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BDYETP 72: $2k Toppers, Lawlor Retires, Pinball as a Gateway + Guest Dan Dean from PinWoofer

Bro, Do you Even Talk Pinball·podcast_episode·1h 53m·analyzed·Nov 4, 2022
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Dan Dean of PinWoofer discusses pinball audio upgrades and speaker quality on podcast.

Summary

Kevin Manning and Nick Lane of Buffalo Pinball host Dan Dean, founder of PinWoofer, to discuss pinball audio systems and upgrades. Dan explains his audio engineering background (25 years in semiconductors, early experience at speaker factories) and details PinWoofer's mission to improve stock pinball machine speakers, which he argues are prohibitively cheap even on premium machines. The episode covers PinWoofer's product line (amplifiers, custom speakers, cabinet subwoofer replacements) and addresses the value proposition of kits ($370) versus DIY solutions, with Dan and Kevin discussing installation approaches and platform compatibility across multiple manufacturers.

Key Claims

  • Stern pinball machines ship with prohibitively cheap speakers, even on Premium models; only LE models get Kenwood speakers

    high confidence · Kevin and Dan directly compare stock speakers from Rush machine, discussing how Stern's backbox speakers are 'complete garbage' made of paper material

  • Stern was using mono speakers in pinball machines until approximately 2015

    medium confidence · Kevin states 'Stern was still doing mono speakers up until, like, I don't know, like 2015, something crazy'

  • Stock Stern speakers lack the power delivery and dynamic range to reproduce all sounds that Stern's audio engineers programmed into games

    high confidence · Kevin notes: 'the biggest thing that I noticed is that there were sounds that the audio engineer at Stern had programmed in there... that Stern's back box speakers were not capable of reproducing'

  • DIY audio upgrade costs approximate $360+, nearly matching PinWoofer kit pricing at $370

    high confidence · Dan presents cost comparison spreadsheet showing DIY equivalent pricing

  • About 10-20% of PinWoofer customers add external subwoofers alongside internal kit

    high confidence · Dan states: 'Maybe 10% or 20% of our customers pursue an external subwoofer in conjunction with our kit'

  • PinWoofer supports WPC through WPC95, White Star, Stern Sam, Spike, Spike2, early Jersey Jack, and CGC platforms with varying timeframes for full compatibility

    high confidence · Dan provides detailed platform support list with CGC estimated 3-12 months for full compatibility

  • Dan Dean has 15 years of pinball history and purchased home-use-only titles like Twilight Zone for $400

    high confidence · Dan describes: 'maybe I've been in pinball 15 years. just buying titles here and there back when, I mean, I bought, like, new home use only, Twilight Zone, $400'

  • Music-themed pinball machines (Rush, Led Zeppelin) sound better without external subwoofers; action-heavy games benefit more from bass enhancement

Notable Quotes

  • “The speakers that they ship in their games, especially in the back box, are complete garbage. I mean, they are... This is what I pulled out of my Rush. Look at this piece of shit.”

    Kevin Manning @ ~10:00 — Direct critique of Stern's manufacturing choice to use cheap speakers despite $7,000+ machine pricing

  • “You can always play around and add a sub and take it out. But I think with the music pins in particular, I think they sound better without it.”

    Kevin Manning @ ~27:00 — Practical advice challenging the assumption that all games benefit from external subwoofers

  • “I had my guitar and sort of kind of sort of tried to play it. But I always loved, just loved music. I mean, it was just a passion of mine, like a lot of people.”

    Dan Dean @ ~13:30 — Personal context establishing Dan's audio passion foundation

  • “When you have people over and you have four or five machines going, the room becomes a mashup, and, you know, your guests may have trouble talking, conversing.”

    Dan Dean @ ~30:00 — Practical consideration about external subwoofer usage in multi-machine environments

  • “So there's a little bit something to it. But it really just depends on how far you want to go.”

    Dan Dean @ ~19:00 — Measured acknowledgment that subwoofer preferences vary among enthusiasts

  • “Stern's not only about the speakers. The amplification is another. So what we provide... the best integration and best match set of components for pinball audio.”

    Dan Dean @ ~16:00 — Articulates PinWoofer's integrated system philosophy beyond simple speaker replacement

  • “Once you hear an upgraded sound system in your pinball machine from Pinwoofer, then you don't know what I'm talking about maybe, but once you do hear it, it's going to ruin you.”

    Kevin Manning @ ~08:00 — Strong endorsement of product's transformative impact on gameplay experience

Entities

Dan DeanpersonKevin ManningpersonNick LanepersonPinWoofercompanyStern PinballcompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanyChicago Gaming CompanycompanyHarms LabscompanyBuffalo Pinballorganization

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: PinWoofer expanding platform support; CGC (Chicago Gaming Company) Monster Bash remake target for compatibility within 3-12 months, indicating market demand for legacy/remake machine upgrades

    medium · Dan acknowledges CGC demand, mentions local testing connections, identifies specific obstacles (troll bracket obstructions on Medieval Madness, undefined color DMD speaker panel fit issues)

  • ?

    community_signal: Audio upgrade community actively discussing and comparing solutions on Pinside forum; customer feedback driving product iteration (e.g., BBU accessory demand per Dan's report of being 'scolded' for not offering it)

    medium · Kevin heard PinWoofer recommendations on Pinside before purchase; Dan references social media posts and customer feedback shaping product decisions

  • ?

    competitive_signal: PinWoofer positioning as premium solution provider emphasizing engineering expertise and integrated design rather than competing on price with commodity audio components

    medium · Dan's presentation opens with credential-building (audio background, technical school, speaker factory experience); emphasis on 'highest quality' and 'exceptional reliability' in mission statement

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Aftermarket audio philosophy emphasizing dynamic range and power delivery over speaker brand prestige; integrated cabinet subwoofer provides tactile bass feedback superior to external solutions for certain game types

    high · Dan: 'most important thing is that you get enough power delivered to the speakers'; Kevin prefers integrated cabinet approach for tactile feedback over external sub disconnection on music pins

  • $

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.341

0:00
Coming up on this episode of Bro, Do You Even Talk Pinball, we're going to talk audio and pinball with guest Dan Dean of Pinwoofer. We've got news, we've got game room updates, all that and more coming right up. Go Superjet Pod!
0:30
I need a rule. I want targets. I can hit. I need to shoot. I can double. I can double my life. That's right.
0:49
And now, the Hall and Oates of Pinball Podcasting, Nick Lane and Kevin Manning of Buffalo Pinball. Whoop, boom, shakalaka. What's going on, everybody? Welcome to episode 72 of Brody, You Can Talk Pinball. I'm Kevin Manning. That's Nick Lane. What's going on, Nick? We've been doing this longer than Munsters was on the air in the 60s, so.
1:09
They didn't hit 72 episodes? We might get our own pinball machine. Well, they've been doing it for two years, so. All right. Yeah, we've definitely been doing it longer than that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, yeah, what's going on? How you been? Yeah, it's, if you didn't know, it's November 3rd right now when we're recording this. so if you're listening to this in the future it's November 3rd 2022 is the time of the date is that important? I don't know I just feel like people give you whack that's fair it's for context when we talk about what's happening and what's new let's thank some partners let's jump right into it let's do it you've got some sponsors to thank Kevin's going to put it on the screen I did I see a little bit All right. Our premier partner, Pinstadium lights. These are lighting kits for your pinball machines. They're controlled by your phone. A phone controls lights in your pinball machine because this is the future.

high confidence · Kevin and Dan agree that music pins sound better without subs, reserving external subs for games like Iron Man and Godzilla with heavy explosions

“25 years in the semiconductor industry, and now I'm doing what I want to do.”

Dan Dean @ ~14:00 — Career transition establishing credibility and passion-driven business model

Bro, Do You Even Talk Pinball
organization
Kenwood 1366product
Piles speakerproduct
Spikeproduct
Spike 2product
WPCproduct
White Starproduct
Pin Stadium Lightsproduct
Flippin' Out Pinballcompany
Titan Pinballcompany
Pinsideorganization

market_signal: DIY audio upgrade pathway ($360+) economically equivalent to PinWoofer kit ($370), but integrated solution appeals to buyers seeking warranty, support, and time savings over customization satisfaction

high · Dan provides itemized DIY cost comparison spreadsheet; acknowledges hobby satisfaction value of DIY while noting most customers prefer integrated solution convenience

  • ?

    product_strategy: PinWoofer developing custom speaker components (textile tweeters, dual voice coil cabinet speakers) specifically engineered for pinball sound reproduction, moving beyond commodity audio parts

    high · Dan describes custom Drizzy Jack tweeter, new 5.25-inch and 4-inch backbox speakers, and dual voice coil cabinet speaker all in-house designed and prototyped at 'great risk'

  • ?

    product_concern: Stark manufacturing quality mismatch: Stern prices machines at $7,000-$15,000+ but includes sub-$50 backbox speakers; even LE Kenwood 1366 speakers don't justify premium positioning

    high · Kevin's direct comparison of Rush speaker (paper garbage pulled from machine) vs Pro machine pricing; Dan confirms Kenwood 1366s are 50% more expensive but don't sound proportionally better

  • ?

    technology_signal: Pinball audio systems transitioning from mono to stereo speakers (circa 2015), with aftermarket integrated audio solutions now becoming standard upgrade path for collectors

    high · Kevin: 'Stern was still doing mono speakers up until, like, I don't know, like 2015, something crazy'; Dan's integrated amplifier/speaker systems as market standard

    • 2:12
    iOS, Android. You can customize it any color you want those lights to be. You can take a picture or something on the play field and have it match those colors. It's an amazing product. You can save 10% when you type in Buffalo. That's Pin Stadium, the award-winning mod for your pinball machine. Then we've got Pinwoofer, pinwoofer.com. We're going to talk more about Pinwoofer on this episode because pinball audio is important. It's super important. And if you don't believe that, you can fight me on it. All right, next we've got Flippin' Out Pinball, flippinoutpinball.com. Once you go back, you never go back. And he's got a sidekick now, just like Batman's got Robin, he's got Greg Bone. So those two are double teaming to get you a really expensive, heavy toy into your game room. They're the best. They're seriously the best thing for this hobby in terms of businesses and feeding our addictions. Zach is my dealer, which is a totally different connotation than it was when I said something like that 20 years ago. All right, Titan Pinball, TitanPinball.com. This is for silicone rings, but that's not all, folks. they've got my favorite product from them is obviously the mat. I talk about that all the time. But it's also the transparent flipper protectors that are statically, and it won't damage your machine. You don't like them, you take them right off, no damage, boom. All right, PinballEVU, head over to pinballwraffle.org. You can have a chance to win a pinball machine each and every month. You make a donation to charity, doing some good, maybe you'll win some pinball. What else is there? Like pinside.com. So, pinside.com, the OG forum, still standing. Buy, sell games on there, sell mods, go into the forum, rank games, whatever pinside.com has you covered. Cometpinball.com, another OG sponsor that's for replacing your incandescent light bulbs. Or, even if you have an LED machine, which most things are LED now, actually all of them are, you can even add more lights to it in their specialized lighting in certain areas. It pairs really nicely with Penn Stadium.
    4:19
    And last but not least, Jersey Jack pinball maker, one of the most beautiful pinball machines on the planet.
    4:25
    All right, let's get into our main segment of this podcast, and that is pinball audio. Now, I always kind of say I'm not a huge mod guy. I don't buy a pinball machine and think about all the ways I can stick plastic crap into it. I like the idea of tasteful mods, But there is one mod that I always do to my machines, and that's usually upgrading the audio in some way.
    4:50
    And for years, the singular way that I upgraded my audio was adding an external subwoofer. It's not terribly expensive, and it just gives the machine more of a presence, especially when most machines have, like, gunshots, explosions, et cetera. Well, you know, you're not done there, really, because there is a very important aspect of the pinball machine that gets forgotten about, and that's the back box speakers or even the cabinet speaker itself. And what's happened in the last few years is that pinball audio has gotten significantly better than it was when I got into the hobby, at least in terms of going from mono to stereo. So, believe it or not, Stern was still doing mono speakers up until, like, I don't know, like 2015, something crazy, right? So now you've got stereo speakers. I think, like, the sound design in most Pimol machines, it doesn't matter what manufacturer it is, it's pretty damn good. The audio engineers that they're hiring, except for the keyboards and stuff and guns and roses, but I won't go there. But other than that and the occasional... I don't know. Have we talked about Spooky lately? You remember Halloween?
    5:58
    Oh, that's garbage. I mean, that's the worst. You're overestimating it. All right. It's not all great, but it's getting a lot better.
    6:06
    All right. I digress. But listen, it's, I mean, Stern's crushing it, by the way. Here's the problem. The speakers that they ship in their games, especially in the back box, are complete garbage. I mean, they are, if you can see the screen, we'll show you more examples. This is what I pulled out of my Rush. Look at this piece of shit. I got a show and tell, too. Here we go. This is like paper. Like, look at, that's just garbage paper. Yeah, that's garbage. That's the woofer that Kevin pulled out of his stern, okay? It's just paper garbage. It was rattling. It sounded crappy. So, thankfully, a product comes along called Pinwoofer, and I was curious about it. I heard good things on Pinside. So I got a kit, threw it into my Led Zeppelin since last year, and, you know, instantly the sound was better. I heard things in that game that I didn't hear before. And then during that, I was trying to really – I did a review of it last year. I was really trying to dial it in and get it to sound its best. I called Dan up, and I had a really good conversation with Dan. I was just kind of blown away with his passion and, you know, the way he would explain things and how things work. Obviously, he came across as very knowledgeable.
    7:24
    And I thought, well, for anybody who's nerding out about their sound in their pinball machines, And if you're not nerding out yet, you probably should because if you haven't heard an upgraded sound system in your pinball machine from Pinwoofer, then you don't know what I'm talking about maybe, but once you do hear it, it's going to ruin you. And I feel very strongly about that because Pinwoofer is a sponsor, but they're only a sponsor because I bought the product, and I like this so much, and I said we've got to get Pinwoofer on as a sponsor for the show because it's what we're talking about. So without further ado, let's welcome Dan Dean to the show. So, Dan, how are you doing, man? Hey, how's it going, bud?
    8:05
    Really good, really good. Thank you. So can you start us off, like, what is your background that, you know, suddenly you're able to not only get into pinball, but what's your background in terms of audio? Why should somebody listen to you about their audio on their expensive pinball machine?
    8:27
    Yeah, all right. So I guess like a lot of guys in my demographic, you know, I'm 55 years old, but, you know, I really cut my teeth as a kid, as a teenager on vinyl. And, you know, a lot of my early influences were definitely, you know, Zeppelin and Rush and really moving up into all the heavy metal. And, you know, I had my guitar and sort of kind of sort of tried to play it. But I always loved, just loved music. I mean, it was just a passion of mine, like a lot of people. And so as time went along, I eventually went to a two-year technical school, and when I did that, I got a job at a speaker factory, a place called Harms Labs in Colorado. And the guy was brilliant, and he's one of those guys. He kind of taught me what a golden ear was, which that's not me, but a golden ear is somebody who just really can hear everything. I mean, you know, detail in audio. They understand audio engineering. They understand all these concepts. So that was kind of where I got my first introduction, and then I spent some time, you know, doing other things. So when I went to college, I got another job at a radio station. And, you know, good or bad, I mean, I don't know if I did more good or bad there, but I definitely learned a little bit about it, a little bit more about audio. And so it's always been a passion. And then the electronics part of it, when I was in school, a lot of my emphasis was in analog electronics, analog engineering. And there's a ton of analog stuff that is out there, and I guess the rest is history. 25 years in the semiconductor industry, and now I'm doing what I want to do. And then how did you – what's your pinball history? Have you been into pinball for a significant period of time? I mean, why upgrading the audio and pinball machine and not something else, for example? Yeah. So, yeah, so maybe I've been in pinball 15 years. just buying titles here and there back when, I mean, I bought, like, new home use only, Twilight Zone, $400, you know, just the bargains of the century that we dream about now. But I started working on them. I started restoring them through the late 2000s, early 2010s. And, you know, and I tried the external subwoofer route, but I just didn't like it. I felt detached from the experience. And I started putting some stuff in. Like others, you know, I'm not the only guy that's tried this. It's not that I consider myself the godfather of pinball audio, but I just kept going with it. And we started pinball for about four years ago and have evolved the products in. So I'm definitely a pinball guy. I was a pinball guy as a kid and a pinball kid as a kid. And now I'm an adult who loves pinball. I don't do as much, like, quote-unquote work on my machines anymore. I do pinwoofer, but that's kind of how I ended up here. Nice. So let's jump in and talk about what pinwoofer is for the folks who haven't experienced it, don't know if they haven't looked up your product. I think you shared a deck with Kevin, so he can try to play along and figure out where we are in this process. But take us through what pinwoofer is exactly. Okay. All right. Next slide.
    11:43
    Hang on one sec. There you go. I love that somebody's telling Kevin, next slide, this is great. This is his dream. Yeah, so these are the topics. Nick seeded some topics for me. We'll get to them. Next slide, please.
    11:58
    Okay, so this really wasn't an attempt to brag. It's more of a statement that when you deal with Penwoofer and you deal with me, you're dealing with somebody who has some knowledge and has some real-world experience and can do the job.
    12:15
    Awesome. I like your sticker and your pocket protector. And just jump in and stop me whenever you like if you have questions.
    12:27
    Okay, so we do have a mission statement, create the highest quality pinball audio products with exceptional reliability, provide value, and industry-leading instructions and customer support. And these are kind of the cornerstones that we here in the shop live by. It's in our culture, and these are the things I want to do. Okay. System overview. Okay. So speakers are one thing. The amplification is another.
    12:55
    So what we provide, you can kind of follow along with the right. This is a Monca pinball machine. So we provide high-fidelity speakers, a powered system, which consists of an amplifier, a harness with connections, DC power, audio. and then what we've got in the machine now is what I consider the best integration and best match set of components for pinball audio. Hey, Dan, so anybody who's thinking about a pinball machine, you get a new – I'm going to use Stern as an example just because they're the largest manufacturer. Most people who are listening to this are more likely to have a Stern. So when you get a Stern, you know, you've got three speakers that come with it. You've got the cabinet subwoofer. I'll put that in quotes, and then you've got the two back box speakers.
    13:44
    Those speakers have got to be the cheapest speakers that one could possibly buy. Is that a fair statement, Dan?
    13:53
    Yes. Okay. And, I mean, we could think about this, you know, well, you know, look, in some ways it's hard to imagine that you can spend at the minimum like $7,000 on a Pro, right? and, you know, you look at the – most people haven't probably looked at these speakers or pulled them out, most people I say. And then that's such a cheap speaker to put in there.
    14:21
    Even on the premiums, Stern's putting the same cheap speaker. It's not until you get to the LE that they're putting Kenwoods in, which they're not that great, the Kenwoods. I mean, clearly they sound better than the speakers that are in the Stern pro and premium, but they're still not great. I think that's important to bring up because when I upgraded, I think the biggest thing, I mean, I expect the audio to sound better, but the biggest thing that I noticed is that there were sounds that the audio engineer at Stern had programmed in there, in the music and the sound effects, that Stern's back box speakers were not capable of reproducing.
    15:03
    Yeah, yeah. You know, I probably should clarify. So some of the machines, you know, the limited edition and then I'd say the modern Jersey Jack pinball machine, they have made attempts to put in improved speakers. But by and large, the most important thing is that you get enough power delivered to the speakers so that you have dynamic range, dynamic range being the difference between the quietest amount of sound that's being reproduced. And that's at any volume level. Even when you're playing at lower volume levels, you need enough power so that you can hear the definition of the sound coming through the speakers. And, yes, the speakers are very important.
    15:46
    All right, awesome. Let's move along, Kev. What do we got next? Okay. All right, just a little bit of eye candy here. so all of our electronics at this point are 100% in-house designed so you can see on the left is our do-it-yourself line of amplifier which doesn't require a harness it's got a power solution, taps right into the audio pretty easy install, and the center is our Knockout Plus amp with a couple boards to deliver power and audio and then moving over a couple miscellaneous boards our GT amplifier, GT Plus amplifier for the older machines. It's got some features in the preamp that allow you to add a little bit of gain to the initial stage. And then on the right, we've got these little accessories, the base boost unit, and then the line trimmer. And these are things that support external subwoofers.
    16:38
    Maybe 10% or 20% of our customers pursue an external subwoofer in conjunction with our kit, but we still want to support those well. And I will tell you, the guys that buy those BBUs, they've scolded me for not offering them, like, as an option with our main kit. So there's a little bit something to it. But it really just depends on how far you want to go. So most guys don't really dig into the – or don't really, like, pursue an external subwoofer. But those that do, you know, they're really after an amazing audio experience. They want the machine to sound good, and they want infinite amount of bass surrounding it. Yeah, well, it's interesting. You and I talked about this probably a couple months ago before I put the kit into Rush. And, you know, I really wanted the sound on both my music pins, Rush and Led Zeppelin, to sound as good as possible. And, you know, I put the pinwoofer kit in Led Zeppelin, and then later on I added the external sub. And, you know, I eventually took the external sub off that game, even though every other game I have an external sub, and I didn't put it on Rush because I didn't need those games to be super boomy. You know, like when I listen to Led Zeppelin or Rush, it's not super bass heavy. It's not unnatural. You know, like I look at having external subwoofers for, you know, an explosion in a game, right, or Iron Man, which is going to be bombastic, right? But I think my advice to people, too, is try it without a sub first. I mean, you can always play around and add a sub and take it out. But I think with the music pins in particular, I think they sound better without it. And I think you were saying the same thing, like you don't put subs on your games.
    18:19
    Yeah, I don't. You know, I gave a couple subwoofers a really good rundown a few weeks ago just so I could really ring out. Like, what is this? These guys that are buying some of these accessories, like, really, what are they going after? What are they hearing? And I kind of get it. But, you know, I mean, our core is the internally integrated system. So I tend to focus more on that. But, you know, I mean, if someone wants to add an external sub, you know, bless them. More power to them.
    18:50
    Don't worry. Someone's going to – I will not dissuade anybody from adding a sub. They're going to – they want to get a sub. They want it to be as loud and booming as possible. And something you said about Rush, so Rush, I mean, the track, it's just great rock and roll. And our new cabinet speaker, it is really punchy. And I think it reproduces Rush. I think it reproduces the music very good. Now, I agree with you. On some titles, you know, if you want to hear Godzilla in the background, if you want to hear, you know, other effects, like you said, Iron Man, you want to hear explosions and stuff, you want to hear the room rumble, that's great. You can add that. But one other thing that I've found with the external subs, if you get one or two machines going, it's nice to have something to attenuate that signal because when you have people over and you have four or five machines going, the room becomes a mashup, and, you know, your guests may have trouble talking, conversing. It's more of a distraction. So that is something to think about when you have the external sub. Get yourself a little bit of a, you know, get yourself a trimmer, get yourself a control so you can just reach in there before the party and turn the external subs down so that you don't have such a mashup in the room. No, that's a great point. And with pinwoofer, what I like is you've got a cabinet subwoofer speaker, right? So that can definitely give you some of that boom. It's not going to be like an external subwoofer, but it's more of a tight, controlled. And what I like about it is it vibrates the cabinet in a way, so you can really feel the bass in a way that with an external subwoofer, you don't exactly feel the bass. So the bass seems a little disconnected from the game, at least from a tactile perspective. Yeah, yeah, tactile was the word I wanted to use.
    20:38
    All right, I think Kevin had a slide. I don't even think we've shown your products yet, so let's bring that up. You want to talk a little bit about what we're looking at, Dan?
    20:46
    Yeah, yeah, so this is the custom line speakers we have now. So on the left is our Drizzy Jack tweeter. We've had that for some time, and that's vital. That's vital on the Jersey Jack platform, especially in Guns N' Roses. And then the center tube, that's our 5 1⁄4 and 4-inch back box speaker, primarily for Stern and all the other ones that have back box speakers. And then on the right is our dual voice coil cabinet speaker. So it's got a tight suspension, a big voice coil. It's real punchy, and it has a pretty good mix of punch and sustain in it. So we're thrilled with them. I mean, all of these speakers, well, not so much the tweeter, but the back box speakers in blue and then the cabinet speaker. For our little operation, those were ordered at great risk. I had prototypes. I knew what they sounded like. But it's a pretty heavy lift. You cannot go in and buy, you know, 30, 40 pairs of speakers from a factory. You have to go in, like, with the big boys. But fortunately, all these things came back, and everything was an upside. Everything exceeded expectations, and I am just thrilled with our new speakers. Yeah, so when I had my Led Zeppelin, I was using your older back box speakers, and I thought they sounded okay, right? It was definitely an upgrade from the Stern stock speakers, which anything is. But I got your new line of back box speakers with Rush, which replaced the old ones, and it sounded fantastic. Like, it definitely sounded better than the Piles kind of in your version one system.
    22:25
    Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the Piles was a good mainstay. And, I mean, you know, a lot of guys might have upgraded them. And, sure, we could have done better. But some of the speakers, you pay for the brand. I mean, you mentioned the Kenwood 1366s. And they're probably 50% more than the Piles speaker, but they don't sound as good. So it was just a matter of time until we could really, you know, put into place, I mean, the right set of speakers. I think we're there now. And then the other comment I'd make, those tweeter elements in our new VAC box speakers, they just sound phenomenal. They're what they call a textile tweeter. Sometimes they're called silk tweeter. I don't think silkworms wove the material, but they're kind of a fabric material, And so they're a little less susceptible to deformation at higher volumes, and they have a little bit wider frequency response. So the frequency domain that they reproduce, I think, is a little broader.
    23:24
    And I think they're just a smoother speaker. Now, they're not as efficient as an automotive speaker, but then again, you're not trying to, you know, produce trouble when you're running down the road with the windows down or you're towing a skier behind your boat. You know, these are more for a quiet ambient environment where you want really good, smooth treble reproduction. And our amp, I mean, we have more than enough power in the back box, and there's a treble control in there. So that's most of the adjustability you need. And if you need to go beyond that, you can get into the graphic equalizer in the menu and, you know, lift up the high end a little bit as you see fit. Yeah, maybe we should talk about that. I want to come back to the settings in a Stern pinball machine. because I think we can even help some people before they even get a kit. But a question in the chat, do you have a kit that works with the Chicago Gaming, the remake of Monster Bash? What manufacturers do you support at Pin Whipper? Oh, okay. Well, everything – not everything, but WPC through WPC95, all of that, not Pinball 2000, not Capcom, Data East, Sega White Star, Stern White Star, Stern Sam, Spike, Spike2, the early Jersey Jack, Jersey Jack.
    24:44
    As far as CGC goes, so I've had some requests and out in the wild there is a bigger install base than there might have been a year or two ago. So we're getting closer to offering something and I'm probably only about a day or two away from, if I stopped and worked on it, we probably It could get something going. The only constraint we might have is Monster Bash. Monster Bash is good. Attack from Mars is good.
    25:13
    The Medieval Madness, the troll brackets, when they descend down, it's going to be hard to put a Warfer in there. We might have to come up with some kind of offset ring, like we do for Metallica and Walking Dead.
    25:24
    So if there's an underplay, field obstruction. What's, oh, Cactus Canyon. I actually haven't looked at it yet. And I had one years ago, but I've got to kind of go through and look at the underplay field obstructions. So we can probably do that at some point, you know, in the next three to 12 months.
    25:44
    And then the other thing is the back box. I know that there's some upgraded color DMD speaker panels that have different size speakers. And the whole, you know, the whole fit problem is still undefined a little bit. so you know it's one of those things you've got to kind of tiptoe into it the last thing I want to do is and this has happened before but I really don't again want to send somebody something that doesn't fit it's a very difficult process so I think in summer yeah Chicago Gaming I think we could do something in the near future there's some guys locally that have machines and I've got enough connections where I can probably send some stuff out and get some real detailed feedback on it but I guess I'd ask you Do you feel like that's like an area that would be – I mean, do you think there's demand out there? Do you think there's an appetite for, you know, getting some improvements in the CGC platform? That's – I don't have one. Kevin doesn't have one. I think that's a good question for our listeners. So if there's demand for that, then I would highly encourage you to reach out to Dan and let him know and maybe get into a conversation with him about that.
    26:56
    Dan, we didn't even get to this. Kevin, make sure I come back to – and I know I'm jumping around. I can't help it. But make sure I come back to the stern sound settings because that's important. But, Dan, really quickly, so basically this is a kit, right? And we can break this down, but, like, most people, if they're going to jump into this, I would recommend getting the kit. And you stop me if I miss anything, but it's the two back box speakers, an amplifier, and then the cabinet subwoofer replacement speaker. Is that correct?
    27:31
    Yeah, power solution. The power is very important. Amplifier, all-wiring harness, and two back box speakers, cabinet speaker. Okay. What does a full-blown kit cost?
    27:44
    A full-blown kit, current pricing is about $370. And then there's options. You can add options on top of that if you want to add an amplifier mounting bracket or one of those subwoofer controls. Okay. And then you do sell some components separately as well, is my understanding? Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't know how much time you want to consume on this. You can flash through the deck. I put some of the stuff in there.
    28:10
    Some risks of damage. Yeah. And then the DIY and some costs. Yeah, the costs of doing it yourself. So in general like what the if I wanted to put together a kit like you have from like Amazon parts what the difference Oh what the difference Yeah I mean like cost I mean I guess and quality
    28:36
    Oh, the pinwoofer's going to sound better for sure. But in all seriousness, so there was a cost comparison we did there. And so, I mean, we think in all fairness, and these are taken from different posts we see on social media. And then there's some other things where, you know, like the cabinet mounting ring. I mean, you could probably go out and 3D print one yourself. Or if you buy one from us, it's, I don't know what I have in there, $25 or something.
    29:05
    But these are things that are taken kind of from the ecosystem. Guys said, hey, I bought this amp from Parts Express or whatever. But I went through and put this stuff into a spreadsheet trying to find an answer to, you know, what does it really cost you to go do this stuff on your own? And this is what we came up with, and I think it's pretty fair. I mean, you might be able to cut back in some areas or do something more in other areas. You know, the wire and connectors and hardware, you know, that stuff, you know, we pinned that at two bucks. You know, if you buy a spool of wire, I mean, you know, 100 feet of wire is going to do more than one machine, right? So he said, well, you know, what's expensible and, you know, pin those things at a low cost. But, I mean, when you add it up, it's, you know, it's $360-plus.
    29:56
    Now, that's if you want to add the full kit from scratch. And that's not to say, I mean, some guys might say, well, I'm not going to do, you know, I've got an external sub. I'm not going to put a cabinet speaker in there. Oh, okay, you can kind of pull it off. But I think for the lion's share of people that come to us, if they had a choice up front, they knew they could do it themselves or they could do our kit. And if they're just looking at price, they would say, well, you know, for another, you know, five or ten bucks, I'll just get a full Penwoofer kit and the whole thing. You know, end-to-end document, it's all integrated. You know, it goes in in a very short amount of time. There's very little time sink required. There's a warranty with our product. There's technical support. so for a lot of guys they just don't want to go through the process of figuring this out and then you know the results you know are they proven well our results are pretty mature and so anyway so just from a cost perspective point of view it's a very similar experience and I got pros up there I mean if you want to do it yourself I mean you could customize and then there's some satisfaction in doing it yourself And that's important. A hobby should be fun. It should be rewarding.
    31:10
    So, you know, a couple things to think about. Yeah, and I will say for full disclosure, I have upgraded some machines in my collection, not using, you know, the full pinwoofer kit and using some other solutions, right? I'm not going to give anybody any bread crumb trails.
    31:29
    But here's the – I mean, this was my approach when I did it. Like, and I can compare the two. You know, in the Godzilla in my collection, that's Martha's game. Martha wasn't going to buy a full pinwoofer kit, but I got her to at least replace those god-awful back box speakers for Stern, right? So, you know, after doing it and putting a subwoofer, like, man, it sounds so much better than stock. Like, everybody should be upgrading. If you've got a game in your home collection, you really should upgrade the audio before you even move on to other mods. I think it's as important as people who have to put a shaker motor in every game. I really do. Just the fact that you paid for something in the machine that cannot be reproduced by those speakers, you're missing out on something that's built into that machine, the way that you may be missing out on a machine that can rumble without having a shaker motor. And it sounds good. I will always put a pinwoofer kit in kind of like a music pin for sure, full stop. and then I will put a pinwoofer kit in, like, my favorite keeper games. Like, games that I'm like, maybe I'll keep for a while. Like, you know, I'm not going to go full-blown pinwoofer kit in. They'll move down the road. That's what I've been doing. But without a doubt, the pinwoofer kit's easy to install, super easy. I had no problems doing it. And it does sound better than the DIY options in my book. I know, like, some people have just gone super crazy with the DIY, and by the time they go as crazy, I replace like the back box speakers. You know, they're replacing the cabinet sub. They're putting in amp. I mean, by the time you do that and run the wire, like you've lost out on time and money. So I think you've got really good competitive pricing with an impactful product. So we're running a little bit out of time, Dan, so I'm going to give you kind of free form to kind of maybe hit. Oh, I've got to come back. We've got to talk about stern settings. them as a value.
    33:26
    I'll finish off with that. Are there some things that you want to make sure that we get out there that we didn't cover?
    33:32
    Oh, well, you did pose the question, you know, why some games sound better than others. I tried to look at it. It was actually a more difficult question than I thought it would be on the surface.
    33:46
    So I did try to lend a little bit of analysis, but you might find slide 17 interesting. Let's hit 17, enter. 1-7, enter. It's like a slideshow.
    34:00
    Let me know when we get there. I love it when it has pictures because I'm not using PowerPoint. I'm using OBS here.
    34:12
    Oh, okay. That's the practical analysis one, I think. Okay, there you go. Yeah, so, you know, and we get that comment occasionally, like, oh, yeah, definitely upgrade all my music pins. But as, so what I did, so I went through and I said, you know, well, kind of what is the Pareto of our titles that we sold kits into? And this is over the past probably at least 24 months. And so I looked and Guns N' Roses, it's just the elephant in the room. That thing is just amazing with our kit in it. But beyond that, if you look at the top 10, four of them are music titles and then six them are theme titles. The theme titles, you know, Godzilla, Jurassic Park. So they're very popular for us. And while I don't, I didn't really know how to answer your question, Nick, like what makes one title sound better than another? You know, I almost have a different perspective on it now. And that is, if you look at the popularity, you know, people share their game rooms. People have people over. People, you know, come home and they order a kit. And I think they do it in response to what sounded good, what they heard. And I think people also talk. And on the forums, there's certain threads where, you know, people will talk about us on social media. And they talk about certain titles. And I think that influences our distribution within our portfolio. And you can kind of see, I mean, the top ones there are kind of, you know, they're, you know, I mean, Godzilla, I don't know how many, have they got over 10,000? Well, that could be part of it, but there's a lot of people that just really aren't that impressed with Godzilla out of the box. Zeppelin, you get a lot of bang for your buck. Rush, you get tons of bang for your buck. Zeppelin, tons of bang for your buck. Jurassic Park, you know, the details in there, you know, the T-Rex when she growls, the walkie-talkie chatter, just all these low-level surprises that you hear when you add our product into it. People hear it, and I think they respond to it. So, you know, and then, of course, individual taste is going to play into this as well. So while I don't really have an answer, what I tried to do in this and the previous couple slides was just take a different, you know, kind of take a look at it from a few different approaches to try to figure it out. But the fact of the matter is a lot of the technical happenings when the compression happens, when they, you know, load the thing onto a secure, you know, the secure SD card and plug it in the machine, there's a lot of budgets, there's constraints, there's limited amounts of memory. I think it's going to be real hard to, like, put a technical explanation behind it. But the results, I think, are what really speak the most, if that makes sense. Yeah, for sure. For sure. And then I know on your site when you can go to your site and you can look up, like, recommended settings, because Stern does give the user a number of options to play with the EQ settings on it, and that can certainly make a difference. And you have that all. I think you have that all on your site. and there's also forums usually of people talking about recommended settings. I think, yeah, one of the things that I've found, and you can let me know if this is consistent with your findings, but I usually turn off the filter in Stern's audio settings. There's like a turn off filter thing there. And even when I just get a game and I haven't put a speaker into it yet, and it tends to always sound better. Is that what you found, or does it depend by title? What do you think?
    37:59
    Okay, yeah, so there's a back box. Yes, there's a shelf filter setting for each of the back box and a cabinet speaker.
    38:13
    Okay, so the one thing I have noticed, and I'm trying to remember what title it is, that the default setting for the gain is probably different. It varies from title to title. But I have noticed on a couple machines, and I'm thinking of Iron Maiden specifically, I think the factory default there is to have the back box shelf filter set at like 4K ohms with like a 6 dB gain, which is quite a bit of gain. If you turn that down, in my opinion, and everyone's hearing this different, but in my opinion, I think the music cleans up. And I've played with this on Rush and some other titles with varying results, But I think in general, I tend to not like those shelf filters because a lot of what you can do with a shelf filter, you can either do it in the graphic equalizer or just turn that off as well. And although the controls on the Penelope ramp are pretty simple, they give you most of what you need.
    39:14
    But, you know, it's kind of like what I alluded to before. I don't really have a good window into what the inner workings of the makers, compression algorithms, and how they're doing their audio. And I just don't have a lot of experience with it. But I kind of think toggling that setting does give you a little bit of insight into what's going on. And like I said, I've had better results when I've just simply turned it off. Yeah, totally. I always turn off the EQ settings, and it just seems to be better, at least to my ears, right? And to your point, everybody's ears are a little bit different when they pick up.
    39:54
    Dan, we've got to move on, but I loved having you on. If you guys are interested in upgrading your sound, I can't recommend Pinwoofer enough. Head over to pinwoofer.com. Kevin's put it into his GNR and can attest it's great. I've got it in two of my games. So, you know, as you can tell, Dan's very knowledgeable and passionate about this. So reach out to him with any questions you might have. Or if he currently doesn't make a product for your game, if, you know, all you can do is reach out and see. Maybe if he gets enough reception, he'll create some of that. So, Dan, thanks so much for coming on. We appreciate it.
    40:30
    Awesome. Thanks so much. Really appreciate the time. Awesome. Thanks, Dan. Talk to you later. Take care. Take care, guys. All right, Kev, what do we got for the news for this month? I see. Well, first we got to play. We got to introduce it properly, okay? So let's do this first. Here's the tip. It's the latest pinball news. Show hunt. It's on fire. All right. First we got the Mandalorian. We had to start with this. And believe me, stick around for Topper's Hot. Gordon is going to, like, dig right into this. But we got to touch on it, too. It's the – not that one. I got to find my browser. That's a sneak peek of what we're going to get to in a little bit. By the way, Tim Kitzbrough, it's great hearing him. I was playing some Mutant Football League last night, and he's hilarious on that. Love it. That's Pinwoofer. There we go. All right, we found it. We got there, everybody. Stern Pinball reveals the exclusive holographic Mandalorian topper featuring exclusive modes. Here we go. So this morning, this was on October 19th, CERN revealed their new topper for the Mandalorian, inspired blah, blah, blah.
    41:44
    Let's get right to the chase. It's a $2,000 topper. It's a really cool-looking topper, but it's $2,000. So the points we want to hit are $2,000, really cool, and unlocks software features. All right? So, Nick, what do you think of all those three things? I mean, what a flex, right? Like, what a flex to buy a $2,000 topper on your minimum, like, $7,000 pinball machine. Or greater, right, if you have, like, an LE. Right. It's a cool, I saw it, it's a cool topper, right? Like, I don't get super excited over toppers. That one's cool. I think it's really good. Like, if I had a ceiling that could have a topper and that was, like, $500, Maybe even $600 I'd go up to I'm not a big Topper guy But I'd be tempted I like Mandalorian Topper looks great I think they did a fantastic job on it The price is fucking ridiculous It's nothing but a flex right now It's an absurd flex God bless you It has to do with all the resellers too Because if you look at The folks who bought Black Knight Topper And kept it in the box And then they stopped making them And then they started selling them for like $2,000 or $3,000, it's like, all right, well, you know, kind of like with the Jersey Jack raising their prices, it's like, well, if people are willing to pay this, we're going to start charging it and get this money, right? Dude, go out and buy five pinwoofer kits, okay? Spend the same amount, and just way bigger payoff than that. But listen, it's a cool topper for people who have that kind of like, fuck you money and can order it. Yeah, it's a cool topper, man. And it's nice that they added some modes. And as somebody who's not going to get the topper, like, I don't feel like I'm missing out not having those modes in my game. Like, they're really, like, a cherry on top of an already cherry. The game's code is great. There's so much in Mandalorian anyways. It's not like, I can see this being an issue with, like, the additional modes if, like, the game was really bare bones. And then, like, just to kind of complete the game, you have to buy a topper. That's not the case. This is just, there's already plenty in the game. They threw some more in there. Great. give them something if they got that.
    43:57
    I don't know. It's cool. It's a cool topper. It's just a ridiculous price. We're in the land of absurdity right now. Yeah. The modes do feel, you know, I think everybody kind of lost their minds about the goat mode on Jurassic Park with the topper. And it's like they're pretty much throwaway modes. This looks like it's a little more interesting at least. But either way, it's like whatever. Like you said, the game is complete. There's a full game there. Here's a little bit extra if you're going to shell out $2,000. I would want a little something extra too but yeah it's perfectly reasonable look look in video games there's DLC you buy the base game base game's good it's got everything you want you want more you pay a little bit more and you get more stuff more levels whatever I know people some people don't like DLC but if it's done right if the base game's good and you got your money's worth which I think I have from Mandalorian this is just gravy this is whatever and I'm happy for the people that get it I think you said Is James getting one? We're going to be able to see this thing in action? I think so. I think he said he's going to get one. I think I told you my topper story before. Maybe I said it on the podcast. You know, I was like, I don't go excited over toppers, but I loved the Black Knight topper, like when I saw videos of it. And I was like, man, if I can just buy one, I would keep it in my house, even though I can't have a topper. I'd set it to the side. I went over to Patrick's. We mention him on every podcast now. I went over to Patrick's, and he had a Black Knight LE for a while, and he had the topper on, and I was just over it. Not over it because the topper's not cool. The topper's cool as fuck, but you don't look at it when you're playing the game. Like, you just don't. Now, maybe the Mandalorian topper, because it's got some moji, might look up, but still, toppers are really a flex. That's it. It's a cool flex. It's to dress up your pinball machine, but, you know, I don't see the value whatsoever other than a flex. Yeah, it's to make it, you know, when you take the picture of your lineup of games, to show, like, oh, look how cool they all look with their toppers on there. And now that Mando's got one, I have to get the topper because if I don't, then I'm missing out on one. One of them's got a flat top and it doesn't match the rest of them, you know? Yeah, I mean, if we were doing a show on ranking toppers, which we're not the people for that, we'd have to have Gorin on. Don't get too excited, Gorin. This would be up there, right, in, like, a top five easy. Yeah, like if you throw all costs out the window, just, like, looking. on the coolness factor alone, definitely it's up there. Yeah.
    46:20
    All right. Good on the man toppers. Let's go. I think that's enough on toppers. You get more at the end of the show. Stick around for Goran for the deep analysis on the man topper.
    46:30
    Next up, we lost a legend. Well, we didn't lose him, but he retired. Pat Lawler. So on the latest Jersey Jack Pinball podcast, they confirmed that Pat Lawler has retired. so unless he decides to come back Toy Story 4 will be the last game he designs of course he has retired before and then came back to Jersey Jacks so there's no Tom Brady of pinball he's gone forever but did I do that sports thing right Kevin? I say he's the Tom Brady of pinball did I do that right? I think so he's the guy who keeps on coming back and doesn't know when to leave I think so exactly yeah it's like oh and now I'm getting divorced so yeah You know, Pat had a great run. I think it makes sense more now why they brought on Mark Seiden and Steve Ritchie. It's like, can this company that puts out a game every year and a half support four designers? And I guess the answer was no, and they probably knew this was coming, so they were just preparing for the future. But, you know, Pat was, you know, and I'm sure I share this sentiment with a lot of folks, So, like, Addams Family was the game that really, like, ignited that spark of, like, wow. I had played pinball before that, but this was, like, something next level, and it really, like, got me into it. So I'm sure a lot of folks about our age had similar experiences with Addams and some of his other games. So he's a legend. Thanks, Pat. It was cool playing Wonka with you in the Midwest Gaming Classic, too. That was a good time.
    48:01
    All right. Pinball Expo happened. Did you watch any Pinball Expo seminar? Nick? I did not. Did you? Here and there. I watched a few things. I did actually and we'll get into this. I watched the Stern one. Oh, you did. You watched the American Pinball one. We'll talk about that. I watched it after the fact. Yeah, we'll get there. You don't talk about American Pinball enough, but they just entered our radar. We're getting it today. It's going to wrap up our news segment.
    48:29
    If you want to see a recap, Pinball Expo did a great job. They actually recorded all of the sessions. their website basically every day of the show they would update it with new pictures and everything that happened during the event so pinball I suppose is kind of like the big quote unquote industry event of the year although I feel like people can we talk about Flippy is pretty great yeah what's with Flippy they had a mascot this year and it's a flipper with hands and feet I don't like mascots but there you go here's a hit I think people always expect companies to make big announcements at Expo, and they don't really ever do it. It was really rare. Like when we went to do the J.J.P. reveal of Pirates, that was a big one. But those – pinball companies don't time their releases around shows. They time their releases when the games are ready. So it's like just because the show is coming doesn't mean there's going to be, like, Stern's going to make a new announcement, J.J.P.'s going to make a new announcement. No, they're going to do it when their game's ready, and maybe you'll see it at the next show, right? So Stern did have 007 there, but they had announced it before the show. So it was just like your first chance to get your hands on a game.
    49:51
    One thing, let's move this up. So one thing Stern did talk about, I wanted to bring this up. So at their session, it was with Seth Davis, their new president, and Gary Stern, they were talking about a bunch of stuff and Insider Connected and blah, blah, blah.
    50:10
    They did a virtual factory tour and all this. Here's a quote from the article that NAP Arcade put up. They said, Stern increasingly views itself as a high-tech company that is going to continue to grow through investment in things like the cloud and connectivity, which I guess makes sense with Insider Connected. they mentioned that they are exploring doing things with virtual and digital pinball which they view as a way to help grow their customer base stern looks at pinball as its gateway into the multi-billion dollar games industry uh what's your what do you think about all that i don't i don't know what to make of it to be honest like yeah it's like you Go ahead You're a pinball company Your entry into the gaming Is through pinball That's a bizarre thing I don't know what to make of that statement To be perfectly honest Does that mean there's going to be more DLC And subscription bullshit coming Well they've done Virtual pinball stuff Like there was a certain pinball arcade So that's not exactly new Yeah I think that's a logical move they should be trying to put out digital versions of their games when they can because it's like marketing. I mean, it's like straight up. I mean, there's money to be had there, right? And plus it serves as marketing for whatever games that you can currently buy from Stern. You know, like you play that and you're going to want to play the real thing. Yep. I think they might be a little gun shy because I think it was after the Ghostbusters got released the pinball arcade people like reverse engineered it and were able to like bring it into virtual pinball like the the free versions of v-pin on on on pcs and stuff like that so i might have like i wonder if that's like behind because they they jumped in like with all with both feet and then they were like oh we're done we're not doing this anymore so maybe it's like they'll just do the back catalog and not consider currently in production i don't know or they'll do something totally different. Who knows?
    52:18
    Yeah, I don't know. I mean, you don't want to invest all that money in creating virtual games and then somebody reverse engineers and ports it over to a free platform. I get it. Also, though, that free platform is promoting your games if they're the actual recreation of the game and not just some kind of weird hybrid of it, right? A lot of the virtual pinball, sometimes there's just not the accurate representation of the game.
    52:48
    That's just my understanding. I could be wrong. I'm not a vPin expert. Yeah, so I was into it for a while, so a lot of times it would be like if it was Tron, it would be somebody trying to reprogram the existing rules in Tron versus dumping the exact ROM and having the exact files in it. Yeah. RLM, by the way, has a perfect statement. He says for the 200 people who use virtual pin versus the $200,000 that would pay on Steam. 100% correct, right?
    53:18
    You can't... Yeah, big deal. It's still like, they have to protect the rights of their rights holders, the intellectual property, right? So I'm seeing that more as the issue, right? Like if whatever movie company owns the rights to Ghostbusters is like, wait, what happened here? We're not going to work with you anymore if this stuff is going to just get leaked out. You know, that becomes more of a problem. Yeah, I'm way over my skis on this. I have no idea what the fuck is upstair and sleeve. So I think I'll end it there. All right. There you go. Well, Seth is from Disney, and they're great at monetizing everything. So sure, that's where he's coming from.
    54:00
    All right. Off to your favorite company. It's Spooky Pinball. They hired a new program. All right. If you want a PR 101 on how not to write a statement about a new hire like this, so it's like, okay, they met Matt Kemp. He's been a program for 22 years, huge fan of pinball. He's going to be pouring that passion into Halloween and Ultraman Code over the course of the next year. Okay, great.
    54:26
    Unless he isn't going to quite make Halloween as we wish, but we are working diligently on getting it done as soon as possible. What? Why would you? What? They're admitting it's not going to be good? I'm confused. So we hired this guy, and he's not going to make the game we really want it to be. But he's going to make it better than it is. Maybe it won't crash next time. I love the honesty. Yeah. The game's still going to be a piece of shit, but it's going to be a little better.
    54:55
    Won't be as bad as now, but it's not going to be as great as we want it. Sorry for the piece of shit comment. That's going to trigger so many people. I'm exaggerating a little bit. You can make up in the comments with your feedback. It's not a good game. Sorry. He's a terrific addition to the team. So it's like the rest of it is pretty good, but that middle part is just like, why would you even say that? Why would you say that? It's like they had like an inner monologue going, like inner commentary, and they just like got typed out. And it's that.
    55:25
    Yeah. So I don't know if you saw Eric Stone, the clip of Eric Stone playing Halloween on Halloween when he's doing what Eric does. He just like is crushing the game. and then it comes to a screeching halt and crashes in the middle of the game. He just walks away, throws his hands up. I got to see that. I love that moment. And the amazing thing is, like, this game's been out for more than a year now, and it's just crashing like that. It's just bad. It's bad news. It's bad. It's not good. Yeah, it's like, okay, we sold out of these games, and here's all the – we got all your money, and we strung you along for a year and a half, and now maybe the code might get better. And like what happened to the Like Fosma was the coder Did they fire him? Probably Fosma was never great to begin with So he's not a huge loss Yeah but so this guy's got coding But he's new to pinball Like okay right I mean that's the implication It's not like they got somebody who's been coding And doing pinball rules and design for a decade And all that Like no it's not So not going to be good He's probably like that guy that coded the barbecue menu and now he's going to make pinball machines, right? Look, and Spooky gets by selling to people who will just buy a pinball machine that is a theme that they like, period. And they don't go beyond that. It's a pinball machine that they like. It's the theme. There enough things in there that represent the theme Shut up Nick and Kevin I happy with this Why do you got to point out what a turd I bought Do you think that the tide going to turn against the boogie Because they're having issues with, well, I showed you, they're having issues with that new TNA remake, too. And people are... You want me to make my prediction? I'm going to make a big prediction. This is what's going to happen. And Pin Monk is in chat, and Pin Monk, I like you, Pin Monk. You're a good guy. he's saying they're going to run out of goodwill. Look, I think still there's enough people and still enough money that people are still going to order stuff from Spooky on the next thing, if it's a theme that they like. But you lose customers. You are losing customers, and you can't do this forever. And, look, I think that in the next year we're going to be in a very bad financial place in the world, like recession, depression. I spend all day just looking at finance stuff and trying to look on the macro level. I think it's just going to be bad. No, we're due for one. Nothing's good, right? Inflation's up, blah, blah, blah.
    57:59
    What's going to happen to these companies, right, when things get bad? The weak are going to fall apart. They're going to be done for. Once like Stern, they can weather a storm. They'll be fine. I mean, I understand they'll be fine. There might be layoffs. Quality might take even more hit. We're going to see an impact. But, like, if you're not doing a good job now and you're just getting buyers skating by, people are going to stop purchasing luxury items, right? There's going to be a decrease in pinball sales. And it's these companies that are just kind of, like, putting out questionable products, they're going to be done for. That's my prediction.
    58:38
    Yeah. I'm saying after a recession or depression hits, Spooky's done. That's my future. All right. There you go. And American Pinball. I'm going to spoil it. And American Pinball is going to be done, too.
    58:53
    Spoiler to our future discussion here. Yeah. Well, yeah, we can get more into it. But I agree. It's like, how can you upgrade, you know, upcharge from, what was TNA when it came out? Like, $5,500 originally? And now it's $9,000 and the quality is nowhere near as good as it was. And it wasn't great to begin with. I mean, realistically, Kevin, we're in a different financial spot than we were when that game came out in 2017. I mean, inflation's up, cost of living's up a ridiculous amount.
    59:27
    Parts are hard to come by. So, yeah, I mean, I don't know if you adjust for inflation and everything else if the $5,500 translates into what they're charging.
    59:40
    But I would do this. I would be like, you can get a Godzilla for that price, or you can get a TNA. Like, how do you compete against that? Like, maybe the guy or gal, I mean, there's some women that buy pinball machines, Martha, maybe they've got a Godzilla, and they've got a Rush, and they've got everything else that Stern's put out, which crushes it, and they're like, I like TNA, I'll get a TNA too, I've got a lot of money. But if you can only get one machine, I just don't see the compelling argument for a TNA. You'd have to have it priced considerably cheaper. But I understand, too, the economics of pinball right now. You can't produce a pinball machine for $5,500 anymore. So where does that leave you? Well, yeah, especially when you're doing it at a much lower quantity than CERN would be at their higher production. They're just not as big of a production.
    60:33
    They don't buy in the quantities, so they can't get the large quantity discounts. So, yeah, obviously when you buy from a smaller manufacturer, things are going to be more expensive. That's kind of just the economics of it, right? Well, I mean, so Pimmon's saying, well, Spooky gave it by raises. I'm not even saying that. They don't have to give anybody raises. It's just everything's more expensive. Everything is. Parts are more expensive. Everything's going up. So the cost to produce a pinball machine has increased considerably from just a few years ago.
    61:03
    Yeah. That's not an opinion. That's an absolute fact. Yeah. Everything's going up. Yeah. Well, we've brought it up on past shows about just, like, the nightmare of maintenance of past boogie pinballs. We've been, you know, second and third-handing experiencing through our friends and who are going out and trying to fix these things. And they've changed board sets so many times that they don't have the old board sets to support the old pins anymore because they're on, you know, Pinotaur or whatever the hell they're doing now. And they were doing P3 for a while. So at least if you got one with, like, the P-Rock boards in it, you can buy those. But if you have the Pinhek board, they don't have those. And it's a nightmare. And their solution is just, like, send out some boards to fix it or send some parts that may or may not fix the thing. They don't even, like, troubleshoot the problem. They're just, like, shotgun fixing stuff because either they don't have the expertise or the time to go in and actually, like, fix these things properly. So that's going to catch up with them, I think, you know, in addition to, like, pricing and quality. It's like people are just not going to put up with it after a while. No, you can get away with stuff when things are good and everybody's throwing money around and things are crazy. How do you weather a storm, though? Right? You should be building a business for when things are not good. And they're not doing that. Like, they're losing so much goodwill. And people who were pulling the trigger on these games, you know them, I know them personally, they're done with them. They're absolutely done with them. They've burned so many bridges.
    62:43
    All right. Have we covered all the spooky stuff for now? I think we're good. All right. Do you hear that? Here's another company we haven't talked about in a while. It's Dutch Pinball. They're still working away on Big Lebowski. They finally, what is this, like seven years later, they finally hit 1.0 code. So good on them, I guess. They announced it in 2014. I put my deposit down in 2014 on it. That's eight years? Yeah. Uh, yeah. So you got a, you got a wizard mode in there. Here's your rules flow chart.
    63:21
    Um, yeah. So expensive game. I give him credit for, you know, still sticking with this, this, um, kind of disaster. I mean, it is a disaster, like the history of this game. And listen, man, I like Lebowski is like a theme I love. I just, you know, the history and the price of it, like, it's like kryptonite right now to me. Yeah. What are they selling for now? Like $12,000, something like that? $12,000 is almost a deal. If it is $12,000, I don't know. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I'm sure somebody in chat will know.
    63:58
    Yeah, good on you. They're still slowly cranking through them. Yeah, Cranky says if you play it, you'll want it one. Probably, man. You know, if it was a reasonable price, like if the price matched what, you know, Stern Premium is or something, right, and they're reliable and I can get one and they've made past supporters whole and they kind of really turn things around, then, yeah, I probably would love one. I mean, I've played Lebowski. It's a fun game, but I don't know. It was never – maybe with the new code it's even better. I can't say it's been, you know, like four years since I played it. Ben is Ben's really tempting man Ben do you have one? He's got one?
    64:42
    It's so much better than a Sternelli And that is the price point How long have you had it? I want to see if it lasts like a year You also sold your Mando and I love that game So I don't know Ben What does James say? What does James say about it? I want to hear his take I want to come and play it Ben, trust me Alright Maybe we'll go out and stream it someday That'd be fun Oh dude Yeah Wait you had it since June? Were we over there? Maybe we haven't been there since June Alright we gotta go to Ben's Let's go Party at Ben's house Ben we're gonna come over and stream yours 100% I would love to do that Let's make it happen Alright Nick will finally be united with the Big Lebowski After 8 years of trials and tribulations it'll happen yeah all right uh over at multimorphic uh so they put together a big old uh business update and went out in early october mid-october yeah october 12th um there's a lot here but one of the one of the coolest things is that they announced they were going to be releasing two new modules in 2023 um i'm trying to see where let's see game kits i know i know they have it in here. I want to get the exact... There you go.
    66:03
    Our manufacturing and development teams are moving forward in parallel with two full-featured multi-morphic game kits planned for release next year and possibly more by third parties. That means we'll be releasing future game kits with a fairly long back-order queue for machines. So basically, they're not holding up production of additional titles because they have a backlog of people who want to buy machines. They're going to be manufacturing them in parallel, which is smart because it's like... They need to be filling that backlog of owners who already bought into the platform with new content. That's also going to play into the folks who are buying new machines, right? So I know definitely you're going to get at least one more game because I have a prototype of Drained in my game here, and that's getting really close to release here. and I've been talking to Nick Baldridge about the perils the trials and tribulations of manufacturing your own pinball even just the you know he's just making a module not even a whole machine and hearing what he's had to go through that for that I want to have him on to share what he's been going through because it's not easy it's all these startup companies that come out and are you know ballerama or whoever and they're like, well, yeah, we're just going to make the next great pinball machine. Just wait. Wait until you hear this discussion. It's going to be eye-opening, I think.
    67:27
    So, yeah, looking forward to what Multimorphic has coming up. They said they are estimated lead times for new orders right now are 12 to 13 months.
    67:37
    So that's what you're looking at if you're looking at getting in on a P3 right now. Oh, also congratulations to Jerry and Sarah on their new baby, Parker Andrew. I was born in the past couple weeks, so new baby for the Stellenberg family over there, so congratulations to them.
    67:59
    Over at Chicago Gaming, they're having delays. Everybody's having delays. This came via Game Room, guys. Cactus Canyon update. We have received an update from Chicago Gaming regarding the Cactus Canyon remake production. All the parts needed for production are currently at the factory, and pinballs are moving down the production line. The entirety of Cactus Canyon limited edition production run will last approximately 18 weeks with smaller amounts of the special edition with topper being produced alongside the limited edition. We are expecting to receive our first units in four to six weeks and we'll then ship them to you as quickly as possible. Please be advised that based on these dates, it will likely be close to the end of February before we have fulfilled all of our orders. We appreciate your patience and we'll update you again in six weeks if we had not started receiving games into our warehouse. So, yeah, it's going to be a while before you get to scanning. I don't know what the – it's got to be with the toppers, right, because they've made some of the ones without the toppers. And, actually, I see quite a few of those on the resale market for a decent price there in, like, the $7,000 range. I was like, oh, that's kind of something. If the code update ends up being good, that could be a good value game. But it's such a dice roll right now because I think people aren't hanging on to this game because it's so easy to get to the end. and it's not a real hard – there's not a lot of depth there and it's not a tough playing game, so people are just blowing through it.
    69:23
    Yeah, exactly. Exactly. All right. Everyone's good at pinball now, though, you know? Yeah. Like the level of play has just gone up exponentially, so a game like that just doesn't work.
    69:38
    We've gotten used to these deep rule sets. You know, if you're playing out of location, that's one thing, but to buy a game and stick it in your house, So you want more bang for your buck there. Yeah. I mean, especially people who have pinball machines, they've gotten good at pinball. Right? Like back in 98 or whenever this originally came out, a lot of people didn't have pinball machines in their house. They would go on location and play. So it weren't that – even people who played, they weren't even that great comparative to how they are now. Right? Yeah. I think that's fair to say. the average pinball skill has gone up as more people have owned them in their houses. Yep.
    70:16
    All right, Nick Lane, what's up at American Pinball? What's going on over there? You watched the update.
    70:22
    Yeah, I just, before I even get to that, everyone's fucking me up with Lebowski talk and the one thing I know. I'm like shaking over here. Oh, boy, here we go. All right, let's go to American Pinball. We've got to stop the Lebowski talk for now. We'll play Benz, and that will just put me in a fizzy. All right, American Pinball. So, you know, I watched the American Pinball video. That was, I guess it was that they played at Expo, and then they put it on YouTube to watch because Dave Fix, a local legend in his own mind, Dave Fix, featured on episodes of the brochure. You can go watch him back in the Whirlwind episode from 2015.
    71:10
    Centaur, we played with him too, right? Oh, did we play Centaur? Yeah, Centaur 2 that was at your house, right? Yeah, there's a lot of Dave Fitticks. Yeah.
    71:19
    In the deep cuts. Anyway, so I watched it, and Dave missed his calling as a carnival barker. Parker, he's a showman, so he gives a tour. And he did a nice job in true David Fick's fashion of giving a tour. And I reached out to him. It was, like, nicely done. But, like, you know, I thought about this tour, and you and I talked about it. And we don't talk about American pinball a lot. Number one, we just don't have a lot of exposure to it. I mean, James had a Houdini. We played it. I think we did a bro show on it. I can't even remember. I did. Yeah. I know. I played it for sure. I think Jeff may have gone with me, and I think maybe you may have gone back out. I can't. Yeah.
    72:08
    You and I played in Oktoberfest at a show one time. I never played Hot Wheels. I played some balls, and I wanted to walk away from it because it's so boring. Yeah. So, I mean, here's my point. It's like there's not a lot of these games out there, and yet this company's existed for, what, five plus years now? but I don't know anybody who has one James got Legends of Valhalla, he hated it he couldn't sell it quick enough right, like if I bring up Legends of Valhalla around him I'll probably get him triggered so I'm watching this and I'm like how is this company still in existence and one of the things that really struck me I think was Dennis Norman right, he was saying that he's working on two original themed games like, what?
    72:53
    how can you afford to do an original themed game, they don't sell. Comparative to a licensed game. Look at Spooky. Spooky makes Halloween. People love Halloween. Their hand starts moving to the keyboard. They hit the order button. They can't help themselves. Look at Multimorphic. They slowly ramped up using all these original titles because they don't sell as much. And then once they hit a level where they could expand, they got a license and things blew up, right? So that's how this works. I don't... Listen, I don't know who's making that decision over there. Let me say it in plain English. Unless you're running some laundry laundering shell company, why on fucking earth are you making original themed games now when you're competing against a giant like Stern who's making themed games and crushing it. They have all the talent in the industry. And you've got Jersey Jack who makes absolutely beautiful pinball machines who's building a nice tent of talent in themed games. What are you guys thinking? Did you look at the sales of Legends of A-Ha and said, yep, I like selling 100 games. Let's do another original theme and sell another 100 games. Like, what the fuck? Just pick a theme, and people will just hit the buy because they can't help it. Your quality is better than spooky games. I don't hear too many complaints about quality. I don't think that's the issue. It's the fact that you guys are not getting good licenses, number one. License is number one. licensing number one. Gary Stern figured this out long ago.
    74:25
    These original themes will sink your company faster, and I said it earlier in the show, as soon as the economy really tanks, and we're going there, you guys are done. That's it. No more American Pinball. There's not going to be two original theme Dennis Norman games because that's it. You can't compete with Stern. People are going to cut their expenditures on pinball machines, and they're not going to buy Fruit Bash I don't know what the fuck your original theme is, but it's stupid. Don't do it. Do not do this. Do not do it. It's a bad idea. I'm going to say it's a terrible, terrible, terrible idea. Think of, you know, I think of Dennis Nortman, and it's like, oh, cool, he's going to do, like, a Whitewater sequel or whatever. And sure, like, a percentage of pinball players will be like, yes, I love Whitewater. I really want to grab this. But look at it dialed in. That was basically the Pat Lawler version of Dennis Norman doing a Whitewater sequel. This was like his disaster sequel to the next level, all the bells and whistles, all the toys. It looks great. And then it comes out and people are like, well, I need to play it first, right? Let me try it. It's got a guy with dead jeans on it. It's got a phone in it. You know, it's licenses or unlicensed games are like people have to play them first. And it takes so much longer for the games to get out and then people to play them. And then maybe orders start coming in. And then six months down the line, people are like, oh, I really like this. And a lot of people are like, Dialed In is my favorite J.J.P. game now. But they don't make them anymore because they had to move on to the next game because nobody was ordering them because they had to play them first. Let's just cut to the chase. Let's play a game. All right, we're going to play a game live. Okay. All right, so three games. Oktoberfest, Legends of Valhalla, and Hot Wheels. All American pinball games. What game do you think, when I look at Pinside, has the most in their collection? So Pinside will track. This is self-reported. You know, in my collection, I have this game or that game, right? So what game of those three do you think people have the most of? Hot Wheels. How did you know that? How could you? Is that a lucky guess, Kevin? I have an MBA, damn it. You're amazing. How did you figure Hot Wheels had the most? Just give us some insight. Give us some logic. Come on, explain it to us like we're dumb. I've been paying attention to pinball for the past 15 years. Oh, my God. How this works. And then all the pinball enthusiasts go, when are they going to make original themed games again? And you go, well, they have been making original themed games. You just haven't been buying them because they're not the theme you like or whatever, whatever original theme you wanted. Just some mic buzz. Mic buzz? From me? You don't hear it? No.
    77:20
    Oh, yep, I peaked my mixer. All right, what's going on here? I think it got too worked up and I screwed up my mic. Let me see. All right. I worked up Kevin. All right, I'm going to disconnect and reconnect. It's ages.
    77:36
    How do you guys like dead air? Okay, I think I fixed it. You're on garbage stuff. Let's see. There we go. Yeah, you're good. You're good. All right, so Kevin is right.
    77:50
    Now, you're not looking, Kevin. How many, let's see if you can get this within 100. That's kind of a tip-off. How many people have Hot Wheels in their collection, do you think?
    78:03
    On pin side, 200. Oh, my God, 209. You fucking nailed it, dude. All right, let's compare that to an average Stern game. We're not going to use Godzilla. All right, give me an average Stern game in the last few years. What game do you want me to look up?
    78:22
    What was, like, reasonably popular? I feel like Zeppelin wasn't really popular. Rush is, like, kind of.
    78:32
    There's got to be something that I'm not familiar with. Well, Russia's not a theme that people didn't love. Right.
    78:38
    Black Knight? That was the original. No, that's not a original theme. We've got to do a theme. You've got to do a license. Yeah, you've got to do a license. Mando is a good one. Well, that's a great license, but I'll look it up. But here's the deal. I mean, this is the fucking point. Right, that's the point.
    78:55
    We're struggling to find a bad license from Stern because they picked good license. Yeah. I mean, they got the pro and premium. We'll just look at the pro because the price point is kind of similar. So, 368 Mando pros. And then that's not counting the premium and LE. So, that's way over and above, right? Let's just look at Rush, Rush Pro. Because Rush is not, you know, like these people in Europe don't really know Rush, not exposed to Rush, right? So, let's see Rush Pro. What is that?
    79:24
    Rush Pro 206. Okay. But that's not counting the premium and everything else. So they still sold significantly more. Let me just leave Rush Premium. Pinbunk says Houdini has the most, more than Hot Wheels. That was their first game, and then people probably walked away from them. 241 Premium. Houdini is sort of a license. People know who Houdini is. Correct. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, so let's go to – So guess what? How many do you think Legends of Valhalla had? Oh, God. Like 100?
    80:02
    Fucking on the nose, Kevin. You're either cheating or something's up. The simulation's really working out. 100. 100 Legends of Valhalla. 100 fucking games of this you've sold. That's terrible. Well, that's like 100 people who have reported it on Pinside. Yes, but that goes along with everything else. It's all in relation to the other games. Yes. So Hot Wheels doubled that. Okay Hot Wheels doubled it Location for Hot Wheels Is 95 Locations for Legend of Valhalla is 42 So doubled it Just by the theme Just by a licensed theme that people actually know It's not a great theme I like the trend that Mungus is saying So Octoberfest was half of that Hot Wheels was half of that Valhalla was half of that We'll go to Octoberfest It's the Dave Fix curve It's like okay here's American Pinball they're coming up and it's like, oh, we heard your date fix.
    80:56
    I don't think you could take all the credit for that. But what's the – all right, Oktoberfest. I mentioned those three games. What do you think for that?
    81:08
    Well, I kind of know. So it was probably around 200, right? 140. Yeah. So, again, that's not – I mean, but, like, how has this – how is this company still around selling 140 games? Right. Reported on Pinside, right? I understand not everybody's on pin side, but it seems like they're just really scraping by. But their best games, Ugini will call that a license, and Hot Wheels, those were licensed. So why am I watching this video and Dennis Norman's got not one, but she shouldn't be doing one, two original theme games. Why? Right. You guys can't afford to do this. They're not going to afford to do an original theme game because they can.
    81:48
    They can't afford to take a whiff on a game and take a chance. How can American Pinball take a chance? It makes no sense. Yeah, we were talking about this earlier, too. It's like there's a parent company over American Pinball, and I don't know, I think they're called Amtron or something like that. And so they must be funding this for some reason. Like, I don't know.
    82:10
    It always seems like there's somebody with money, and they like pinball, so they're going to make pinball machines, even though they know it's not a money-making enterprise. I'm going to try to get close to this. It's November 3rd, 2022. Within two years, they're done. Calling it right now. Market. Yeah.
    82:28
    What's your, you want to go higher or lower? I'm trying to think. Okay. So they've got, who do they have on staff for designing pins? They got Dennis Norman. Anybody else? I feel like, oh, they got the guy who did the Sonic Spinball.
    82:45
    Yeah. They just hired him. Oh, and they're doing that like American Dream project where they're stealing somebody's homebrew game and putting it into production and taking all the money. I think that's what they're doing.
    82:56
    So, yeah. Oh, God, that seems like such a – well, that's basically what they did with Valhalla. I mean, that was at least a theme you kind of could follow. Like, it's Greek gods. You know, you understand the concept of it. And even that didn't do that well. So, man, I can't see that American Dream Project being a hit unless they get something like a Sonic Spinball that's licensed and they buy the license for it and put that into production. I'll go over two years. I was aggressive because somehow they made it this long inconceivably. I'm throwing too much rationality into this, but you're probably going to win. They're probably going to limp along. I think the company's going to keep them afloat if Norman puts out a Whitewater sequel. I think they'll sell a decent amount of those. You're right. They need to get some licenses going if they want to grow this thing.
    83:54
    Yeah. Listen, if you're... I can't even do this, Kevin. I just cannot believe somebody's not doing a license game. It just blows my mind. All right. Was there anything else from the video that stood out to you besides Dave Fix's lack of a hat? I mean, they don't look busy. No, they certainly don't. They got like a skeleton crew. Did you like the part where they were showing 3D printers working? I wouldn't have shown that the 3D printing, who the fuck wants to spend that kind of money on 3D printed shit in their game?
    84:26
    I don't understand it. What I did like, I thought what Dave Fix highlighted was their play field. Their play fields look nice, like the clear coat and the quality, and he's saying, look, we reject it if it's not good.
    84:40
    I want nice clear-coated play fields, so that's important to me. I'll give credit where credit's due. I thought that was good. It was good for Dave to highlight it. I don't know why they're highlighting their 3D. They really were proud of the 3D printed aspect. That's not something to be proud of in a commercial pinball machine. That's something you have to do in a homebrew.
    85:02
    So, again, just I don't get it. All right. That's your American Pinball prediction from your friends here. All right. That it wasn even printing It was calibrating 3D printer calibration You about as fired up as I am Pin Monk Yeah Pin Monk loved it Not so Zen right now We're not going to do a review this month, but we will give you some game room updates. So, Nick, do you want to kick it off? Because you've got a big addition to your game room. That's a big change. It is big. You know? You know what I'm saying? Yeah.
    85:41
    I just, you know, I made a dream come true. So, did a reversal. So you can tell in the last podcast episode that I was going down this path because I did a weird thing. I was having fun refreshing my collection. So I sold a bunch of games this year. You know, I got three new pinball machines.
    86:00
    I sold Walking Dead because I wasn't playing it. People are like, oh, you're going to miss it. Like, I haven't missed it. Like, I forgot that it exists and I sold it. Like, I'm okay. I kind of look forward and not back. That's just how my mind works. That's pretty much how I am, too. after I saw that. I'm like, I'm good. I had my time with that game. I get it. Different folks, different strokes, but my personality is I look forward, not back. Okay? Anyways, I looked at Bond, and I, rationality took over, and I saw, and like this game, look,
    86:36
    if I want this game, it's going to be around in a year, I can just get it. Right? And right now, It's bare bones code. Plus, you know, there's probably going to be issues out of the box that they'll fix in further production runs. So let's just wait. Plus, I probably want an Elway game. I mean, Elway's just crushing it. If I get another pinball machine, it's probably going to be his. So I don't know. How did I get this thought in my mind? This is how it started off. I was like, oh, I should get a big buck hunter like Kevin has. Like, you've seen Kevin's background. And then I'm, like, looking at it. I was like, I don't know if that's going to fit my basement. I don't... I feel like too wide or something. I don't know. Maybe it would have. It's too tall and top-heavy. Yeah. So then, I'm like, well, how am I going to do this? Maybe I get, like, an HD, you know, the little more modern one. Well, anyways, long story short, I finally learned that the one that could fit is the BBH Reloaded, which is the most modern version of the game. So I've got that bad boy in my basement. I'm fucking pumped. I bought it from a fellow listener. So this really worked out great. So first of all, I want to give a shout-out to Kingpin Games, Chris, over there, because he fielded a bunch of my calls and went back and forth with him a lot to figure out how I'm going to get a game. Yeah, Chris is awesome. I met him at MGC. Yeah, no, he saw my post on Pinside, reached out because I was curious about the game, and it was really, like, a lot of measuring and making sure this would work. So coincidentally, like, Chris missed the sale by, like, just dumb luck. Like, you and Patrick let me know that this guy was selling on it, and I had resisted getting it because I'm like, how am I going to get shipped here? But then a friend of the show and friend, Matt Taylor, wants to pick it up because he was picking it up in the other game in Pittsburgh. So, dude, I got a fucking big Buck Hunter reloaded. I love it. It looks great in my collection. The best part about it is, and this is why this works for my game room, where it is I can't put a pinball machine there because there's a closet there. So I need to get it. That's like my pinball closet. I need to get into that. So I can't put a pinball machine there. I can't be moving that thing. They're not easy to move. But this is on wheels, so, like, I probably have moved the thing around ten times in the last two weeks so that I kind of go in and out a bunch. I've been doing some work on games. But I absolutely love it. This is like an itch that I had to scratch. I've always kind of wanted one. I'm not into arcade games whatsoever, but, you know, I like playing Year's Cab. I always like seeing it in arcades. There's something just super fun about Big Buck Hunter. The reloaded version has also like Terminator, was it Salvation or something? I don't know. It's got a Terminator game on it. It's got like some zombie adventure on it, some other big buck games.
    89:23
    And then it's like this is called the quote-unquote online version. The MSRP on it is like $7,400. I got it considerably cheaper than that used, which is great.
    89:33
    Here's the downside to this. This is why the person I bought it from sold it. I've talked to some other people. This is why they sell it. Like, you don't have to do this, but you kind of have to do this. So I have to pay a $40 a month subscription for that thing if I want all 10 animals and I want the reloaded content, which I don't give a shit about the reload, like, Terminator stuff. Like, that just hurts my hand and, like, whatever. People, like, people come over and they, like, play it. But, like, I just want to shoot animals, goddammit. That's all I want to do. I just want to murder them and even the critters. You got it. The critters. And so if I want all 10 and I want to do, like, the online leaderboards, which I do. I want to see how I stack up. I want to get better. I've got to pay $40 a month. Now, I could, like, say I don't want to do $40 a month, and then I'll just be left with, like, five animals and no online stuff.
    90:31
    And what I'll probably do, Kevin, is, like, for the first several months, I'll pay for that while it's fresh and new. And then as, like, you know, summer rolls around or I get busier, I'll just take it offline and then come back online at certain times. But, dude, I love it. It looks great in my basement. The thing has, like, LEDs all over it. It's, like, a super cool version. It has LEDs all over it. It's so much fun. Like, Martha was playing with Dave Sousa, and I heard them just, like, the other night. We were just playing with him, like, fucking laughing. Like, I was working on Godzilla. We were having a great time laughing and shooting animals. Yeah. We played it after we streamed Mando. So there was like, you do 2v2, so we had teams of two players on each side, and we were taking turns. It's just a super fun party game, and, like, anybody can play a gun game. That's why I like it. I like always having a gun game and a racing game, because even if people aren't into pinball and they come over to the game room, it's like, oh, I can play this. Like, I don't have to try to figure out how to play Tempest or whatever on, you know, The Walking Dead or, you know, whatever other pinball machine. I can just flat the flappers on those, or I can drive a car, or I can shoot a gun. and everybody will play those, and they're fun. No, it's a cool game. I don't know how quickly I'll get bored of it or not, but, like, the nice thing is I can go down and play a quick game, and that's it. You know what we should talk about, Kev? I'll talk about this in my game room. So something that I've kind of had on my game room, but I kind of refined it a little bit is I got into kind of home automation stuff. Recently I'm getting into a little bit more. I've got like Home Assistant running on a Raspberry Pi and I had like last year I put like my power strips on, smart plugs but I got like a smart plug power strip so now this is great like I can totally turn on individual games using my cell phone through Home Assistant or I can use the Kasa app or whatever but I love being like I'm going to go play pinball and then just turn my entire game room on right? Like, it's super cool. Feels like that moment in Tron where he powers up the arcade. Like, I can do that.
    92:40
    Big Buck Hunter takes, like, ten minutes to load up. So, if I know I'm going to play, I'll just hit it on my phone and go down there and it's ready. Or, like, you know, even like the newer Stirrants, they take a little while to power up, so I can just kind of do that ahead of time. I can, I have a set so I can turn on an individual game, and I also have a set that they're, like, grouped in, like, by wall, so I can turn on like, you know, groups of three games on at a time and kind of do that. Not all at once so I don't fucking blow shit up, but I highly recommend doing that. Like that is like every time I do it, I love it. It's super slick. Do you have a particular – do you use smart plugs or is it like a smart strip or what do you use? Yeah, I'm going to look it up. I'm pretty sure the one I recommend is I think it's Casa. let me give you guys the exact one. This is my favorite one. I did some research and I like it. I had just a smart plug and a dumb power strip plugged into it. But then I can only turn groups of games on. That was a pain in the ass. So I wised up and what I bought a couple months ago, it's called the Kasa, K-A-S-A, smart plug power strip, the HS300. So there's six individually controlled smart outlets and three USB ports, works with Alexa and Google, no hub required, so it works on your home Wi-Fi. And, yeah, it's worked well for me. And, I mean, Kasa's got its own app, but what I like about Home Assistant is, like, you know, I've got apps for, like, all these other smart devices, but Home Assistant is, like, open source, and I can do everything from that one app, right? Like, I don't have to go into, like, oh, I've got Hue smart plugs, so I've got to go into the Hue app and turn that on. And then I got to go in the Casa app and turn my games on. Like, all of those are controlled within Home Assistant, and Home Assistant's free. So it's fucking awesome.
    94:35
    I'm really happy for where I'm at with that. Huge recommendation for a game room. I have some smart plug stuff. It's, like, a bunch of, like, hand-me-down stuff. And it was the same thing. Like, some were, like, smart home. Some were Casa. Some were this. Some were that. And I'm like, whatever. Like, I tied some of them together using my Echo. So, like, you can kind of, like, group different devices together and then tell that to turn everything on. So it's kind of a pain in the ass. I haven't hooked my pinball machines up to it. Like, I do my game room signs and my DMD clock and stuff are all hooked up to that. So I can say, turn on the signs, and it turns everything on. So that's cool. So I get the appeal, but I haven't gotten to, like, putting all my games on them yet. Yeah. No, I highly recommend it. But, yeah, and I recommend Home Assistant, too. It will make your life easier. There's a definite learning curve to Home Assistant, but it pays off in the end, you know. Yeah, it's awesome for the video arcade games because a lot of times the power switches are on the back or on the top and the back, and they're impossible to get to. So I do have them on my video games. Yeah, for sure. And then, like, you know, before I go to bed at night, I can pull up my Home Assistant app, and I can see if there's any lights or anything on him like I left on in the house, right, and just address that. Good stuff. Anything else in the game room, or are you good?
    96:00
    I think I'm good. I think I'm done buying games for the year. Maybe I'll be tempted for Lebowski. I don't know if I can spend $13,000 on a pinball machine. I have no idea.
    96:14
    Listen, I'm just putting money in the bank because I think these aren't going to get bad. But, yeah, I'm good. I'm really happy with where my collection is right now. I'm super, super happy with that. Yeah. All right, so I've had some updates in my game. I don't know if you can see it if I switch to this. But you can see it a little bit. There's Godzilla's over there. I got my premium.
    96:35
    Been playing that a bunch. Been putting mods into it. So what are some of the mods? I have the saucer. Oh, actually, I got some pictures. So if I go over here.
    96:48
    There we go. So there's the saucer. I got the saucer from Hooked on Pinball. They have a stainless steel saucer. And then I saw some people doing this on Pinside. They take a clear pop bumper mech and put it under the saucer so it kind of looks like it's floating. I really love the look of it. That's actually the first time I've swapped a pop bumper mech, and I've always thought it was a nightmare. So I was like, this is probably an easy one to do for your first one because it's right there. There's only one of them. There's no, like, ramps or anything in the way. So it wasn't that bad. The most annoying part about doing this one was this pop bumper has a little, instead of just having a light in it, it does all these crazy light shows, but it's got this little LED board in it with four wires coming off of it, and they're soldered onto a board underneath the play field. So you have to, like, unsolder four wires, pull this little LED board out, put all the pop bumper parts in, and then put it all back in and resolder it. So that's kind of a pain. I also had to adjust the leaf switch a little bit because I think the stem on the clear top of the pop bumper was a little bit longer. So it wasn't firing. So I just had to – that was a quick leaf switch adjustment. So if anybody's considering doing that, that's some pro tips for you. But I love how it looks. It looks really cool. I think it was like $70 for the pop bumper cap. I like the Leor one that you have, Nick, but I want to have some bling, so I went for the Chrome one. No, it looks nice, and I was telling you, that was a really nice picture that you took of it. Oh, thank you. They can use that on their website. There you go. Feel free to use that.
    98:26
    One of the other things I got was from Hurry Up Pinball, Craig, he had tuned into the stream, and I was like, oh, I was looking at your roof mod for Godzilla, he's like, oh, I'll send you one. I was like, alright, cool. So he sent me this, and he sent me another thing, which I'll show you here in a second.
    98:45
    So this is a roof mat. It's cosmetic. It's cool. It looks like it's got a helicopter landing pad and some exhaust pipes and stuff coming out the top of your building. But it's also, it diverts the balls more to the left flipper. So instead of the balls... I was able, I don't know how it is on yours, Nick, are you able to catch the balls with the left flipper on your Godzilla when they come off of the building or no? No, you're not supposed to by design. Yeah, so I was actually able to. If I flipped it the right time, I could hit him. Yeah. And I guess people were freaking out. Oh, I don't like how they go down the middle. So he said he made this. And now that I have it in there, I can understand because I think Rucko in the Discord said, well, it's by design they're supposed to go down the middle because the building needs time to get back to the position it should be in. and then you're off and running. So I shot a ball in there, and it got hung up at one point.
    99:42
    So it's cool. I like being able to control the balls more when they come out. It's still kind of chaos because the balls just come down and go nuts, so you can't really control them. But you get some more shots in. So whatever. It's cool. I like the look of it. It looks neat, especially from a distance. It looks pretty nice. the other thing you sent me was this Mechagodzilla cover mod so I know you got the crumb candy one on yours this one is cool because it lights up with the hot dog insert there that says Neo Defense Barrier it glows blue and there's two parts it kind of looks like Mechagodzilla that's why I like it it's got that same kind of fit and finish as the Mechagodzilla mech so nice little mod there too so thanks to Craig for sending those along. Oh, there's your pin woofer. We didn't show these earlier, but this is the comparison of the stock stern speaker versus the pin woofer back box speaker. The stern ones are so garbage, dude.
    100:44
    What else did I do to the Godzilla? I put a shaker motor in it. I put... I did put a new cabinet speaker in there, because the one in there was high garbage. I showed it before, but I'll show it again. It's just so bad. This thing was in there rattling around and sounding terrible, so I got one of the boom boom movers from pinball life it's like i think it's 40 bucks they had a big sale during um during expos i got that and i got the shaker motor and it sounds better like if there's a little more bass you adjust the the settings in the audio settings and increase the bass in there uh but mostly i wanted the the cleaner sound and it achieved that i'm gonna replace the backpack speakers eventually on it too um what else i think that i think that's pretty much it what was the brand? What brand did they use?
    101:33
    There's not even a brand on there. It's like just super generic garbage. That's so bad. Trash. Yeah. Are you getting the Tokyo Neon sign mod? I think you said you're on the list for that, right? I am, yeah. It looks like it may have shipped like within the week, so I should have it really soon. I can't wait. so they make those in the UK right what's the price for the US conversion I'm not sure I don't feel like it was like $270 or something I was like I don't know if I could do that I saw Patrick's and it's really cool but I was like it's a lot of money yeah oh what was the upgraded one the upgraded one that I got It's called the Boom Boom from Kimball Life. You can check that out. Or just get yourself a pinwoofer kit if you want to go all out. You know what I mean? The Boom Boom sounds better, but not great. The pinwoofer is going to sound a lot better because it's like Dan was saying. You're not putting an upgraded amp in there, and that's really what the bigger speakers need. This one is nicely tuned for what you get out of a stock steering system. But, you know, if you just want a cheaper upgrade that doesn't sound like total hot garbage, you can try that out.
    102:55
    What else did I do? I got some pin stadiums. Got it. Pin stadiums sent me the concert editions for Toy Story 4. So if you remember the pin stadiums that went in Guns N' Roses, the tie-in to the Hot Rails, these ones do that too. Really cool looking. I got them installed. I played a few games. So it does a good job of, like, I like it because it takes that Hot Rail, all those Hot Rail effects, and it expands it out over the whole play field. So you get a cooler, like, more immersive light show. I like in the – when you go to the multiball where it's the volcano multiball, like the whole play field turns red and orangey now. It's really neat looking. So it's really cool. Check those out.
    103:38
    What else? Oh, JJP. So we were talking a little bit about this earlier. They added – so in their beta code, they've added a graphic equalizer. and I should have put a photo in the show, the program for tonight, but I didn't. It lets you, so they've overhauled the whole operating system from what I understand, and as part of that, they have a lot more control over the audio. So the speakers in the JJP are pretty good to begin with. It's just like the software driving them was not good, and now with this new graphic equalizer, it makes a huge difference. I put it on Toy Story, and I don't have a subwoofer hooked up to that, and it sounds like a million times better. So nice quality upgrades so you don't get total garbage speakers in their games at least. So it takes what's in there and makes it sound a lot better. So that's nice. They're going to be rolling that out across their whole line of games. So keep an eye out for that.
    104:33
    And I went to Retro Game Con, and I got some stuff there. I got to hang out with our friend Ryan from Skillshot Arcade. He had us out there to stream, and we played some Stranger Things, and I bought some cool stuff. So it'll be show and tell time here. So let's go over here. So I got to meet Warren Davis, who was the programmer that made Qbert. And I got his book, and he signed it for me. I also met Jeff Lee. His book is called If You Want It at Home. It's called Creating Qbert and Other Classic Video Arcade Games.
    105:05
    I also met Jeff Lee, who is the artist behind Qbert, and I bought this. It's about a prototype arcade that was never made. They have one at – they built one and put it at Galloping Ghost in Chicago. It's called Argus. But I love weird classic arcade game histories. I grabbed that. And this is my number one pick that I got. They make these – a company called Retro – New Retro Toys or something like that. I'm totally butchering their name. Is it on the bottom here? New Wave. New Wave Toys. they make replica mini arcade cabinets and i got cubert and i had the guy sign it warren davis jeff lee and our friend david field did the sound on cubert so if i ever ever cross paths with david again i'll have to have him sign this too and complete the trilogy but it's cool it's got like it's got the game on there it's got cubert and they made a faster harder cubert version that's also on here and um it's even got the so the original cubert cabinet has a physical like pinball knocker in it and they have that in the little mini replica too so the attention to detail on these is really good um and you can play it too so it's it's on my desk and if i get bored during the day i'll play a game of cubert um uh what else have i our video game wise i've been playing a game called arcade paradise so it's like re reliving the thing i did in real life where it was building a game room in an arcade.
    106:38
    It's a sim game where you build an arcade out of a – you start in a laundromat with a few games in the back, and as your business grows, you're able to add on and put more arcade games in and things like that. So it's fun. I haven't played a sim game in a while, so I wanted to check this one out. I had some – I actually won a contest for some free money through Microsoft Xbox Bucks or whatever the heck they call them now. I had won $25, and they're like, it's expiring. You've got to spend it now, so I grabbed that. It's actually pretty fun. I would check that out if you're into sim games and you like arcade games and stuff like that. You can actually play all the arcade games you buy, and they're actually pretty fun. So it's a fun little game.
    107:17
    The other thing I've been playing is Atari Mania on the Switch. So this is a modern game that has a bunch of mini games in it. if you've played like NES remakes or Wario where those sorts of games, it feels a lot like that. And it, but it brings me to old like classic Atari titles in a, in a new way. Um, kind of a cool game. I'm also looking forward to the Atari 50 collection. Cause that was really cool. Um, but yeah, that kind of wraps up all on my game room updates. Um, Nick, we got anything else to say, or should we wrap this up? Let's wrap it up. I think this is a good show. Let's bring it home. So don't forget to give us a follow on social media. If you haven't, we're on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube. If you want to see archives of the old shows, if you want to see Dave Fakes playing whirlwind, that's where you go, youtube.com slash buffalo pinball. On Facebook, we have a group, group slash buffalo pinball. And if you want to chat during the day, we're on Discord, discord.gg slash buffalo pinball. Send us an email, talkpinball at gmail.com, and we will talk to you there. If you want to support the channel, you can follow us and sub the Twitch channel, or you can use your Twitch Prime with us. I heard there's a thing happening where if you sub two channels on Twitch you get a free Xbox game pass or something like that so check that out they're really doing it and we have a paypal buffalopinball at gmail.com if you want to send a few bucks or review us on your favorite podcast platform of choice now don't go anywhere because we have a brand new episode of Topper Talk with Goran going over that hot Mando, Topper, Action Nick, say goodbye Bye Nick Bye It's Topper Talk with Goran right now, let's all have some fun, this is about plastic on top of your pin go and buy one now there's a topper here and a topper there, there a topper there a topper, everywhere a topper It's critical to the gameplay experience. You must buy one now. It's your monthly bill of toppers right now. Topper Talk with Goran.
    109:34
    Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Topper Talk with Goran, the part of the podcast where Kevin and Nick give me about three to five minutes to talk about everything happening in the very active and profitable topper community. Now today we'll be talking about the brand new topper that Stern Pinball just announced for their Mandalorian Pinball machine. So let's head into the office and talk about it now. We are in the office, so let's dive into the new Mandalorian topper by Stern Pinball. So here it is sitting on top of the machine. And overall first reaction is this is a really nice looking topper.
    110:08
    Stern has broken the mold before from their kind of stock basic topper that they do, and this continues to break the mold. And what I mean by stock basic topper is like the Beatles topper, where they kind of just have that vacuum-formed background with some plastic on top. But one that breaks the mold, for example, is Black Knight with that talking head on top. It's a really interesting topper. There's multiple layers here giving a 3D effect. And on the note of 3D effect, this middle piece here that says Stern Pinball creates a holographic effect. It uses similar technology to Pinball 2000, Pepper's Ghost Effect, where there's a screen at the bottom of the topper. and there's a piece of plastic or glass slanted at 45 degrees, and it creates this holographic looking effect, which allows for more interaction and information for the player. Now, here's the kicker. The topper is $2,000, which I believe is an all-time high now for Stern MSRP, but we'll get into that a little bit later. Let's go to the Stern Pinball Topper reveal video, which we can see how it all works here.
    111:28
    So here it is on top. You get to see the hologram in action. There's some added information on top of the topper that the player can now see that otherwise wouldn't be displayed on the main display. One thing that I like about this topper is it just doesn't have Mandalorian on top, right above the back class. But something interesting that was just mentioned is that there are now modes locked behind the topper, like Beskar, Bonanza, and a new mini wizard mode. So it's basically a pay-to-play model. And here's their store page, $2,000 on the site. I'm not a big fan of the pay-to-play models. Stern has done this in the past. They're kind of throwaway modes, though, that have happened with previous toppers, so it wasn't as big of a deal, but these modes seem significant to gameplay, so it kind of stinks that everyone is missing out on those. Now, in the past with some of the other topper exclusive modes, Stern has later rolled those into Insider Connected, so I don't know if that'll happen in the future with the topper, but we'll have to wait and see. As for the price, $2,000 is quite steep for a topper. Removing the price from it, I really like it. I'd love one on my machine, but not for $2,000. There's a lot of other great things I could buy pinball-related, not pinball-related, for $2,000. And for me, I think that's kind of a cacked-out price. With that said, if you want one, you're going to be waiting, because all of the distributors have sold out of their allotment of this initial run, which is mind-boggling to me. But some people like to collect LEs and collect toppers, and that's great. but Stern Pinball I believe on Monday is putting a select few on their site for all access members so log on Monday to try to get one but this game is truly critical or this topper is truly critical to the gameplay experience so if you have $2,000 to spend and you like it go and buy one now Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of Topper Talk with Goran tune in to the next podcast for another episode and as always, get out there and buy a topper. Thank you for coming to my topper talk.