Tune the sound?

[FLANNERY]

I saw the post on the atari 2600 tear down. Pretty nice, but one of the things they outlined was the sound tuner. That little pinkish thing sticking out of the sheld.

 

Atari 2600 tear down at IFixit

 

Is that something you can adjust with different sound results or would that provide unwanted results and damage your atari? Just something that came to my mind and because Im to scared to do it and break my beloved I thought I might just ask first.

[alex_79]

That's the audio inductor. It changes the frequency of the audio in the rf signal. You can find a more accurate explanation in this old post. You don't need to adjust the variable inductors on the 2600 unless you have problems receiving the rf signal.

[+FujiSkunk]

So in other words, this doesn't actually tune the sound itself, so adjusting the audio inductor will not change the pitch or tone of the sounds coming from your games. Basically this adjusts where the audio "appears" in the data stream being sent to your TV. Theoretically this should never have to be adjusted, but in rare cases a little fine tuning can help.

 

Unless you're getting a clear picture but bad audio from your Atari, you don't need to worry about this. And even in that case there may be other issues at work.

[A.J. Franzman]

Yes. Technically what that adjustable choke controls is called the audio carrier frequency. If you connect your console to your TV using the original RF hookup, and the sound is silent or staticy, adjusting this may clear up the problem. It will have no effect when using modified consoles with composite or S-video hookups.

[Skwrl63]

On 9/2/2010 at 3:54 PM, FujiSkunk said:

So in other words, this doesn't actually tune the sound itself, so adjusting the audio inductor will not change the pitch or tone of the sounds coming from your games. Basically this adjusts where the audio "appears" in the data stream being sent to your TV. Theoretically this should never have to be adjusted, but in rare cases a little fine tuning can help.

 

Unless you're getting a clear picture but bad audio from your Atari, you don't need to worry about this. And even in that case there may be other issues at work.

I know this is a old feed but I want to add my input, just in case someone might find it useful in the future.

 

I had this exact same problem. I had a crystal clear picture, but the sound was just static. I had to adjust the Audio Choke as well as minor adjustments to the RF choke.

 

After finessing back and forth for about 10 minutes I got everything  perfectly adjusted. Great picture and great sound 

[+FujiSkunk]

Good to know stuff we wrote ten years ago is still useful.