SGM Music Volume Low

[Tempest]

I'm having an issue where the music from SGM games (Goonies for example) has very low volume on my RGB modded Colecovision.  I had a similar issue on my ADAM which required a mod, but I don't think that's the case on a regular CV.  Is there a volume trimmer I can adjust in the SGM itself somewhere to fix this or is this a sign of something going bad?

 

BTW this is a beige ADAM colored SGM.  I don't think that makes a difference, but I thought I'd mention it.

[+evg2000]

you need to get sound from c88

 

[Tempest]

I believe my mod does that.

 

@-^CrossBow^- Can you verify?

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Yes, I always take audio from the left leg (Closest to the RF modulator) of C88. I even replaced your C88 as the other one was starting to look pretty oily on the outside of it. No change and it sounds the same on my personal CV as well wired up the same way.

 

 

[opcode]

I'm having an issue where the music from SGM games (Goonies for example) has very low volume on my RGB modded Colecovision.  I had a similar issue on my ADAM which required a mod, but I don't think that's the case on a regular CV.  Is there a volume trimmer I can adjust in the SGM itself somewhere to fix this or is this a sign of something going bad?
 
BTW this is a beige ADAM colored SGM.  I don't think that makes a difference, but I thought I'd mention it.

It shouldn’t make a difference. I can check the SGM for you, but from my experience PSGs don’t output low volume sound. They either die or in same rare cases lose channels. Since your CV has been modded, I would suspect your CV to be honest. I assume you don’t have a non modded CV, do you? But anyway, if you want, you can send it back and I will check. Please contact me if you would like to do so. support [at] opcodegames [dot] com.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Tempest]

5 minutes ago, opcode said:

 

It shouldn’t make a difference. I can check the SGM for you, but from my experience PSGs don’t output low volume sound. They either die or in same rare cases lose channels. Since your CV has been modded, I would suspect your CV to be honest. I assume you don’t have a non modded CV, do you? But anyway, if you want, you can send it back and I will check. Please contact me if you would like to do so. support [at] opcodegames [dot] com.

 

It works just fine with my ADAM (once I did the mod to the ADAM) so I too doubt it's the SGM.  @-^CrossBow^- has my CV right now, maybe there's something he can look for?  He did the mod originally.

 

We think it might be the Retrotink 5x I use to output to my TV.  If so there's nothing you can do.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Did you check my PM to you from last night? Both my CV and your CV have the same volume levels and by default it is quite low on both regardless. But there is a difference in volume between the Tink2x and Tink5x for sure. There is also a difference when you have the SGM installed vs not. So the SGM does effect it.

 

Audio on both of these CVs is just a single wire directly from the left leg of C88 (Leg closest to the RF modulator) to the RGB 9-pin mini din. Audio wire is connected to all three audio pins. Mono, Left, and Right so that any cable used will produce audio from both channels even if only dual mono. I and many many others have been wiring them this way for years. 

 

I've never really noticed it being lower because I honestly have everything through an AV receiver so I just turned up the volume and didn't bother or really notice. But yes the line level out of the CV is low audio to begin with and it gets slightly worse with a 5x vs the 2x and is more noticed when the SGM is attached.

 

[Tempest]

13 minutes ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

Did you check my PM to you from last night? Both my CV and your CV have the same volume levels and by default it is quite low on both regardless. But there is a difference in volume between the Tink2x and Tink5x for sure. There is also a difference when you have the SGM installed vs not. So the SGM does effect it.

 

Audio on both of these CVs is just a single wire directly from the left leg of C88 (Leg closest to the RF modulator) to the RGB 9-pin mini din. Audio wire is connected to all three audio pins. Mono, Left, and Right so that any cable used will produce audio from both channels even if only dual mono. I and many many others have been wiring them this way for years. 

 

I've never really noticed it being lower because I honestly have everything through an AV receiver so I just turned up the volume and didn't bother or really notice. But yes the line level out of the CV is low audio to begin with and it gets slightly worse with a 5x vs the 2x and is more noticed when the SGM is attached.

 

Watching the video now.  I posted something about this on the shmups forum that Mike checks from time to time.  Maybe he has an idea?

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Unless anyone has any other locations they think audio should be tapped from? I'm happy to check and oblige to see if it makes any difference at all. But I can at least confirm there is a slight difference between the Tink2x and Tink5x with the Tink2x being the louder between the two. And for sure there are differences in how the video is being handled because the Tink5x seems to work okay on most modes on the actual TV, but through my capture device only the 720P output mode was stable. 480P from the Tink5x did not agree with my capture device as I was only getting a no signal indication. In fact, the 1080P would also give me a no signal indication on the capture device, but yet I could see it behind that message window. But the 1080P had video issues through my capture so yeah there are differences between them on the SCART input and image processing with the Tink2x actually producing better results according to my captures.

 

[Ikrananka]

On 8/1/2021 at 2:50 PM, -^CrossBow^- said:

Yes, I always take audio from the left leg (Closest to the RF modulator) of C88. I even replaced your C88 as the other one was starting to look pretty oily on the outside of it. No change and it sounds the same on my personal CV as well wired up the same way.

Just curious, but why would C88 have been oily?  I thought that these were ceramic caps.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

2 hours ago, Ikrananka said:

Just curious, but why would C88 have been oily?  I thought that these were ceramic caps.

Excellent Question! And it is or was a ceramic cap. But I noticed it would have an oily sheen and slickness to it when I was soldering the wire on and off it. Had never seen that before so I decided to swap it out with another 104Z.

 

 

[Ikrananka]

1 hour ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

Excellent Question! And it is or was a ceramic cap. But I noticed it would have an oily sheen and slickness to it when I was soldering the wire on and off it. Had never seen that before so I decided to swap it out with another 104Z.

How strange.

 

Anyway, I thought I'd just chime in and let you know that my F18A modded CV also has the audio tapped from that point on C88 and I too get low audio volume on The Goonies (original cart).  I also get low volume on other SGM games but I'd have to test them to refresh my memory which ones.  I just turn the volume up when this happens.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

3 hours ago, Ikrananka said:

How strange.

 

Anyway, I thought I'd just chime in and let you know that my F18A modded CV also has the audio tapped from that point on C88 and I too get low audio volume on The Goonies (original cart).  I also get low volume on other SGM games but I'd have to test them to refresh my memory which ones.  I just turn the volume up when this happens.

Well the main issue in this case is that there appear to be volume differences between the RetroTink2x SCART that I did the testing on Tempest's CV after I did the service work on it (Added the TMS-RGB to it), and his RetroTink5x. He actually sent his Tink5x, PSU, CV, and the Insurrection Industries cable he is using with it to me and yes... the volume outputs on the CV are very low indeed. More than I remember, but as it turns out, my CV is also very low on the output volume both through the same cable he sent (And another Genesis 2 SCART cable I have from Retrogame Cables in the UK.). So I don't believe the cabling or how it was wired up is the issue. And even normal games will loose 2 or 3 dB simply having the SGM plugged into the console. The SGM plus a Tink5x, really makes it tough to hear though.

 

[Tempest]

Can it be amped somehow?

[+-^CrossBow^-]

12 minutes ago, Tempest said:

Can it be amped somehow?

there are only two things I can think to try at this point. One is to wire straight from the sound chip, although I don't think that will make much of a difference. or just wire up to the left audio channel only to see if the tink devices aren't likely the mono, Left and Right all providing signal at the same time. But it really shouldn't matter. I recall the audio being low from my personal CV in the same manner when I was listening to it during these comparisons using my RCA output jacks on it into your Tink5x. I even disconnected one of the channels from my CV to simulate the same as the other post you sent to me talking about the two channels wired up causing problems and it didn't make any difference.

 

But the more I think about this, I'm sure I have my Extron set to increase the volume by about 4 or 5 dB on the front inputs (Where I usually connect my loose classic consoles too), and have noticed in the past that I had to turn the volume down for the 5200 and Intellivision. But the CV, 7800 and other systems seem to be about on the same level.

 

 

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Nothing too new to add to this but I was able to at least bring the SGM volume to the same level as the CV. Basically I removed C88 completely from the board. He left via of C88 is where the audio from the CV side it attached to his RGB output for audio and the right via from C88 is directly connected to the external audio line from the front buss expansion. Basically removing C88 brings the two in balance in regards to overall volume. It is still low volume output overall, but at least the SGM and CV sound the same when combined now.