What's new

Question about Net City

nonosto

Champion
Joined
Jun 5, 2018
Messages
2,119
Reaction score
610
Location
FRANCE
Hello

Happy owner one NNC I am looking for a second arcade cab for tate games. A unknown machine for me is Net City. The base is blast city with OSD automatic tri freq. is it a good machine? Strong and reliable? What's quality picture vs blast in 15 and 31, and vs NNC?
In one word is it a top cab like NNC?

THX
 
In one word is it a top cab like NNC?

No.

I don't own a Net City, but own 2 NNC's and have owned multiple blast cities.

Purely on the ability to fix the monitors, the NNC is more "fixable" than the NC (based on what I know JOMAC does here in AU).

The NC usually has a 2931 in them iirc and those are the biggest PITA chassis (again, based on the feedback from JOMAC). They're almost impossible to fix. They have a lot of convergence you have to deal with. It's obviously semi curved vs the flat curve of the NNC.

For me NNC trumps a NC and Blast any day of the week
 
Yeah I do believe most have the 2933 - which is the "fixed" version of the 2931 from what I've read. I do know Jomac really dislikes any of the Nanao 293x series
 
THX all, maybe I will try to find an another NNC, because on the unit I follow I cant check the exact ref about the chassis, high risk to have 2931.
 
The Net City is certainly the Sega Cab I like the least. It's the New Net City minus the awesome artworks and with a least reliable monitor. It's the Blast City minus the Jamma harness, minus the ginormous space inside, minus the awesome sound system etc.

It's as if it cumulates all the cons of those two cabs, with very few pros.
 
The Net City is certainly the Sega Cab I like the least. It's the New Net City minus the awesome artworks and with a least reliable monitor. It's the Blast City minus the Jamma harness, minus the ginormous space inside, minus the awesome sound system etc.

It's as if it cumulates all the cons of those two cabs, with very few pros.
NNC aside, if you [primarily] like the NAOMI or JVS systems, a Net City is a much better experience than a blast. Yes, adding a JAMMA harness to a net city is a massive pain, but piling a whole JVS setup into a blast if you change games regularly is also a pain.
 
I find it much easier to "use" a Naomi set up in a Blast than a Naomi Uni/Net City/New Net City. There's so little room that you can't even change carts in a Naomi if you're using a link board. I feel like the cabinet actually lends itself better to JAMMA games, or at least anything that doesn't have carts.

It is a bit of a puzzle to fit the Naomi, GD Rom, and IO board on the wood in a Blast though.
 
Sorry for opening the NAOMI can of worms heh. For a cartridge-only setup, blast is certainly nice. A netboot setup though? I'll take a net city, no pun intended, all day.
 
Personally, I would take a Net City over a Blast City any day of the week. I think the Blast City is one of the worst cabinets designed. It sounds cool on paper but owning one made me hate it. Subjective, but I also think it is ugly as sin.
 
I think the Blast is easier to live with for certain things. Pretty much all the wiring is accessible through the front door. Power supply/amp is a single unit that slides out easily for service. I/O board is right there. But then other things like the speakers deteriorating, having to split the cabinet to access the speakers or coin counters properly, 2931 reliability issues, body flex causing bezel fitment and speaker grille issues, squeaky marquee, etc add up. The Blast City link kit is also arguably nicer since all connections are external.

The Naomi Universal on the other hand is much better build quality but almost everything is annoying to use. Power switch in the front door but all other controls under the control panel. Can't reach the I/O without taking off the front with 4 fragile clips 4 security screws and 2 more screws. Can't reach the monitor without taking out 4+ screws and removing the whole back cover. Almost no room through the front door for game switching.

Also, I have the River Service JAMMA harness in my New Net City but it's really not good for switching between JVS and JAMMA. It's really just for converting it to JAMMA. In my experience leaving the JAMMA harness fully connected but unused causes interference in the display and also forces it into high impedance mode, so the VGA input is washed out. The only way to fix it was to disconnect the video input from the monitor chassis, which is a pain with how the cabinet is designed. I'm tempted to cut an access hole in the monitor cover. Also it's minor but having the JAMMA harness live but unused could lead to accidental shorts since visibility through the front door is so limited.

The video problem might be addressed with the current version of the harness though. It looks like it comes with an adapter board to convert the harness connector to the cabinet's VGA cable, which would fix the interference, impedance, and need to open the back to install it.
 
With my NC that I use JVS and JAMMA wired native, I wired a separate VGA cable to the JAMMA level input on the monitor itself. So there are 2 VGA cables in the PCB Bay, one tagged for JAMMA video, and as long as you only use [the correct] one, it's perfect.

Jammafier would be a great option. I have one of the old Namco JAMMA to JVS boards, and even through that adapter, JAMMA video looks better on my MS2933 than on my Blast city directly (2931 in the blast). I refuse to put Bishi Bashi in my blast city because I don't want someone to delete the control pannel assembly, so for Bishi Bashi, I put the panel on a net city and use the Namco JAMMA / JVS board. The sturdiness of the net city control panel assembly is much better suited for smashy-smashing (tm).
 
My main problem is the reliability and maintenance in long time? For example with NNC I change frequently the freq, for example the 2933 is it strong as much as the pb9929 from NNC?
 
I'm a flag flying member of the "fuck the blast city" club.
I've had several come through my hands and each time I got rid of one i've said "never again"

never had monitor issues with the 2930/1 myself, but the data doesn't lie.
though they should be fine as long as you do the usual preventative maintenance (including the surface mount caps)

honestly between the speakers and the terrible control panel design it's my least favorite sega cab.

The net/new net/naomi uni is much better imo, especially now that you can just buy a Jammafier from Irkenlabs

to your question about the Tosh vs. Nanao, they're more or less the same even to the worst case fault-
https://www.arcade-projects.com/threads/psa-ms293x-faulty-chassis-can-break-the-tube.8879/

I do personally like the orangey yellow on the Net City the most though
NNC the metallic finishes don't jive with me and the naomi uni's bolder orange is too much imo, but that's all simple aesthetics.
 
With my NC that I use JVS and JAMMA wired native, I wired a separate VGA cable to the JAMMA level input on the monitor itself. So there are 2 VGA cables in the PCB Bay, one tagged for JAMMA video, and as long as you only use [the correct] one, it's perfect.
When I have the two inputs connected to the Toshiba chassis in my NNC, and only the VGA input connected to a source, with the JAMMA harness disconnected, it goes to high impedance mode and has interference. I've been meaning to try running JAMMA video into the VGA cable but I just keep my Naomi in that cabinet anyway.
 
Back
Top