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Pinheads agree – the world’s best bargain subwoofer for your pinball machine!

There is one thing that all pinball fans can agree on – the bass on a factory standard pinball machine is lacking.

If you’ve experienced an upgraded sound system on any 1990+ pinball machine, you know what I’m talking about. I hadn’t played my friends Addams Family pinball machine in a few years and was surprised by some amazing bass rumble.

My friend had replaced the small woofer with a larger one using a custom made adapter. Pinball machines typically come with the cheapest speakers the manufacturers can source, so any upgrade will be an improvement. (Here is a guide to this method: http://www.dziedzic.us/wpc_speaker_replacement.html

The sound was much improved using this method but there might just be a better way…

A pinball machine cabinet isn’t an ideal subwoofer enclosure: the volume is too large for the size of speaker and the cabinet can’t be sealed or vented for a flat response curve. 

Adding an External Subwoofer to a pinball machine

External subwoofers for pinball machines have several advantages.

  • You can keep the subwoofer if you sell your machine
  • The subwoofer can be shared by several machines
  • Hooking up an external subwoofer is easy
  • The sound quality of an external subwoofer is superior
  • You can reach down and turn the bass up or down

Great Subwoofer at a Great Price

Pinballers love the Polk subwoofer, typically $99 on Amazon and sometimes every less on sale. It seems to range from $79 to $129. You can also get refurbished ones for about $5-$10 less depending on availability.

The Polk Audio PSW10 10″ powered subwoofer featuring high current amp and low-pass filter, handles up to 100 Watts and pumps out big bass at a Great Value.

Choose Your Signal Input: Stereo Line-Level or Speaker Inputs

The Polk Subwoofer can handle high speaker inputs (amplified signals that goes to speakers) or low stereo line-level input that gets amplified by the powered subwoofer.

  • Audio Inputs: Stereo Line Level – (2) RCA, Pair (L/R) Analog RCA.
  • Speaker Inputs: (2) Pair of Spring Terminals.

Your choices are multiple. You can tap off the existing subwoofer for a speaker input. Or get a stereo line-level off of a PinSound board or a Pinnovators subwoofer conversion. Another option is to convert the speaker line to a low-level stereo line using an inexpensive device such as this:

This attaches to the existing speaker lines and then converts to the signal to a lower stereo level.

You might find one method provides a cleaner sound than another. It is also possible to share the subwoofer with multiple pins using a pin subwoofer mixer.

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