Sega Genesis Audio Comparisons

[Richter X]

Since Lawrence blew up the old topic.... 

We were talking about how the YM2612 sounds different on various Sega Genesis/Megadrive consoles. Especially the rarer ones. I was also after a recording of Sound Test track 03 from Flashback using an actual console to compare against the crappy emulation of it in just about every Sega emulator out there.

[Richter X]

Alrighty. I finally got ahold of the Flashback sound clip I was after. Have a listen and compare it to just pretty much every Genesis emulator out there. You'll hear a very noticeable difference.

Flashback - Sound Test 03

[Tiido Priimägi]

http://www.soundshock.se/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=149
http://www.spritesmind.net/_GenDev//forum/viewtopic.php?t=320
http://www.spritesmind.net/_GenDev//forum/viewtopic.php?t=365

enjoy

[Richter X]

If anyone wants an Audio Quality comparison between Model 1, Model 2, and Nomad Sega Genesis. Someone seems to have taken care of it.

http://www.protoman.com/genesisaudio/

[Tiido Priimägi]

that's nothing too interesting...

form my personal tests, I've found that Nomad sucks, MD2 sucks when its unmodded and early MD1 wins unmodded. I don't know about later MD1s, they have shittier sound, but that sound should still be better than anything else besides early units. The one thing MD2 fails at is high freqs, and same for Nomad, I haven o idea where did that guy heard them... MD2 is clear winner when you have modded one, no noise to speak of and all freq range is unaltered. Also MD2 features more higher quality audio chip implementation than MD1 does. I'm going to work out a Nomad audio mod too sometime (when I get few Nomads). It is pretty much MD2 with a screen, and has integrated YM2612 which is most likely the better kind one... its just that all analog parts related to audio in MD suck in their original form.

just listen this :

MD1 sound BEFORE audio mod :
http://www.epicgaming.us/tiido/BASSFISH1.ogg
same MD2 sound AFTER audio md :
http://www.epicgaming.us/tiido/BASSFISH2.ogg

even emulator doesn't sound as good !!!

[Richter X]

I know. I've heard plenty of samples so far. I've got an MD2 that I'd love to get it modded with CCAM, among other things (like S-Video and RCA connectors). I just wonder if it'll affect the SegaCD I have it connected to.

[Tiido Priimägi]

CCAM has no MCD sound... I'll get a pair of MCDs soon, so I'll add the MCD signals to the mod. Same for 32X, I'll get one soon too.

[Qjimbo]

I had an Asian PAL-B a while ago (which I accidentally broke) which had beautiful sound. Literally everything on the motherboard was seperate and the sound quality was wonderful. It seems the earlier revisions had the best quality.

[Richter X]

About the flashback bug. Someone found COMPLETE documentation on the YM2608, which was later stripped down to become the YM2612. Needless to say. It fixes pretty much all the bugs that have been plaguing YM2612 sound cores for so long.

http://spritesmind.net/_GenDev/forum/viewtopic.php?t=386&sid=f6ed642f1a851f4b8375fea01eceecab

[Tiido Priimägi]

now we have to wait until all emu authors update thier sound cores... I use my MD2 for games and dev, so it doesn't really bother me that emulators don't emulate certian aspects of YM2612.

My audio mod has MCD sound incorporated now... only thing left to add is 32X sound, and it should happen pretty soon.

[Holering]

Hey have any of you checked out a genesis like this one?

This genesis seems to have practically perfect sound! Yeah there's no crackling at all whatsover and it sounds very clean. Even on the older models (with high definition graphics printed on em) the sound is very good but it gets distorted on louder sounds (most noticeable for me on contra hard corps on the konami logo. It generates the sound very loud and gets distorted-fuzzed) but not on this model (everything sounds perfect even with headphones). There doesn't even appear to be any hiss even with the volume at 10 especially compared to the oldest models (could always hear kind of a whining noise as you turn the volume past 7 on the oldest ones).

If you take a look at the pics you can see it at the very bottom of the stack of genesis systems and you can also see there is no exp. port or high definition graphics printed on it.

Another thing worth mentioning is that this one seems to have the RF, CH3-CH4, A/V out, and Adaptor port all shifted all the way to the right where the usual ones have it shifted to the left as can be seen on the pics(the ones that don't say high def graphics are usualy like this with the ports shifted to the left). All the newer revisions of the model 1 genesis (ones without high def graphics) seem to have very noisy (and I do mean very noisy) sound and dirty (headphone jack and RF output). So this particular one seems very strange to me (the sound is still very clean even on the a/v out port).

I can post pics later of the inside if you'd like

[Tiido Priimägi]

I can tell more if I see the inners of the units...

[Holering]

Well here's a pic

[l_oliveira]

Is that IC4 the 315-5433 ?

I remember seeing a console with the 315-5402 chip... It would only display "Produced by or under license from SEGA enterprises" if the region was set to export (Genesis)

[Tiido Priimägi]

It is weird that your 5402 got stuck at TMSS screen...

This model actually should not sound better... seems Sega's stuff is a bit miss and hit... Generally the HD versions are better as they don't show the TMSS screen and have better audio out than most other systems.

[Holering]

Yeah no kidding. This one really does sound nice and clean no matter what the volume level is at (alot better than the first HD Graphics models). It does kinda remind me of the CDX and the Genesis 3 from Majesco (although the sounds were very clean I don't know if they were more or less accurate aside from not being stereo)

I'm gonna try and do some recordings at the konami logo on contra hard corps so you guys can see what I mean. I don't have the game flashback so I'm unable to do that game (I have it for sega cd...).

EDIT: Okay here are some recordings I did though I didn't have it setup the way I wanted (would of rather recorded at 48000khz on my Audigy 2 instead of 44100khz but I don't think you can change that in E.A.C. which is all I got...) you can still hear the difference. The volume was set to 7 on each of the consoles. Please don't play them with windows media player as I'm pretty sure it adds some sort of gain which can make em sound a bit different (on foobar they sounded fine on my setup). I hope you can use good headphones too (maybe turn the treble up a little more...) to hear it better

[Tiido Priimägi]

Konami logo + some more nice tunes, straight from MD VGM player on my audio modded MD2 :
http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/4/21/1876835/VGMPLAY.ogg

The recordings you made are nice, clean one sounds like my MD1 VA4 (HD)

[panzeroceania]

So the Mega Drive 1 is the best audio if unmodded? and you get stereo from it's headphone jack? Does it have anything else that makes it worse than the MD2 like video quality? I suppose MD2 is much better modded though, I have just never modded a console so it makes me nervous.

[Tiido Priimägi]

MD1 gives best sound when not modded (MD1 with EXT port on back, and no TMSS screen).