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I have not messed up much with my SRA yet, but if the AD is anything to go by, no surprise the audio circuit is a mess. It was on the AD.
When connected on a SNES, the mixing pins will actually leech some of the audio signal and degrade the sound out of the 1/8 jack. For a while I had disconnected the audio mixing pin from the snes and I had much better sound out of the 1/8 output.
I want to try it on my retron 2. Those adapters are ill suited to a real snes.
They're really made for clones. While the audio does still go through to a Super Famiclone's audio amp via the input pins on the cartridge slot, the inputs themselves do not have the 200ohm pull-down resistors on the Super NES' audio inputs. As the last component before the audio gets output from the Super Retro Advance Adapter is a small ceramic capacitor on each channel (and yes, my Super Retro Advance Adapter does output Stereo sound. What about yours?), which, when linked to a resistor connected to Ground, creates a high-pass filter. Said filter is insane when using the Super Retro Advance Adapter on the Super NES; it's so heavy, the noise becomes almost overpowering. Those output capacitors need to be replaced with 220uF caps. This will create a high-pass filter around 3Hz on a Super NES which is nowhere near the audible spectrum of the human ear.
UPDATE: I received my silver/black Super Retro Trio, but there is still one thing I'm missing before I can start doing a full evaluation of the Super Retro Trio + Super Retro Advance Adapter and the RetroN5. I need a Super Retro Advance Adapter v1.0; what I have is the Super Retro Advance Adapter v1.3, which has some differences to v1.0. Once I get that, the dual review will be posted.
If you want a 1.0 board you might have better luck with the AD adapter rather then the SRA.
I've been speaking to Satoshi Matrix about having him send me his Super Retro Advance Adapter v1.0 to me so I can complete the dual review as he has one. He's currently got my Master System converter, so I'll ask him to send his Super Retro Advance Adapter to me at the same time that he sends back my Master System converter.
What PCB revision is in your Super Retro Advance Adapter? v1.0, v1.3 or something else?
My SRA is 1.3, My AD is 1.0.
I believe AD and SRA are exactly same thing with only a different label on the cart.
I know the Super Retro Advance Adapter v1.0 is the exact same thing as the AD Adapter, but the Super Retro Advance Adapter v1.3 has Stereo output out of the box which I'm not sure if the AD Adapter has been updated with yet. Still doesn't account for the bad audio circuit design that doesn't account for the 200ohm pull-down resistors in the Super NES' audio amp at the audio inputs from the cartridge slot.
On that note, which converter has worse high-pass filtering on a Super NES? The AD Adapter/Super Retro Advance Adapter v1.0 or the Super Retro Advance Adapter v1.3?
I have not used My SRA much but when I tired the AD on a SNES the high pass filter was just horrible. The sound was super thin and so noisy.
Yesterday I just scored a boxed retro duo ( V.3 ) for 25$ shipped on ebay so I guess I will have to compare how the SRA works on this compared to the retron 2 :p
Be advised, there exists a RetroDuo v3.0 variant which I'm naming v3.1 at this point that has been apparently stripped of Castlevania III compatibility. If you get that particular variant, I would need an audio sample of the NES audio output to see how it compares to the RetroDuo v2.0 and RetroDuo v3.0, both of which have mangled audio because of missing components in the audio amp (improper biasing of a transistor is the result of this). I would assume it's a different NOAC in the RetroDuo v3.1 as from some rather blurry video, I was able to determine the NES motherboard has been highly simplified compared to the RetroDuo v2.0 and v3.0, both of which share the same board, the only difference is the color of the solder mask (green for v2.0, blue for v3.0).
How is the SR3 for Super Famicom games? I just realized something tonight that I wish I'd realized sooner. I had to part with my SNES collection years back and we all know the NA SNES cart prices are horribly high, so the idea of forking out that much money to get the essentials starting out at nil isn't really worth it. So I started browsing ebay looking for Super Mario All-Stars because it's a classic and wanted to check the prices, a Super Famicom version of the cart popped up for much less. Now if I remember right the SR3 plays Super Famicom carts just not regular Famicom carts. That got me thinking that I could get a good start at a collection by tracking down all the games where language is no issue, like Super Mario. I don't even have a legit SNES anymore just two SR3's and a copy of Super Mario World. I know both regions are NTSC so that won't be an issue. What do you guys think of this plan?
I have not actually tried a SFC game on the SR3 but typically they work just fine on those clones.
They do work fine including copies of Super Mario RPG with a lockout chip check thanks to the PIC12F629 microcontroller serving as a lockout chip clone.
YES! That is great news, I'm pretty excited at the prospect of loading up on SF carts. Know of any good games that still retain English text? So far Super Metroid is the only title I've found that has this feature or do you recommend any decent games that were only released in that region that don't require reading?
Depends on what type of game you are into really. Of course you miss on the RPG because of the language barrier but any kind of shmups, run'n gun and things like that you are golden. A great example is Agane. I got a JP copy for 45$ this summer. ( Still a great price, the JP game goes in the 65-90$ range ). Anyway, that is pretty cheap compared to 500$ for the US cart, haha. Game plays the same, almost no reading whatsoever. Just run around and kill stuff.
Also, If all you want is play games, maybe consider SD2SNES of super everdrive?
What is the difference in PAL NTSC model to model ?. You know if anyone has photos of the plate PAL console?