Subwoofer in an MVS cabinet?

Billkwando

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Hello all!

I've been thinking a lot about putting a subwoofer in my MVS cab lately (really a Dynamo HS-5). It sounds like it would be a neat thing to do. I thought it would be cool to throw it in the back of the cab, behind the coinbox, so the bass would be coming from inside.

I have an old Sony passive sub I had wanted to use, but is it correct to assume the Neo (MV-1) wouldn't be able to drive it? It's 8ohm, and then there's the other issue of combining the stereo channels to input into the sub, which I've heard you can't do w/o potential damage, unless you add a 10k resistor to each channel. Is this correct?

I started assuming that a powered sub would be the what I need, to avoid the channel combining and (ostensibly?) wrong ohms of my passive sub.

Soooo, I started looking at cheap/used subs, and ran across something in the manual of an old Sony I was interested in that gave me serious pause (having memories of what a TV that needs degaussing looks like):

1652657319900.png

That's when I started to think maybe it wasn't such a good idea at all......

Is there any way to make it work w/o potentially wrecking my beautiful and perfectly functioning WG monitor? Am I worrying too much, or just enough?

Are modern subs (this one was a pretty old one, I think) any less magnetic?

Thanks for any thoughts you have to share!
 

DaisyAge

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AFAIK they dont get any less magnetic. The old ones are more likely to be magnetically shielded than newer ones because digital signals aren't affected by magnets. FWIW, I don't think it's worth putting a sub in a cab. I tried it with one of my and between it being muddy (crossover issues) it was too powerful and rattled the hell out of the cabinet. If it's a small sub maybe but it really didn't impress me.
 

Billkwando

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AFAIK they dont get any less magnetic. The old ones are more likely to be magnetically shielded than newer ones because digital signals aren't affected by magnets. FWIW, I don't think it's worth putting a sub in a cab. I tried it with one of my and between it being muddy (crossover issues) it was too powerful and rattled the hell out of the cabinet. If it's a small sub maybe but it really didn't impress me.
Thanks for the reply! Too bad the Unibios doesn't have an onboard EQ setting so you can just dial up the bass in the regular speakers a bit! 😜 🤣
 

GohanX

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I think the idea is sound, but what I'd do is route the wire outside of the cab and have a standalone powered sub somewhere nearby. It doesn't have to be really far away, I have giant unshielded speakers only a foot or two away from my Wega. I just can't let the big cones be right next to it.
 

Billkwando

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I think the idea is sound,
iseewhutyoudidthere 🤣

I also thought about adding one of these cheap passive tone controls between the board and the speakers, so I could bump up the bass a bit without having to figure out how to power something:

1652725917843.png

That should be safe, right? I assume it's stereo and shares a ground pin? I hope. Is that ok for the speakers?

I wish it had a balance control, cos my right speaker is a bit quieter than the left (maybe a cap issue but I hope not, I added the left speaker after so, while identical, they weren't a matched pair). I'd be happy with a a little thump (and maybe a hacky balance fix) for now.

No idea where I'd get plugs for those connectors though, and if it's mono, it's no good to me anyway.
 
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hyper

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I think the idea is sound, but what I'd do is route the wire outside of the cab and have a standalone powered sub somewhere nearby. It doesn't have to be really far away, I have giant unshielded speakers only a foot or two away from my Wega. I just can't let the big cones be right next to it.
This really seems like the best solution, audio out to an external sound system
 

DaisyAge

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iseewhutyoudidthere 🤣

I also thought about adding one of these cheap passive tone controls between the board and the speakers, so I could bump up the bass a bit without having to figure out how to power something:

View attachment 57530

That should be safe, right? I assume it's stereo and shares a ground pin? I hope. Is that ok for the speakers?

I wish it had a balance control, cos my right speaker is a bit quieter than the left (maybe a cap issue but I hope not, I added the left speaker after so, while identical, they weren't a matched pair). I'd be happy with a a little thump (and maybe a hacky balance fix) for now.

No idea where I'd get plugs for those connectors though, and if it's mono, it's no good to me anyway.
I have a similar type of preamp in my cab it works great
 

SignOfGoob

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If you want good sound you need power. I wouldn’t dream of trying to drive anything much bigger than 3” with normal arcade hardware. Honestly I’d use a little D class amp, such as the ones branded Lepai, they are like $30.

I don’t know this exact cabinet very well but getting a powered sub and putting it far enough from the tube to not have an issue shouldn’t be hard. Just put it on the bottom of the machine. It’s a sub, position isn’t super critical. They come in all sizes but you want something that is a cube and you don’t want your driver or ports sitting right up against anything, give it a couple of inches.

Passive tone controls can’t really “add” bass specially, they cut other freqs and then you add volume so it sounds like it. It’s not a bad thing to have in your setup, some kind of equalization anyway, but it’s not like adding a powered sub.
 

Billkwando

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Passive tone controls can’t really “add” bass specially, they cut other freqs and then you add volume so it sounds like it. It’s not a bad thing to have in your setup, some kind of equalization anyway, but it’s not like adding a powered sub.

Right....I seriously considered just wiring up a tone knob like I would in a guitar...probably the same thing, essentially....except MY Neo would have a fancy Russian vintage paper and oil capacitor tone control, LOL

But yeah, I originally wanted to use my old passive sub, laying around unused, which I expected to be pretty low volume (in line with the current speakers).

Putting it in the bottom of the machine was my original plan, and the dynamo has plenty of empty space in the bottom. but a (normal sized) sub would still be within 2 feet of the bottom of the monitor, and directly underneath. I just didn't know if that was sufficient space to avoid any chance of the magnet interfering with the monitor. Is there a way to test?

I also discovered one of the power supplies in my cab (it has 2 connected, inexplicably) has a 3-prong outlet, inside the cab, so in theory I could even keep a powered sub in there, switched on, and it could power up with the machine....lack of convenience being the only reason (besides having to buy one) that I was avoiding a powered sub (before the magnetic issue occurred to me, anyway).

A little EQ might be all I need. I'm starting to realize that some games sound better than others, significantly, so you'd want to make any adjustments/changes using a good sounding game, since some titles are gonna sound meh (comparatively) no matter what.

A sub just sounded fun. A little cabinet boom. But I wouldn't want it to be rattling hardware, and slowly breaking shit, either.
 
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DaisyAge

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With the original speakers? Does it really add more bass.
This is in a hodge podge MAME arcade I built with a free HR kiosk from a previous employer. It can increase the lower tones sure but it doesn't really get bassier, it just blows out the low end.. I just wiggle the knobs until the sound comes out loud and clear
 

Xian Xi

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Howdy stranger! :D Can you elaborate on what you mean and/or link an example of one?
Sup dude, high level inputs are usually for speaker level audio like from an arcade cab. Most subs only have a low level input but there are a bunch that do take high level inputs. Try getting an all in one enclosure made for car audio. You can make that cab slam pretty hard if done right.
 

skate323k137

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Sup dude, high level inputs are usually for speaker level audio like from an arcade cab. Most subs only have a low level input but there are a bunch that do take high level inputs. Try getting an all in one enclosure made for car audio. You can make that cab slam pretty hard if done right.
Ah yea I had a Kenwood home theater sub like that. RCA inputs for line but also spring terminal speaker inputs essentially for amplified input (which it presumably attenuated, reprocessed, crossed over/eq, and amplified). Basically that's a sub with its own line level converter... you can also take a car stereo speaker to line adapter to get line level audio from an amplified board that way.
 
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