r/IconicArcadeGaming

It's been nearly a year-and-a-half since we first heard about the Iconic Arcade Street Fighter cabinets, and a lot has happened along the way... legal challenges, tariffs, supply-chain issues, quality improvements, and shipping delays (to name a few). And all of that has given armchair quarterbacks LOTS of time — and ammunition — to sow doubt and raise concerns about the company and it's future product.

But the day has finally come.

The preorders have been fulfilled, the boxes have been opened, the cabinets have been assembled, and the proud posts have been shared.

So, now it's time to put the past year+ of rumors and speculation behind us and finally hear from the folks who actually put their own money (and their patience) on the line. Now it's time to hear from the owners.

Join us Thursday night at 8:00 EDT to hear from people with firsthand experience... what did Iconic get right? What did they get wrong? What should they improve? And where should they go next?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3ry7-23fT0

https://preview.redd.it/hnqjdai2wmzg1.jpg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5d6114fb164df580147aca37185cac3c1b8de472

As some of you in the Arcade1Up community know, I like adding subwoofers to all of my builds. Full speaker replacements are almost never necessary, and that's especially the case with the larger speakers and seemingly more powerful amplifier in use in these new Iconic Arcade units.

So, is it possible to just add a powered subwoofer to the Iconic Arcade Street Fighter cabinets? YES! And it's simple. Here's what you need:

• A powered subwoofer that can fit in the bottom cavity of your Iconic cabinet
• A 3.5mm y-splitter cable
• A stereo RCA patch cable
• 2 minutes to hook it up, and 5 minutes to adjust the sound to your liking

All you need to do is install a y-splitter to the 3.5mm audio cable that runs between the monitor and the control deck. Then hook up an RCA pactch cable between the open lead off the splitter and the subwoofer. Get yourself a subwoofer with an auto on/off and route the power cord through the back panel of your Iconic cabinet (I drilled a small hole). You'll need a spare power outlet available to plug into, since the subwoofer can't run off of the Iconic's electronics for power.

Once you have it hooked up, just adjust the crossover and output level to your personal taste. The Iconic cabinet will tend to amplify the subwoofer's own output, so it'll take very, very little power to get a big kick (I had to turn mine down to about 3/10 and go no further than about halfway with the crossover). The bass output will scale with the built-in volume control, so this is a "set it and forget it" mod that won't require any further fiddling once setup.

UPDATE! Turns out this method of adding a subwoofer (which works for 95% of Arcade1Up cabinets) does NOT work in the expected way this this Iconic Arcade cabinet. I didn't discover this right away, but apparently the audio lead that runs from the monitor to the control panel sends a fixed-level signal, so splitting the signal here only leads to a fixed level of bass volume. In order to get volume that changes as you increase or decrease volume levels, you would need to splice into the speaker-level wiring going from the control deck to the speakers themselves and route that into your subwoofer. This is certainly feasible, and not even all that hard, but it DOES require a subwoofer with high-level inputs and outputs (such as the one linked above), and it would require some minor cutting and splicing of existing wiring. Pig-tail connectors might also be available to avoid any cutting, but I haven't looked into it yet.

Apologies for any confusion. These Iconic cabs continue to surprise!

https://preview.redd.it/cft1nlny56zg1.jpg?width=1512&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cf2f965bd54aa40b650b1fb1ffbe529376b745b0

https://preview.redd.it/fqbtubifa1zg1.jpg?width=1512&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=572de268795cae088679d3019c1ab512bf18504f

After many hours of building the cabinet, here are my thoughts on the good, bad, and ugly. The good definitely outweigh the bad, but after finishing the build, I had to give my thoughts. This will be a long read.

The Good:

• EXCELLENT build quality. Every piece of wood is thick and solid. Easily the best home arcade unit I've ever built. Every box was well packaged with tons of support cardboard. I'm going to have to take a dumpster trip with how much cardboard I have to get rid of.
• The artwork is great, and they fixed a lot of minor complaints from the prototype. The power button is now black and you can barely see it near the speakers. There's also yellow t-molding on the World Warrior cabinet, which is accurate to the arcade.
• Huge marquee and easily the best looking home arcade marquee I've seen. It legit looks like a real marquee. And if you wanted to change out the marquee for some reason, you just take the top off, and slide it out. On a A1U, you'd have to take the sides off and it's a nightmare. That's how you do it.
• The controls feel good, and it feels like I'm at a real SF2 cabinet. I was worried about the weird truck liner coating on the deck and thought it might feel rough or scratchy, but it's fine. Especially with the control panel being slanted, you don't really feel it much. It should feels like it should keep the deck protected.
• There's no IconicArcade branding anywhere on the cabinet itself. It looks like an official Street Fighter cabinet
• The Raspberry Pi has a heatsink and fan. I haven't tested it much yet, but they didn't cheap out with just a board.

The Bad:

• This is honestly the biggest complaint. The instructions are awful and nearly worthless. I've built numerous Arcade1Up cabinets and other brands, and this was brain numbing. It will tell you to put numerous panels together while using 2 different types of screws. OK...Which screws for which panel? Welp...figure that out yourself. If you've built enough A1U cabinets, you'll probably figure it out, but it's a challenge. I can't imagine this being your first home cabinet and having to figure it out. It took me hours and I've built a bunch.
• The cabinet is heavy. It's nearly 100lbs and awkwardly sized. You have to join the two pieces together at some point and it's nearly impossible to do with one person. I did it, but I scratched up some of the artwork on both sides. You can't really slide the pieces together, because if you try to lift it, it's not bolted together and is too top heavy. You really need two people, or put the monitor on a table and then try to carefully shimmy it over on top of the bottom. I know this is done for shipping, but the AtGames Legends for instance, the entire top monitor part was built, and you simply joined pieces. That's the gold standard to me.
• The wiring is intense. I'm a tech guy, and the wiring diagram looks like a puzzle. The instructions just aren't clear. There are two types of power cables for the monitor and control panel. One has a ferrite core on it, and it doesn't tell you which one to use. I went with the monitor, but that might be wrong. It's honestly easier just to figure out where things go just by looking at the cables vs. the wiring diagram which will just confuse you.
• It does still wobble just a little, but it's nowhere near as bad as Arcade1Ups. The AtGames Legends Ultimate is the still the king when it comes to not wobbling. I don't understand what they did different, because it doesn't wobble at all.
• The convex buttons feel off to me. SF2 had concave, so part of me wants to change them out. Convex is better for button mashing and other games, but it's not accurate for Street Fighter II.
• The monitor feels small. It's bigger than an Arcade1Up, but for the size of the cabinet, it feels like it should be bigger. The bezel takes up a lot of space. That said, the original SF2 had a 19" monitor, so it's accurate. Champion Edition was 25" though, and I think more of us are probably more familiar with that size.
• One of my speaker grills was crushed out of the package. I was able to bend it back into shape a bit, but that still kinda irks me for a nearly $800 item. I get it though. There's so many parts, it's hard to get everything perfect. Everything else was in flawless condition.

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That about wraps it up for now. I haven't tested loaded another image on the Raspberry Pi yet. I do have an image ready to go though. My eventual goal was to use this cabinet as my multicade, so I'll report back when I can test it.

Edit 1: Welp, the Pi 5 works with other SD cards. One problem, is the monitor is technically a 16:9, but the games are set to run in 4x3. Someone might have to make a 4:3 build, but at least it works.

These have been going out since monday and some people have already received theirs yet neither of my two orders have any shipping info yet. Curious if anyone is in the same boat. Seems like 5 days later i should at least have shipping details.

Just putting it out there right now only some of the games have settings for the games. Most shocking to me you can actually beat the first couple opponents in Street Fighter 2 Turbo.

But whatever Street Fighter Alpha 2 is default set to I cannot beat it for my life of me, Rolento will just steamroll whoever you pick.

Yes these games are best play 1v1 but part of the fun of this cabinet is getting drawn back in nostalgia and just fighting the bots. And I think you have to be Justin Whang to have a chance against the AI in Alpha 2 (Alpha 3 is more reasonable).

The SF2 machine arrived and I put it together, it’s an incredible machine. I can’t get it to turn on no matter what I try. I reached out to Spreetail and they are telling me they will refund me if I send it back, but they won’t offer to help or replace parts. I love this arcade, I don’t want to return it. It took a lot of work to put together. I have a feeling just swapping the deck is all I need to do, but who knows. Do you guys have any suggestions of what I can do? I think I’ve wired it all correctly I looked at the guide very closely. I tried different outlets. I just push power and nothing happens.

Also is there someone from the team I could get help from?

The final wait for this giant nostalgia machine is killing me. I’d like to look at the assembly instruction manual now and read everything. Here’s the link: https://iconicarcade.com/media/files/docs/manuals/Iconic\_Arcade\_XT\_IM\_Multilanguage.pdf

I preordered last year and paid in full.
Ordered another with different artwork back in April this year when preorder was briefly open again.

I received the April order this week but my preorder from last year is still stuck in confirmed and no tracking even on my FedEx account.

Did everyone get their cabs or are there people who are still waiting?

So I'm trying to use a leverless fightstick that is compatible with raspberry pi. I've updated my cab and when I go into the select menu the controller works. But only in the menu for directions, accept and cancel. I can't seem to get the controller configuration to switch buttons on it either. And when I go to character select screen it just doesn't work. Start and select doesn't work on it outside the menu either. So I have to add coins and start from the joysticks.

This is a huge let down as I really wanted to use my own controller with this cabnit and it seems to be a no go. I've tried every mode on my controller and everything only to get the same results. Anyone have any luck using thier own controllers?

Before I resort to cloning my cabinet's microSD with dd, is there an official or community-hosted ISO I can download to create a fresh bootable image? Asking because it's not a matter of if the card dies, it's when.

Also while clicking here, here are some photos of my built unit. Its fxx-ing dope.

https://preview.redd.it/mqyf701ho6zg1.jpg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=77e7cc55c67187830fe15a33bf89563868184898

Check your machines, I powered mine up and it started an update. Added Cyberbots, Magic Sword, Bionic Commando, Forgotten Worlds, and GigaWing.