The Astro City Thread

Hey, seeing that more and more people on this board are buying Astro City cabs and all the questions about them, I thought well damn this needs a thread where someone looking into buying one of these beautys could come to this thread and find out all the information about them from people who have them.

First let's outline the three Astro City models(in order of release),

Astro City (1993)



Standard Monitor: Nanao 29" 15khz (low-res)
The speakers in this model are small and are imbedded into the top.

Weight: 93kg
Dimensions: H145 x W75 x D91 (cm)
Default Voltage: 100V (Japan)


New Astro City (1996)



Standard Monitor: Nanao 29" 15khz-24khz (low-res and med-res) the monitor doesn't change the resolution according to the hardware that you put it in so you will need to manually change the res by going to the monitor chassis board (WHILE THE CAB IS OFF!)(also beware that if the little suction cup looking cable that goes to the back of the monitor is taken off you will get one hell of a nasty shock, not enough to kill you but it will hurt like hell) and you will find a cable that connects via 4-5pins that is connected to the board and near it should be another set of 4-5 pins with a "24khz" next to it on the board (usually) you then take the cable off of the 15khz pins and onto the 24khz pins.

Weight: 95 Kg
Default Voltage: 100V (Japan)
Dimensions: W75 x D95 x H145 (cm)

The speakers on this model are bigger and have improovements on the sound quality, speakers are pushed out so you can hear them better (lol)


Astro City 2 (19??) If anyone knows what year the Astro City 2 was released please add it to this thread and I will edit it.


The cabinet on the right.

Standard Monitor: Nanao 29" (assuming it's 15khz-24khz) same with the New Astro City when changing the resolutions.

Weight: 95kg
Default Voltage: 100V (Japan)
Dimensions: W75 x D95 x H145 (cm)

The speakers on this model are much bigger and have improovements with the sound quality over the older models.
I've also heard that the Astro City 2 powersupply is different to the New Astro City powersupply.


Okay, that's the cabinet models sorted.
Now I bet you're wondering, hmmm how much are these cabs worth?
Usually these cabs can cost from $350 us dollars to $500 us dollars, the price also depends on where you're getting it from,the model and the condition.
I bought my New Astro City from an arcade distributor in my area (www.zax.com.au in Melbourne, for us who live in Melbourne) for $1100 au dollars.

The Astro City cabs have one of the best arcade monitors in them and are great for any type of game you want to use wether it be 2d or 3d they all look brillaint on the Astro City monitors.

The PCB space in the Astro City cabinets isn't as much as most of us would like but it will fit basically anything that you would want to put into it. ( fitting a 6 slot might require you to build a sort of table inside the cab because the pcb wood mount is too close to the PSU that you wouldnt be able to swap carts out. (Thanks to taitai, everyone knows for sure that you can fit a 4 slot into the original Astro City)

All of the Astro City cabs are straight JAMMA, meaning Mono sound via harness.

The good thing about the Sega candy cabs is that the Control Panel is the same size and shape of the other Sega cabs such as the Naomi cabs,Capcom Impress cabs and the Konami Windy city cabs. (if any other cabs can use them please add them in this thread)

All the Astro City cabs can have their monitor rotated to vertical or horizontal.


Please post any problems that you have had with the Astro City cabinets and any information that I have left out or forgotten to this thread so that in the future people who are looking into buying one of these cabs can find all the information about them that they could possibly need to make an informed choice.

I can testify that fitting a fully populated 4 slot isno problem for the original Astro City cabinet.

My only problem with my original Astro is that it's freakin' mono! But i'm working on fixing that.

Anyonje have any idea where I can get spare harnesses and connectors in case I fuck up?

lachlan, very nice information. Thanks for putting it together in one place for easy access.

meanbean said:

lachlan, very nice information. Thanks for putting it together in one place for easy access.

Click to expand...

Glad you like it, I would've loved to have this information in a single thread when I was making up my mind on my first cab, would've made life allot easier so that's why I thought (with all the spare time i waste everyday) I'd make one.

Astro City Volume Control question, Need Help!

I just got an original Astro City cabinet and for some reason the sound doesn't work at all. Does anyone know where the volume control is on an original Astro City cabinet? Also does anyone have a photo of the inside of the cabinet? Mine came with a blue box that I think is the power supply and that is the only hardware inside the cab. Is there supposed to be another box inside there like the New astro city cab? If anyone knows please let me know. Thanks!

macross126

Macross126 said:

I just got an original Astro City cabinet and for some reason the sound doesn't work at all. Does anyone know where the volume control is on an original Astro City cabinet? Also does anyone have a photo of the inside of the cabinet? Mine came with a blue box that I think is the power supply and that is the only hardware inside the cab. Is there supposed to be another box inside there like the New astro city cab? If anyone knows please let me know. Thanks!

macross126

Click to expand...

Sounds like the cab doesn't have an audio amplifier.
Trace the mono audio wires from the JAMMA harness and find out where they end up.
The two speakers at the top of the cabinet have wires that end up in a 4 port molex connector that should be located inside the Control Panel or on youre left when you open up the PCB door.

If for some reason it isnt there then you will probably need to wire the speakers up manually or double check for the wires by taking off the front of the cabinet.

Hi Lachlan, Thanks for the help. The two speakers at the top of the cabinet have wires that end up in a 4 port molex connector. Are the speaker mono wires that come out of the jamma harness supposed to directly lead to a 4 port molex connector that connects to the speaker one or do they have to go thru a piece of hardware (amp) first? I have seen pictures of the inside of a new astro city cab and they have a big amp box fitted to the bottom of the cab. Inside my astro city cab there isnt an amp like that one and the only box sitting on the bottom of the cab is a plastic blue one which I think is the power supply. Any links to photos of the inside of an astro city cab would help greatly because since I got this cab from ebay I have no idea what I'm supposed to or not supposed to have. Thanks

Macross126

Excellent, if you want mono sound from the JAMMA harness then just connect the mono audio wires from the JAMMA harness to two of the wires on the 4 port molex connector that lead up into one of the speakers.

By the way...I reckon that you're supposed to have an amp because there's no point in having 2 speakers wired to a 4 port molex connector if it's not connecting to an amp, could you post a picture of the inside of you're cab?

Hi Lachlan, This is what the inside of my astro city cab looks like. As you can see there is no amp. and only the blue power supply box. When I got the machine the speaker wires went from the jamma harness split into 2 more wires so that all 4 could fit into the 4 pin molex connecter and then that molex connecter was plugged directly into the molex connecter that is connected to the 2 speakers. Is an amp. required to use both speakers? The weird thing is that I'm not even getting mono sound. If the image doesn't appear here is a URL link to it.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v476/macross125/Ebay Stuff/AstroCityInside22.jpg

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v476/macross125/Ebay%20Stuff/AstroCityInside22.jpg">

If anyone would be kind enough to post a photo of the inside of there Astro City cab or a link to an online manual of one then it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

macross126

No an amp isn't required for stereo sound but it really depends on what hardware you are using, some might need an amp.
Just wire the two mono audio wires from the JAMMA harness to two of the speaker wires that lead into the 4 port molex connector and you should get mono sound through one speaker.

I have a new astro cab with an amp and getting stereo sound to work on my Neo 1 slot hasn't been achieved yet, dicky wires.

I'll try that , Thanks. By the way. How is the stereo sound in a New Astro City cab? Also what is the res. of those monitors? I'm thinking about getting a Naomi system soon and would like to be able to play at the opitimal resolution level. Thanks

Macross126

Well I haven't been able to get stereo sound from my New Astro because I think the amp connector is wired differently than what the stereo pins on the Neo 1 slot are set to.

The default monitors in the New Astro cabinets are 15khz ~ 24khz so that's low res and medium res.

Really the only hardware that uses Medium res is the Sega Model 2/3 and some others, 15khz and 31khz are the most used res's.

I wanted to get a Naomi setup but due to cost I didn't, I would be fine with 15khz though.

Got a New Astro 1996. Beautiful display on her.

Decided to try again on getting stereo sound off of my MVS 1 slot in my New Astro City using the amp.
The reason why I could only get sound through one speaker was that the cable coming from the amp to the speaker 4 pin connector was wired like this:

S|G|S|G

S = signal
G = ground

The the MVS speaker pins are:

S|G|G|S

Simply swapping the cables around in the connector on the cable coming from the amp gave me wonderful stereo sound.

Hope this helps anyone currently stuck with this.

lachlan said:

Decided to try again on getting stereo sound off of my MVS 1 slot in my New Astro City using the amp.
The reason why I could only get sound through one speaker was that the cable coming from the amp to the speaker 4 pin connector was wired like this:

S|G|S|G

S = signal
G = ground

The the MVS speaker pins are:

S|G|G|S

Simply swapping the cables around in the connector on the cable coming from the amp gave me wonderful stereo sound.

Hope this helps anyone currently stuck with this.

Click to expand...

Well done with the stereo from the mvs1 through your NewAstro Lachlan.

How i can get stereo from my mvs1 in my Astro city..There's no extra amp in mine like the new astro or anything,and the cab's just wired to standard mono at the moment.any suggestions ?

I think the only time i have played my astro and actually heard stereo was when i hooked up my ssft2x board to my home stereo via the audio output plugs on the A board.Cranking sound,, but it was definantly a bit faded in one speaker.almost sounds similar to what was happening with the sound in your cab.

Does your MVS 1 slot have a speaker or headphone 4pin connector on it?
If it doesn't then that means the only way to pull stereo from it is to wire up the JAMMA to MVS sound wiring, just means you need to change it all the time if you use other hardware in it or wire a switch in the circuit to switch from JAMMA mono to MVS stereo.

I'm not quite enlightened about doing it either.
I'm not even 100% sure that every 1 slot can have stereo through it's harness, better to ask this question in the tech forums or search it cause it's come up before many times.

IheartBridget said:

Got a New Astro 1996. Beautiful display on her.

Click to expand...

Me too - I definetly wasn't expecting such a great display, but when I turned it on for the first time...it was glorious.

lachlan said:

Does your MVS 1 slot have a speaker or headphone 4pin connector on it?
If it doesn't then that means the only way to pull stereo from it is to wire up the JAMMA to MVS sound wiring, just means you need to change it all the time if you use other hardware in it or wire a switch in the circuit to switch from JAMMA mono to MVS stereo.

I'm not quite enlightened about doing it either.
I'm not even 100% sure that every 1 slot can have stereo through it's harness, better to ask this question in the tech forums or search it cause it's come up before many times.

Click to expand...

Cheers,i will ask about that one in the tech pages soon(that's once i have attended to my PSU fuse blowing problem which is back again ).

Ps,i'm looking at the MVS 1 now and next to each other is both a 4pin speaker and a 4pin headphone connector.(plus the stero or mono switch of course).As it state's on the warning label i keep that set on mono as the cab is standard jamma/mono wired.

Why did this thread die? I'm looking into buying a cabinet and I do like the Astro City series. I'm possibily looking at getting a New Astro City, but I'm not completely sure since my ideal cab would be an AIW SD.

One question I have is that a lot of people in the past and in the present have been trying to get Astro City CPs. Are they especially hard/expensive to obtain? You often see Astro City with Blast City or other CPs. Oddly enough, same goes for AIW cabs having Egret 3 panels. I just know that if I were to get a cab, I would want it to have the original CP on it. Thanks in advance!

~Paik

Astro City Control Panels

I have an Astro City and a Konami Windy II cabinet. I would say that the quality of the Konami Windy cabinets are better than the Sega ones. The only problem is that the resolution of the monitors isn't good enough for playing the newer systems like Capcom CP3 or Naomi GD, Atomis wave etc. But if you want to play Capcom CPS2 or Neo Geo MVS then it's perfect. Also The original Astro City cabs are alot more inferior to the New Astro City and Blast City Cabs. If you are going to get a Sega Cab don't get the original Astro City. Get one of the Newer ones. Also, In terms of control panels I think the Blast City CPs are newer so there are alot more of them around than the original Astro City CPs. Thats why it's easier to find them sold seperately. You could probably find original Astro City CPs in Akihabara used but they might not be in very good condition. I know that in Tokyo you can still buy brand new Blast City CPs for around $130 .

I've got a sega new astrocity and sega astrocity 2. Love them both. The astro2 has a bose stereo system that packs alot of bass for a cab. Sounds terrific. Also the astro2 has more depth than a regular candy cab so will stick out 2-3 inches when put side by side with another candy cab... Also the rear of the astro2 is oddly shaped so you cannot grab it with a furniture dolly....You can only grab it from the side Other than that, its a sweet ass cab.

While on topic of astros....here's a shameless plug for major astrocity importer Matsu. Please email him at: gamemachine2003@hotmail.com if you are interested in an astro, AWsd or any other candy cab for that matter
Droid

You can get brand new Sega licenced Astro CP's from Seitmitsu or Sanwa.
www.akihabarashop.com can hook you up with those.

My AW on my New Astro looks fine.

astro CPs are easy to manufacture aswell, just bring an old one or drawings of it to your local metal-dealer and he'll cut one out for you and punch holes in it.

finally got my new screen for my "pimp-my-astro" project.. this cabs gonna be a real killer!

This should have all the info you need on Sega cabs.

http://candycabinetcity.com/?page_id=14