. Definitely one of the best upgrades I did. I’d go for the PinSound Plus as well.

Really good bit of kit. I had to turn the shaker setting down to 1 from 2 though as it was shaking the **** out of everything in the room 😂

I do agree though, I would check out to see what sound packs are available for your game, as some are questionable imo.
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Thanks ant … it looks a great bit of kit
 
Pinsound on Creech, STTNG and I’ve heard it on BSD, they all have very good mixes available to download in stereo. I also have BOP fitted with one which has cool mixes of synth depeche mode/eurythmics tracks played in the background. O’h and my Party Zone has one too!
 
no no and no. We have them on a few games at the club and they are all a freaking nightmare with not loading right some sounds too loud or too quiet.
 
I have one and the shaker on my LOTR, great upgrade. If you get one make sure it comes with the stereo 2.1 cable, mine was included with the board. If you don't have this when you install the sound files with a USB thumb drive it doesn't play the sound to confirm is loading and then ready through the original audio channel. It took me a while to figure out what was going on when I first hooked it up as I didn't wire that in until I had the new speakers.

I upgraded the speakers with some car audio units worked a treat, just try to get some high sensitivity ones (Db per meter)
 
adbex1 said:
I have one and the shaker on my LOTR, great upgrade. If you get one make sure it comes with the stereo 2.1 cable, mine was included with the board. If you don't have this when you install the sound files with a USB thumb drive it doesn't play the sound to confirm is loading and then ready through the original audio channel. It took me a while to figure out what was going on when I first hooked it up as I didn't wire that in until I had the new speakers.

I upgraded the speakers with some car audio units worked a treat, just try to get some high sensitivity ones (Db per meter)
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Thank you
 
I had this issue with volume balance, I found you could adjust it a bit by adjusting the settings in the machines menus.
Neil McRae said:
no no and no. We have them on a few games at the club and they are all a freaking nightmare with not loading right the audio settings in the machines menus. You can mess about with the file on pin sound audio editor software as well.some sounds too loud or too quiet.
Click to expand...
 
Silverpaolo said:
hi

thinking of giving my jm a sound upgrade during the refurb process , how do people rate the upgrade ? eg value for money is it worth it ? the kit looks to give the machine a serious upgrade ? any thoughts or advice appreciated thanks
Click to expand...
It's great, the ultimate package is fantastic, I would strongly recommend the headphone option as you can change the soundtracks easily with it. It does depend on the game wether the sounds vastly improved, i find you get the most out of it with licenced themes. You can also customise the sounds yourself if you wish.
 
Neil McRae said:
no no and no. We have them on a few games at the club and they are all a freaking nightmare with not loading right some sounds too loud or too quiet.
Click to expand...
That's easy to fix, you can adjust this in one of the files it's just the gain isn't set correctly in terms of preference. Adjust the numbers up or down in the text file and copy it back to the usb stick.
 
or you can stick with the cool 90's pinball sounds and not have to fix anything!
 
I am a mixed bag.. I fitted pin sound in my ToM.
There are only 2 mixes available, the original which even with the new speakers sounds exactly the same
And another mix, with some Harry Potter stuff in it.. but that's far from excellent
I should have researched content more before I bought it

Does anyone have a good mix for ToM ?

So now I am considering either removing it and fitting it in my BoP or
buying a second one for by BoP in the hope that a nice ToM mix gets heated in the future

(I wish I had the time and skills to make a fun mix for ToM)
 
I prefer the original sound in most machines. There may be some games do sound a bit better but most i have bought with upgraded sounds tended to be far too loud and too much bass . A lot of money for a poorer sound and potential hassle in my opinion. There is just so much stuff getting chucked at machines these days that we seem to be getting away from the game itself. Is it actually any good fun to play when you past the rubbish overpriced add ons..........
 
Tidy Technician said:
I am a mixed bag.. I fitted pin sound in my ToM.
There are only 2 mixes available, the original which even with the new speakers sounds exactly the same
And another mix, with some Harry Potter stuff in it.. but that's far from excellent
I should have researched content more before I bought it

Does anyone have a good mix for ToM ?

So now I am considering either removing it and fitting it in my BoP or
buying a second one for by BoP in the hope that a nice ToM mix gets heated in the future

(I wish I had the time and skills to make a fun mix for ToM)
Click to expand...
ToM isn't a machine I would fit pinsound in neither BoP. Unless you have a faulty sound card or boards where pinsound resolves this. Unless you want to create your own custom mix. For example high-speed 2 has a prodigy mix done for it, which is great rather than the terrible 80's console music.

I personally find Pinsound works best on machines that are based on existing TV or film assets. LoTR original sound is great, however pinsound takes it to another level and I would never go back. Terminator 2 is so much better with pinsound rather than the bleeps. At the time it wasn't possible to create the full orchestral sound in the 90's.
Indiana Jones, pirates of the Caribbean are also other machines that benefit alot from it.
 
Tidy Technician said:
I am a mixed bag.. I fitted pin sound in my ToM.
There are only 2 mixes available, the original which even with the new speakers sounds exactly the same
And another mix, with some Harry Potter stuff in it.. but that's far from excellent
I should have researched content more before I bought it

Does anyone have a good mix for ToM ?

So now I am considering either removing it and fitting it in my BoP or
buying a second one for by BoP in the hope that a nice ToM mix gets heated in the future

(I wish I had the time and skills to make a fun mix for ToM)
Click to expand...
Fit it to BOP.. can’t remember who supplied the the mix. Keeps all the original sound affects and call-outs etc but some ace backing music.
 
cmrl9 said:
I personally find Pinsound works best on machines that are based on existing TV or film assets. LoTR original sound is great, however pinsound takes it to another level and I would never go back. Terminator 2 is so much better with pinsound rather than the bleeps. At the time it wasn't possible to create the full orchestral sound in the 90's.
Indiana Jones, pirates of the Caribbean are also other machines that benefit alot from it.
Click to expand...
Yeah I agree that it it’s definitely better imo in games with TV/Film themes. IJ sounds great with a PinSound
 
Buyers guide for pinsound:

- only buy the pinsound + board. It's the only board you can adjust the gains for low, mid, treble. Out of the box it can be bass heavy, being able to adjust this to your particular preference makes a huge difference.

- adjust the volume in the machine to far higher than you would normally have it set at. You adjust the volume on the pinsound card not on the machine. Think of the built in volume control as the gain on a mixer.

-buy the headphone adaptor, you can adjust the volume easily and change the mixes without mucking around. You don't have to moutlnt it to the leg you can put it where the coin box is.

-only buy the usb stick that they recommend. From personal experience the board sensitive to usb size and the way it's formatted. If you have an issue reformat on a Windows box with fat32.

-for best results only buy it for machines that have existing assets. This would be any film or TV theme. You will then get the best result. Putting it in a ToM, ToTAN won't make any or much difference, unless you have missing sound cards and can't get original ones. A pinsound board is far better than a rottendog.

-you can create original mixes and themes, the software to do this is free and included. I have seen some great ones. Look around on pinside to find custom ones. Due to licencing issues you won't find them all on the website.

-when fitting be extra careful taking out the CPU chip. The card is also sensitive to the ribbon cable. If it's not working swap the ends around.
 
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