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View topic - Lend bubbagutz your ears! - Game Gear sound board comparison

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  • Joined: 22 Feb 2016
  • Posts: 37
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Lend bubbagutz your ears! - Game Gear sound board comparison
Post Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2021 12:14 am
Over at the game gear subreddit, there's been some discussion and posts recently about various game gear boards and how to get the best sound out of them, even going as far as getting audio quality capacitors. This came about due to certain "retro game stores" selling ceramic capacitor kits for the main and sound boards for game gears.

User "bubbagutz" got six different boards, including the newly manufactured sound boards from "retrokai" and recorded them all with various amps/capacitor values and is asking for peoples opinions. he's gotten a few responses but I asked him if he would mind if I posted here to get a few more opinions.

here is his original post on reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/game_gear/comments/lrop8m/the_great_soundboard_shootout...

here is a direct link to his six recordings, labeled A-F. He hasn't told anyone which is which yet.
https://soundcloud.com/user-882051209/sets/game-gear-audio-pcb-shootout

and here's his original comment/description.

"Today's the day. 6 different audio PCBs. 5x VA1 837-9026 PCBs with different caps and/or audio ICs. The list is as follows, but not necessarily in order: 1) Elna and Nichicon Caps with KA2209 IC, 2) Nichicon Audio Caps with KA2209 IC, 3) Nichicon Audio Caps with TDA2822M IC, 4) Multicomp Pro Caps with TDA2822S IC (different from picture), 5) Nichicon Caps (not audio grade) with TDA2822S IC, 6) RetroKai Tantalum Audio PCB with TDA2822. All will be recorded stereo out of the headphones jack directly into A to D converter to Pro Tools HD @ 44.1kHz/24 bit. Each track will be Sonic 2, with the opening sequence with level 1 to completion of the level. Approximately 1 minute of audio each. I will post the link to the tracks once they are uploaded. The tracks will be in random order for a blind shootout. The tracks will be revealed in a separate "spoiler" post after enough people have had a chance to study the differences blind. All PCBs are going to be from the same system, so this will take a good portion of the day to complete. Be patient, but get ready."

So, which do you think sounds the best? some are pretty similar so headphones can help to hear the small differences.
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  • Joined: 28 Feb 2021
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Post Posted: Sun Feb 28, 2021 12:08 am
This is very interesting, and we can probably help you measure systems if you are interested.
There's a tool named MDFourier (junkerhq.net/MDFourier/) which can be used to measure and compare these kind of differences, and help to document them in an objective way.

Pinobatch made an SMS/GG version of the tool and we have everything ready in order to help compare and test any system or capacitor differences, as well as noise floor and equalization curves.

If you are interested, please let me know at aurbina@junkerhq.net
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  • Joined: 22 Feb 2016
  • Posts: 37
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Post Posted: Sun Feb 28, 2021 8:33 pm
bubbagutz did mention doing a "loudness analysis and FFT analysis" as well, but I'll shoot him a message about the program you mentioned too. as far as I know he still hasn't revealed which is which yet.

quick edit: that tool looks PERFECT for what this guy was comparing. I'll really push for him to try to use it. Is there a place that GG/SMS version of the tool is available or is it kind of unreleased or something?
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