Can't figure out my audio issues on my MAME cab

[retromash]

Hi everyone. I'm having some issues with my audio and I can't for the life of me work out what the issue is. Really hoping someone can try to help me work out where the problem lies.

I've got a home made retropie cabinet. It was all working fine for about 4 or 5 years. Then I left it off for about a year when we were getting building work done. When I turned it back on there has been a weird issue with the sound. It sounds like lots of static muffling the sound of the games. The full sound of the game music isn't coming through. I can even hear bare static on the Emulation Station menu screens too. The volume of the static often slightly changes when I go through different menu screens in Emulation Station.

I've checked all the wires and all the connections and I can't see anything untoward, and the cabinet hasn't been moved in a big way or been overly cold or overly hot. I'm assuming the issue must be with one of the following...

• Wires/cables - i dont think so as they all seem ok
• Speakers - don't see why as they are only four years old, but possibly?
• Amplifier box - maybe it has just stopped working?
• Settings in the retropie/emulation station software - don't think anything has changed though! I haven't done any updates of the software at all since six years ago, but if nothing has changed I don't see why something would stop working

All the electronics are shown here - https://retromash.com/2016/05/29/building-a-home-arcade-machine-part-20-installing-the-electronics/

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks a lot.

Michael

 

[Venom]

I'd just start eliminating an item at a time

E.g there are loads of pi builds have you got a spare SD card and try another build.

Some have Kodi built in so you could play a movie and see if sound is fine.

Need to see if sounds is to do with the emulation or amp/speakers, youd soon find out playing a movie .

You just need to try a component/software at a time.

 

[retromash]

Yep that was definitely going to be my next step. Just wanted to check if there was an obvious reason that someone might recognise first. But great idea about trying the Kodi movie. Cheers

 

[ArcadePCB]

You can try to separate audio source and amplifier / speakers. Use any source (e.g. mobile phone, CD player, transistor radio) with a headphone outlet and connect iot to your amp input. So you can figure out very easy if the problem is your sound hardware (amplifier or speaker) or the computer.

Another point you can check: it depends on what kind of speaker you have: because the problem occured after a long time it wasn't used, this could also be the problem: If there are speakers that have foam around the moving part of the speaker (I'm sorry, I don't know the English word for it), it's possible the foam has converted itself into dust. This happens often to this type of speakers when 10 to 20 years went by. If you touch the foam without applying any force and you cause holes by doing this, the speaker is bad. You didn't destroy it by touching, it was already bad and you have to replace the foam rings or the whole speakers. Speakers with this issue are still working, but they have a bad sound.

 

[retromash]

That is a fantastic idea and I can't believe I didn't think of it myself! I tried this tonight and the speakers sound fine. And now, when I plugged the Pi back into the amp, it all worked fine? Very strange as I had checked all the connections, but now somehow it is all working fine again.

Thank you very much for your help.

 

[Venom]

Nice to see all sorted