AIWA MEGA CD AUDIO PROBLEM WITH MEGADRIVE GAMES!

[raggio252000]

Hi!

I bought an old aiwa mega cd.
The system works great, however I have an issue with the audio when I play with the megadrive carts, the audio is not loud and I can't understand why (maybe a cap?), the CD audio of the mega cd part works great!
This is the first time that I have a similar system. Anyone know about this problem?
I did some pics of the Sega board:

[kendrick]

The common problem with the standard Megadrive/MegaCD combo is that the CD audio goes bad due to a burst capacitor, but standard cart sound works fine. That's a really interesting and unusual bit of hardware failure you've got there.

It's worth mentioning that in every revision of the MegaCD hardware, the basic principle of two separate game systems nailed together in the dark remains the same. Even in the tiny CDX/MultiMega system, there was still a separate board for the CD system and a separate board for the main cart-based system. Sega kept improving the individual parts and miniaturizing components, but never got around to consolidating everything onto one board. That's a really complicated way of saying that I totally believe your failure is exactly like the common audio problem, just reversed.

I feel like the Aiwa Mega CD unit uses the same board layout as the Majesco Genesis 3 revision? Even if that's not the case, you might find it useful to check out the big capacitor lists our friends at Sega-16 made:

http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?10012-Genesis-Capacitor-List

[raggio252000]

Hi there, 

thanks for your information.
About my problem I found a very interesting youtube video:

Aiwa Mega-CD CSD-GM1 Sound Difference

I have the same problem.

[ApolloBoy]

I feel like the Aiwa Mega CD unit uses the same board layout as the Majesco Genesis 3 revision?

Uhh it's not even close, not sure what made you say that.

[kendrick]

Thanks for checking, I don't have either hardware to compare. From memory, the chip layout looked similar and I was hoping that it was just a different cart connector (90 degrees as opposed to totally perpendicular) but obviously that's not the case. If they were the same board then the capacitors would have the same numbering, theoretically.