Just FYI.
https://www.production-expert.com/production-expert-1/the-surprising-truth-about-how-audio-professionals-rate-the-biggest-brands

Holy mackerel! 

This was my first time actually using ResEdit OR ResCompare in all my life. But wow, they are easy and nice.

WHAAT? And you call yourself a Mac user?
Kiddin', just kiddin' 

Anyway, your ResCompare patch on System might work or it might not. For it to work, somebody else's System file (before applying a patch) should be bit for bit identical to your System file at the moment of creating ResCompare patch.
IIRC, there were several resources inside System file, that were created/modified by various NIC installers. Possibly others too. I also know of one audio software company that created its own resource inside System file for copy protection purposes.

Mac7News again!

Rairii figured out all that System 7.0.x needed in order to fully use and acknowledge the existence of the Enablers, more appropriately-called "Gibblies", which is to take the boot 2 (and optionally boot 3) resources from System 7.1 and put them on System 7.0.x! So I went ahead and tried exactly that, on the Mac mini G4 as always:

7.0.1 (International English):



7.0 (International English):



Well, that's it. It's completely CRAZY all of this got this far. Incidentally, this patching might also assist older 68k Macs that required an Enabler to boot System 7.1 in a way so that they also boot 7.0.x (at least in theory).

Oh yeah, and it's incredibly stable, too. Played and completed a game of Shanghai II on these. Ran Glider flawlessly (lack of sound aside), too. Things just... work. Smoother than butter, it's playing with lightning!

Anyone can replicate this with easy ResEdit copy + paste, but just in case anyone wants an ever bigger shortcut, I attached a patch for 7.0 and 7.0.1 to this post, which I created with ResCompare 2.6. You double-click it, then click on the button to patch, then select your System 7.0 or 7.0.1 file accordingly. It may or may not require the "International English" version for my patches, though, but I'm not sure. The patches do work on the International English release, though, that much I can say. Also note that the patches create an unmodified backup file called "System (original)", just in case, but make sure you don't leave the backup inside your System Folder by accident.

This was my first time actually using ResEdit OR ResCompare in all my life. But wow, they are easy and nice. (Had to increase allocated memory on Get Info to both, though, which you must if you do any of this patching by hand!)

One way or another, we got ALL versions of System 7 now covered. Insane. Rairii also intends to look into the lack of audio one day, so this might not be over yet from his side.

Just to address our next natural expectation: "WHAT ABOUT SYSTEM 6?"

This one seems like it won't be easy (not that most of this was, as extremely few people on Earth have the ability + interest to do what Rairii did up until this point). Rairii is working on this, but there can't be any guarantees. It seems that even Macsbug is not working in this case? System 6 is just too much of a departure from System 7 and later. Code only present in Old World ROMs will be needed this time around, one way or another.

Now only time can tell what will or will not happen!

what a strange choice to use rubber for the construction of everything which is the only element that deteriorates in classic speakers..

Nothing strange here at all.
A bit of insight into speaker chassis design... Primitively speaking, to get the good bass, you need the low resonance frequency of the speaker. Soft surround (foam, rubber) gets you low resonance, stiff surround (paper, plastic) gets you high resonance, but, as a result, no low bass.
It's obvious that Apple went for good sound in their, exensive at the time, portables. Nobody thought about longevity back then.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiele/Small_parameters#Qualitative_descriptions

You're right that the M-Audio 2496 has its own DSP on the ICE1712 chip that handles a lot of the audio processing, mixing, and routing independently. The card can do:

Hardware mixing of multiple streams
Sample rate conversion
Digital I/O routing
Some effects processing

So for basic audio I/O, recording, and playback, the host FPU speed shouldn't matter much - the card is doing the heavy lifting with its onboard DSP and DMA transfers.
However, FPU performance would still matter for:

Plugin processing - VST/AU effects and instruments running on the CPU
Soft synths - All computed on the host
Real-time effects chains - Reverbs, compressors, EQs running in the DAW
Mixing/bouncing - When the DAW is doing CPU-side processing

The 2496's DSP handles the interface between digital/analog and manages the audio streams, but all the creative processing (plugins, virtual instruments, etc.) still happens on the host CPU's FPU.
Given that your emulated FPU performance is weaker than native G5 (as you mentioned with your Geekbench results), you might hit limitations with heavy plugin chains or complex soft synths, even though basic tracking and playback through the 2496 should be fine.
The real test will be loading up a session with multiple plugin instances and seeing where the bottleneck appears. The 2496's DSP helps, but it can't compensate for CPU-intensive creative tools.Claude is AI and can make mistakes. Please double-check responses.

Hey redstudio, I cropped and downsized your images for easier viewing (hopefully without the need for scrolling). 

And... where did you source the new speakers? [For those that might also wish to replace theirs in a similar way.]

*I've three 17" G4 PowerBooks... and lucky I suppose, all have not yet succumbed to such rot.

Good catch! You can find burnt-out voice coils by measuring the terminals with an ohmeter. A 4-ohm driver will be around 3.5 ohms at DC normally, but "+OL" if it burnt out.
The rubber diaphragm may have been chosen for a lower resonant frequency vs a plastic cone, but we now can see how they degraded with time.

new

broken speaker

I think I've solved the mystery of the PowerBooks with no sound; it's the faulty speakers. Of three laptops I've opened, they're the ones that don't work (tested), and the reason lies in their construction. Normal speakers use a paper or plastic cone with a rubber surround, which usually wears out or decomposes over time. These speakers have a rubber cone and surround! Of the three I've inspected, two had cracked rubber that prevented the cone from moving. One moved, but the rubber was flaking, and the voice coil got stuck. I think the problem with the voice coil has burned them out over time. If they were installed in all aluminum PowerBooks, they're definitely not going to work anymore. what a strange choice to use rubber for the construction of everything which is the only element that deteriorates in classic speakers.. however ordered in plastic (found similar product of dimensions.. 2 cm original 4 ohm 6w unobtainable, taken 8 ohm 1w they will sound half, but for test..) tried to replace them in a test powerbook.. it was exciting to finally hear the initial "boing"!