My Famiclone has too loud sound, i think...

[Santy]

Hi!, yesterday I bought a new and cheap famiclone called "Onestation" (PsOne like), and everything is fine, it is compatible with all my carts (pirates), when my other, older Famiclone wasn't with an old SMB2j and other recent X in 1 games.

Well, this famiclone has very bright colors, a bit washed for my taste, but the sound (despite being crappy) it's too loud, so loud that I hear clipping when I collect coins in SMB or other sounds in other games with the lowest volume in my TV!

Do you think if I put a resistor in the audio connector, I will be able to reduce the volume of the audio output and also eliminate the clipping?
I have various 1/4w resistors here of different sizes, of how many ohms must the resistor be?

Here you have some pics of my famiclone:
http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/6356/p1020894720.jpg
http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/927/p1020895720.jpg
http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/1676/p1020898720.jpg
http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/4549/p1020899720.jpg
http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/8336/p1020900720.jpg

Thanks!  

[linkzpikachu]

where the hell did you find that?! me likey!!!!! 

[Santy]

where the hell did you find that?! me likey!!!!! 

The Famiclone?, in the street market of my city (Montevideo, Uruguay), it costed me $250 (12 dollars), I don't like it too much because it's cables are very thin and short, the same with the A/V cable and if you hold the power adapter it looks like it's
empty by inside! 

But well, it works , do you know if putting a resistor will fix my sound issue?

[MS-DOS4]

Wow, 2010? I can't believe people still manufacture this stuff.

[satoshi_matrix]

Whoa re you kidding? Famiclones will be made until the end of time.

[jpx72]

Hmm try adding a capacitor filter, maybe from 50 - 100microF, and mind the polarity (sound in from famiclone = plus, Sound out to TV = minus)
On the last picture there are 4 wires comming to the connector board, one of those is sound  (I think it'đ the right-one, marked "A" as audio), so cut it and insert the capacitor.

PS got the same thing, but it's called Victor 1000 - Super-8bit
http://jpx72.detailne.sk/collection_files/consoles_files/famiclone/victor-1000.jpg
http://jpx72.detailne.sk/stuff_files/fc/victor1000_box.jpg
sound is ok, but the plastic is extremly crappy, the consistency of something between paper and ice  

[Xious]

No clone system has accurate sound, at all, period. Many don't even close close, while some are merely 'slightly off. The odd clip/clip you hear is likely an audio glitch, as if the sound was simply too loud, you could adjust the volume on your TV to rectify it.

If that clone a PAL or NTSC clone? Are the games PAL? Uruguay is PAL-N, so if the games are PAL and the system NTSC, then the sound effects will be further distorted. Are the loudness issues with the background music, or just the sound effects?

You can dampen the sound system-wide if you want to give it a try. You probably need to build an active low-pass filter for it to really make a difference though, but a passive filter may work. Sample it with a 2.2KΩ resistor and a small cap (I think 50uF is a bit high for the job, but you can go that route; I.d suspect 10uF is sufficient) and see if that helps.

You essentially want this:

                                          R1                      RCA Wire     / /     Shield  
Audio Signal In---o~~2.2KΩ~~o----Audio RCA Out / / RCA Ground---o
                                     |                                                                   |
                                     |                                                                   |
                                     o                                                                  |
                                     |                                                                   |
                                    --  C1                                                            |
                                  +-- 10μF (maybe greater)                                 |
                                     |                                                                   |
                                     o                                                                  |
                                     |                                                                   |
                                     |                                                                   |
                                    ▼GND---------------------------------o
                                   
Sorry for the ASCII Schems, but I'm on my way to bed and I don't feel lie popping open KiCAD for this and exporting PDFs for something so simple. Yo can adjust the resistor value and cap value as needed as well: I'm only suggesting these values, but without actually hearing the problem,i can.t be precise. 2.2KΩis a good starting point though; with 300Ω being a bottom and 200KΩ being an extreme top.

For the cap, 1μF may be enough (or even something dinky, like 50nF/50K puff - that is, 50,000pF, or you may need as high as the 50μF suggested by JP, but 10μF is a good medium. When getting a cap, be sure to get one rated at least for 5V maximum value; 6.3 is a safe-point and more common if you can.t get 5V, and you can.t go too high. (The voltage rating is how high of a voltage it can handle before bad things start to happen.