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Installing the ULTIMATE PinSound Pack!!

Cary Hardy·video·46m 15s·analyzed·Feb 6, 2021
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.020

TL;DR

Complete PinSound Ultimate Package installation guide covering board, speakers, subwoofer, and shaker motor.

Summary

Cary Hardy provides a comprehensive walkthrough of installing the PinSound Ultimate Package, a complete audio and haptic upgrade system for pinball machines. The installation covers the PinSound board (brain of the system), speaker replacement and wiring (2.1 stereo configuration), subwoofer installation, and shaker motor mounting with motion controller integration. Hardy emphasizes the high quality and customization capabilities of the system while acknowledging its premium pricing.

Key Claims

  • The PinSound board is universal and compatible with WPC89, WPCDCS, Data East, and Williams System 11 machines

    high confidence · Hardy states this while demonstrating the board installation and explains the modification process for different pinball architectures

  • PinSound Studio software allows real-time adjustment of audio settings (treble, equalizer, sub boost) during gameplay

    high confidence · Hardy demonstrates the physical knobs on the board and describes the software capabilities

  • The shaker motor on medium setting produces significant vibration; Hardy expresses concern about the high setting

    high confidence · Direct observation: 'The shaker motor can rattle your machine just on a medium setting. I'm honestly scared to see what it does on high.'

  • PinSound products can be purchased separately rather than as a complete package

    high confidence · Hardy states: 'Luckily, each of these products can be bought separately. So, if you don't want to spend that much at one time, you can buy a portion every once in a while.'

  • Hardy has used PinSound products for a couple of years with zero failures

    high confidence · Direct testimony: 'As a Pinsound user for a couple of years now, I have had zero failures.'

Notable Quotes

  • “This is the ultimate pin sound package. No, seriously, that's what it's called. This package will turn your pinball machine into a rocking, shaking beast with volume as loud as you want.”

    Cary Hardy@ 0:00 — Opening statement establishing the scope and purpose of the video

  • “You can hook up an external subwoofer right here if you so want to. I mean, if you're really that hardcore for some bass, by all means, go for it. It's all about personal preference with this.”

    Cary Hardy@ 40:16 — Highlights the modularity and customization options of the system

  • “These products are not on the cheap spectrum like I said earlier, but this is due to the quality behind it. The shaker motor can rattle your machine just on a medium setting. I'm honestly scared to see what it does on high.”

    Cary Hardy@ 44:11 — Justifies premium pricing through quality and performance

  • “As a Pinsound user for a couple of years now, I have had zero failures. Once you hold this Pinsound card, you will understand why. These boards are thick with high quality components.”

    Cary Hardy@ 44:39 — Establishes product reliability and durability credentials

  • “For those of you out there that want more out of your game without changing the aesthetics, if you want the original music from your movie-related pins, if you want to feel your game, if you want to really hear your game to its fullest potential, this product line is for you.”

    Cary Hardy@ 45:33 — Closing pitch identifying the target market for the product

Entities

Cary HardypersonPinSoundcompanyPinSound Ultimate PackageproductPinSound Board / PinSound PlusproductPinSound Studio SoftwareproductShaker MotorproductMotion Controller BoardproductWPC89productWPCDCSproduct

Signals

  • $

    market_signal: Premium aftermarket audio systems are positioned as value-add products that can be purchased incrementally rather than as complete bundle

    high · Hardy explicitly states products can be purchased separately to spread costs over time; indicates market positioning for different budget segments

  • ?

    product_strategy: PinSound system enables extensive audio customization and integration with external effect devices through relay outputs

    high · Hardy demonstrates relay output capabilities and discusses programming smoke machines and lasers; describes PinSound Studio software offering near-unlimited customization

  • ?

    technology_signal: PinSound Plus board initialization speed reportedly cut in half compared to earlier generation, improving overall user experience

    medium · Hardy observes faster initialization time during gameplay demonstration; claims the improvement is substantial ('I want to say it's probably cut in half the amount of time it takes')

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.139

0:00
This is the ultimate pin sound package. No, seriously, that's what it's called. This package will turn your pinball machine into a rocking, shaking beast with volume as loud as you want. And I'm going to show you what it looks like, how to install it, and what it can do.
1:00
Thank you. We'll be right back. All right, so the first thing that we're going to install is the pin sound board. This is the brain that does everything. So let's start with that. You're going to need to remove your trans-light or back glass
2:41
All right, we now have complete access to what we need to do now The next thing we're going to be doing is removing the sound board. It's this board right here when it comes to
2:52
WPC So this is what we're going to be removing in order to access this we need to get these Ribbon cables out of the way so we're going to be pulling up on these you may have to do a little bit of wiggling Shouldn't require too much If you need to take pictures to remember where these connections go feel free to do so guys and that one should just hang down like that
3:17
Williams System 11
product
Data Eastcompany
Judge Dreddgame
That one can hang down there too so now the ribbon cables are out of the way now we have these two this one right here and then one up here so we're going to just pull these out all right so they have been unplugged now we need to loosen up the four screws that are located on every corner of this board in order for it to slide out. This requires a Phillips. Just a few turns, don't need to take the screws completely out. They have designed this board so that way you can do this. Easy peasy.
4:05
All right, we're just giving it a few turns, should be able to lift up and come right out. If you don't have a sticker in the way down here.
4:16
All right, sound board has been removed. Now this board is universal, meaning it can be going into a WPC89, WPCDCS, Data East, and like Williams System 11. And in your box you will find these right here that shows you how to modify the board step by step in order for you to make sure that you do this correctly. Since we are doing WPC-DCS, this is the board I'm going to be using. So if I was to hook up the board how it is right now, just out of the box, you're going to notice that, hey, top screws work, but the bottom screws are not going to work. just not gonna do it carry yep that's why we use the accompanied bar right here it's gonna go right here and then you got a bottom one that would go right in here like that but in order for obviously to work we have to mount our soundboard to these two right here so we're going to take these out and we're going to do that now all right I'm just going to dump this little bag of goodies right there so I'm able to easily access all of those and I could filter through each one through what all my washers in one area spacers in another you can do this how you see fit obviously what we're gonna have to do is get a screw into this top one right here but before we do that we need a washer this is work on is gonna take some agility guys this small hardware like this so washer into that hole now we need to use the spacer in the spacer it's gonna go on like that and that's pretty much finger tight now I'm gonna do it to this side over here as well so I can install the top one all in one go. Alright so I've got my screws and my spacers on my top portion. Now I'm going to want to go ahead and get two more screws with washers on them as well. Alright now that we've got our screws right there I'm going to turn this over and we're going be working on this portion now. Notice that you got to make sure your orientation is correct guys, like so. That way I know that the screw is going to go in and then it's going to slide up and lock in place. So let's get a screw and a washer and this resting in place if I can I typically put it in there first get your screwdriver in place or you're ready to go and line it up That one's in there. Another washer, another screw. Alright, make sure we get that as tight as we can. Alright, that's on there. Very nice. And it's rinse and repeat on the bottom portion.
8:34
And there we go guys, the board is put together. Now it's time to slide it into the game. Now all we gotta do is slide this board into place. Then we'll screw it in. Don't over tighten it boys, it don't take too much to get this thing locked in place. No wiggling around. And then you can go about reconnecting your cables just as you did when disconnecting using your pictures if necessary.
9:39
It's indicated right here it's going to be a little bit lower than your factory board but it is indicated where that one goes on the board. It's keyed. This one goes around here and these are going to be a little bit further over actually they go up here that's what it is but in order for them to reach I've got a finagle some cables around all right get some slack in these things there we go we are now in position but I want to say whenever we go to hook up the 2.1 stereo I believe we are going to be removing these again but if you do not have the accessory to do so then don't worry about it at this time
10:49
all right the board is officially all hooked up now that I've got everything all hooked up let's turn the machine on just to see what this thing looks like make sure it all lights up now as you can see looks like we've got our voltage and everything that it requires right here there's no USB or anything in there as at this time so it's not gonna have anything ooh that's different that's That's cool. I mean, we're never going to see it because the back glass or trans light is going to be on but that new to the Pinmit Sound Plus board or the new generation The USB flash drive is not present Yep See the board will let you know if it does not detect the USB drive that goes in here. So technically this machine has no sound to it, but as you can see, the board and the sound and everything works accordingly. No smoke, no fire. Now that we've got our board installed, let's look at the speaker panel and start getting our speakers installed. Now, if you've already seen your speakers, then you're going to realize that, alright, my speaker matches the size of this one, but WTF. So the good thing that Penn Sound has incorporated this little piece right here. So this is going to give you the ability to utilize the current screw holes right here for where your old speaker would mount, by giving you new screw holes for where your new speaker will be going in place. So in order to remove these speakers, I need to either one, bust out my soldering iron to loosen the solder so that way the wires are no longer connected to it, or I can just snip them, because I'm not gonna be using these wires anymore anyways, because I got the 2.1 stereo wiring kit. So these cables will no longer be needed. But that depends on your machine and if you wanna make it to where it's backwards compatible to go back to the original form, if you sell your game and stuff like that. How savvy you are depends on what you wanna do here.
13:04
I'm gonna be desoldering these. That way, if I wanted to, then I could return this machine easily back to the original form. So let's get started on that. Alright, this baby's just about up to temperature.
13:19
And 750, there we go. So, going to be loosening up this solder. Alright, that speaker has been desoldered.
13:36
One more. There we go. we are done with the soldering iron now we remove these old speakers there's that speaker removed this is your grounding cable we'll throw that to the side now that speakers been removed now like I said we're not going to be using this cable anymore I probably should have these soldered that but I guess I technically don't need to. What I may end up doing is just taking this away the cable all together and then I'll just like tie it zip tie it up and then I'll keep it somewhere safe so that way this thing's just no longer in the way at all. I'm going to put this screw back in place. I don't know if it's going to be in the way or not. all right now let's get this cable completely removed here all right so i've got the original speaker cable removed i didn't want to record that because it was it took a little bit of time to finagle this cable through all of this mess right here from this board but that's where it goes from your speakers all the way up through this stuff around and up here you can get that
15:19
now you no longer have these extra cables on your back panel and you could store these somewhere make sure you label them so that way you know what they are that lines up like this but i'm gonna have to remove this screw that i wasn't going to at first so we'll remove that and i'm going to have to remove this that held on to the old hardware. So let's get that out of the way. And now that lines up just right. Now I should be able to utilize the same screws that were in the previous speaker. Will I? Yep, all right.
16:14
Must be off just a little bit for this top one. Or am I in? We're good. All right, that's as snug as a bug in a rug. All right, we should be ready for our speaker now. The orientation I'm going to be doing this speaker is my connections towards the DMD. That should line up like that. And inside your package you will see the speaker screws.
16:54
Get all four of those up here. And then we should be able to screw these into place. I'm not gonna tighten them down all the way just yet.
17:11
Cause I'm probably gonna have to move this around just a little bit to get it perfectly centered, but this is gonna make sure
17:21
that this isn't gonna go anywhere while I'm screwing the others in. All right, now that I've got all four screws in, I can tighten them down all the way. That speaker is going nowhere.
17:46
Let's do the other side. This other side is gonna be a little easier cause I don't have to do any kind of modifications like the plastic piece over there. Once again, using the old screws from the previous speaker.
18:02
Now I'm gonna install my grounding cable back up here on this one. All right, that one's all snug. So now we have our front speakers all installed. Now, let's work on the wiring for them. So here is the 2.1 stereo connector
18:26
and the wiring that goes along with it. These go to all three of your speakers. Now, you'll notice that all of them are labeled accordingly. The longest one obviously is going to be going down to your center speaker. It says it right here on both of these wires, center. So I'm just going to go ahead and just feed that down here. All right, now these other two are shorter, but they are also labeled. This one says left, positive and negative. So put that on the left, and this one says right, positive and negative. You're also going to notice that the connectors are different sizes. You're going to see up here, these are the size of the connectors. So it's going to be really hard for you to screw this up.
19:24
Took a little finagling on that one. And then we'll put it on this other one. I'm going to bend it out just a little bit.
19:34
Now, if for whatever reason you break off these little tabs by putting these things on because I could see it happening, then you can solder these wires. You'll have to clip off the connectors, but you could solder the wires directly to these ends right here. Just make sure you have them because evidently they are polarity based because there's a positive and negative. So that's how you connect them. work on the other side.
20:18
A little wiggling back and forth. Bam! We're in there. Speakers are now connected. Now all we need to do is connect our Molex. Alright, so this one other little b small one right here that I have not disconnected yet this goes to our center speaker so this is going to be doing nothing you could whittle it all the way through and take it completely out if you want to or you could just tuck it behind this in case you want to go back to original in the future I plan to eventually do a complete restoration on this so I'm just gonna like tuck it in right here for right now and all you're gonna do is it this cable right here that you've got in here is going to go in right here where it says stereo 2.1 speakers key down connected just like that so now we've already really improved the quality of the sound and what you can do with all the slack that you see right here you wanted to you can feed it through just like you have before zip tie them together kind of neatly all package it up all right guys for right now we are done with the back box I want to say we are more than likely gonna have to get in here again I don't know we'll cross that bridge when we get to it but we'll put this all back together.
22:14
Now we are on to the subwoofer. We need to obviously remove the old one but before we could put the big one in there because this thing is a little bitty in comparison of what we're about to put in there. Here's the wire that we fed through earlier. We'll just tuck this one up underneath behind there
22:50
because we know we're not gonna be using that anymore. And then we'll just have these in place. Ready to go for install Now let get the big sub over my word there is a bit of a difference here guys when it comes to the size of this stuff and Wow so as you may already noticed this thing is bigger beefier it's got some really nice soft cushion padding all the way around this thing whereas before you definitely didn't have that yeah a little bit of a difference but this is not gonna just mount directly on there set that right there that's why you also get this the same thing you had over there for your right speaker up top you just got to get the holes lined up to the previous screws which may take a little finagling but there it is now now that that's in place then I should be able to mount this in here and then screw it down. Alright so I've got my screws. I'm going to be putting the washer and nut back on this. Make sure this is stable. We'll just tie these down just a little bit. Alright, that is secure. Alright, now we're going to get it to where the connections were facing this direction. that should line up with the holes.
25:14
Once again I'm not tightening them down all the way just to make sure I've got enough room to wiggle around. Just kind of getting them tightened in place. Alright we got one in place.
25:33
yeah that's on there nice and secure man that's a beast one more time guys just to show you the difference in that speaker. Wow! And then just like the other ones, connect the connectors. They are sized appropriately and there you go. We now officially have stereo 2.1. So the next thing we're going to be doing is installing the shaker motor and in your paperwork you will find this right here. I'm going to be cutting out on the dotted line like it says and using this as a blueprint slash template on where I need to drill holes for this shaker motor to be mounted to the cabinet. Now the point of this is to make sure that whenever and wherever you install this that you're going to have clearance all the way around and you need to use the actual screw holes that they tell you right here exactly because that's how it's going to mount in. Now I'm thinking I'm going to mount this
26:56
to about right there. Should be able to get everything around that. So all I gotta do is that I'll tape this down. I'll clean the area real well so that way it'll actually stick down. I'm gonna tape this down, bust out the drill, and drill some holes through the cabinet. All right, I've got my tape on here.
27:26
find exactly where I want it make sure that tapes all nice and tacked down I don't want it moving all right time to drill all right so here we are playing mechanic and there's not many times that you're gonna need to use a hammer on a pinball machine but whenever you're doing something with t-nuts chances are you might be having to lend on the cabinet at least play field there's other methods and I recommend you use those so what I'm doing is putting the t-nut where it needs to go right there in the hole you see it's nice and snug so it sticks in there and then
28:25
Give it a few whacks and there you go, you've got a T-nut installed, ready to go. In case I didn't show you what a T-nut was, it's this right here. It's got spikes, three of them, that go into the wood. Well, it's not real wood when it comes to a pinball machine. Alright, at least right here, this is MDF. That's birch. anyways all right there we go we have now got the bracket system and mounting system in place for the shaker motor so once we screw that into this portion right here it's going to anchor itself to this mdf right here making it very sturdy all right let's get off our back I can't. Alright, lever screwed in, T-nuts are in. Now we can get our shaker motor in place. You can set that down right there. Just try to line it up with the holes.
29:40
That looks pretty dang good. Accompanied in with your shaker motor are four, yeah, four screws for mounting and two screws for the shield. And this is not a Phillips, this is my other tool.
29:56
As per usual, I'm not bolting them all down tight yet until I get all four screws in there. All four screws are now in their holes, so I will be buckling this thing down pretty tight because this thing, if not,
30:28
will rattle loose and tear up that MDF. So I'm securing this thing in by screwing this in really tight that is pulling the T-nut up into the bottom of the cabinet, making it much more secure. That is on there nice. So now, yeah, that's going to be shaking. Now be utilizing my Pinsound Shaker Power. Should be keyed accordingly like that. I'm going to toss it up here.
31:27
I think that should make us to where we're done down here. So now I need to put the shield on that. I've got the screw holes lined up. I'll take my remaining two screws.
31:41
shaker motor is installed it's looking good so we're done with this and what I'm going to do now get all my stuff out of here and then we're going to lower the play field down and bring it forward so we can feed this power up to the back box we're going back in there all right we should be able to reach this is our power cable for the shaker motor we can just feed this up through this direction probably better about lower this down. Now once you're in this position you want to grab the power cable that you've just installed for this machine for the shaker motor then you're going to lower your speaker panel down so you have easy access and feed it through where the rest of your wire harness is going to. I'm just going to pull up where I've got a good amount of it up here that should be long enough to reach I'm gonna go ahead and raise my panel back up all right let's get in the back box alright guys I'm now installing the motion controller board and this is what tells the shaker motor what to do so we have to have this they recommend you mount it to like the side of the back box back here behind your back glass and everything probably a little higher up actually but in order for me to really get it mounted it's using these adhesive pads on these mounts so I have to get these matters on here first and then I can clean it spot and then stick it to where I'm going to put it. But in order for them to actually be ready for the screws, I recommend putting them on in the screws first. It's not going to lie, it's a little tricky. Once you get it started, then get your screwdriver in there and basically you're preparing this stand for the screw that you are about to insert into it. Now that that's prepped, we can pick this up, Get a screw in there.
34:28
Use the stand. All right so I got that in there Try to hold that steady Alright you know you have it all nice and tight whenever these things don twist around
34:49
And then just do that to the other two. Alright, all four mounting stands are installed. And then we'll see where we're gonna put this. Now, in the instructions they recommend, like right here on the side, I'm thinking I might be able to get away with putting it right here.
35:12
I think I'm going to do that actually. Have it mounted right there. That looks pretty good. So I need to clean the surface area for these adhesive pads to really stick. They provide an alcohol prep pad. Now honestly, this prep pad is dry. I'm not sure if it's old or what but this is not good. I don't know might be old might have been opened but I'm gonna have to clean it myself.
35:45
All right we should be ready to mount this thing. Mounting it with the word motion controller up. I'm thinking right...
36:00
there. Then I'm going to apply pressure on top of the screws, not on the board. That should be on there pretty good. Alright, now it's time to hook everything up to this board right here. Alright, inside your kit you will find multiple cables all labeled accordingly. and if you follow your instructions, you will find out that EXT1 goes into the EXT1 port up here.
36:44
And this says Pinsound EXT1. I had to look at the instructions again. So it says Pinsound EXT1. you have your ext1 but you have an in and you have an out this is going to be going into the in which is the four pin connection that's on the left so that puts that there all right once you have that one then you have this cable and they're labeled so this is shaker power input this is keyed to go up here and then it says J101. J101 is this one right here.
37:30
So this is going to go into J101. It is keyed. And then you'll plug your original J101 into this split connection right here. all right now we got left is the shaker motor itself and the power to your shaker motor goes right here like that currently it's set on low and there's a medium and a high adjustment I'm Let's do medium.
38:19
We'll just see how medium feels and if I feel like it's enough or if I want more, then I'll adjust it accordingly. But I'm gonna set it to medium for right now. And it's your choice. You can go about putting your wires wherever you see fit to organize this a little bit better. Like I said, eventually I'm gonna do a restoration on this so I'm not too worried about getting it all pretty right now.
38:46
Outro Music We'll be right back. let's go over some of this aboard that I had not described yet I mean the ease right here they're not just flashy lights guys these are knobs that you can adjust to increase or decrease your sub booster equalizer sub boost I mean you have all these right here treble and everything that you can toggle in real time as the game is playing to get it tweaked just the way you like it. So you've got all that you can play with. You can hook up an external subwoofer right here if you so want to. I mean, if you're really that hardcore for some bass, by all means, go for it. It's all about personal preference with this. And there's always something I love about a product is that you can make it your own yes now you go over here to this you even have the option to hook up like you know lasers or like a smoke machine or whatever this is what this right here is for this relay machine so in the studio pro software you can program it to activate to certain things so that's also a really nice perk with that and that's going over the board out there real quicken in a hurry giving you some more ideas of what all you can do yeah so make it your own guys now that we've got the pinstown equipment all in here we're going to see what it sounds like this is uh going to give you definitely an idea of the difference it makes sadly when it comes to audio and the feeling you get while you're playing this game coming through the machine you're not going to be able to get that through video. But I do have the Judge Dredd cat mix on here. I have also gone through the files and adjusted the shaker motor accordingly. I will be doing some more tweaks on that because I do want to make some improvements, but I do definitely feel the difference. So let's start up a game. The first thing you're going to notice for those other Penn Sound users, if you have an early generation like I do, is that the speed at which it initializes the pin sound card and it's ready to play. I want to say it's probably cut in half the amount of time it takes. Here we go.
42:22
I mean, technically the game only became playable maybe two seconds before the sound card was ready to go. So that's pretty damn good.
42:33
Alright, let's start a game up. Are you ready? You don't look ready. We'll be right back. so So what are my thoughts about the Pinsound Ultimate Package? Let's start with cost. This product line is not cheap. But luckily, each of these products can be bought separately. So, if you don't want to spend that much at one time, you can buy a portion every once in a while. Next up is quality. Top notch. These products are not on the cheap spectrum like I said earlier, but this is due to the quality behind it. The shaker motor can rattle your machine just on a medium setting. I'm honestly scared to see what it does on high. The subwoofer for the bottom of your cabinet is killer with bass. It almost feels like another shaker motor actually. Front speakers have the capability of being too loud. Luckily, you can adjust that. Product reliability. As a Pinsound user for a couple of years now, I have had zero failures. Once you hold this Pinsound card, you will understand why. These boards are thick with high quality components. Now, what are the product capabilities? pretty close to endless because you can really make your machine your own by utilizing their pensound studio software you can change any song or sound and adjust the shaker motor to every bit of it also giving those of you hardcore fans the ability to wire up external enhancers such as smoke machines and lasers or other lights you can even have multiple sound packages on one usb and swapped to a different sound package at any time. So, for those of you out there that want more out of your game without changing the aesthetics, if you want the original music from your movie-related pins, if you want to feel your game, if you want to really hear your game to its fullest potential, this product line is for you.
45:52
Thank you.