I’m in the market for a F7A F7B combo and was planning on buying the new Intermountains when they come out in the NP passenger colors. The F7B is offered with and without sound and am trying decide whether there is any reason to have it with sound. If I am always going to be running the two together as a consist wouldn’t the A unit provide all the sound I need? Anyone have any thoughts or experience with this? Thanks.
Brad,
A lot of times the motor decoder is put in the A-unit, leaving the dummy B-unit (no motor) an ideal home for the sound decoder, baffle, and speaker. If you get it without sound, you’ll get either the A-unit with just the motor decoder but no sound decoder, or a DC locomotive with no decoders. You can put motors and sound in both units but it gets more complicated and trickier to wire.
Anyway, to answer your question. A good sound decoder (e.g. SoundTraxx DSX) and a couple of good speakers in the B-unit should more than adequately satisfy your sound requirements.
Tom
I am “working” on a F7 that has powered B units with factory sound from BLI.
The reason I chose it is due to my preference for the B units to be powered. I see dummy locomotive units as a liability on grades.
Intermountain units are very nice. I encourage you to consider the B unit with sound at least. If you dont have any grades or have sufficent power on just the A unit alone, the Intermountain factory can save you the aggravation by making dummy units availible with sound already installed.
I think it might actually be easier to put a motor into a dummy rather than installing sound. But that is me.
Good luck!
SV,
You’d be right about that point. And, doing BOTH would be even MORE of a challenge. You’re also right that the grade - and even length of train (i.e the amount of cars you want to pull) and sharpness of curves - is an issue in that decision process. In some cases, locomotives like the Stewarts are such strong pullers that a motorized B-unit would actually be overkill.
Tom
On my GN freight I run a Stewart FT - ABBA with 3 units powered and a B unit full of sound. It’s a great combination on DCC. I would like to hear a multi unit lashup with all power and sound, If set at maybe 50% volume I bet it would be awesome, because if you are fairly close when a prototype goes by you can hear each unit as it passes, but you also hear all of them at various intensities depending on distance and direction due to doppler shift.
Many inexpensive A units (without sound) can be matched up to one expensive B unit (with sound).
Let’s face it you don’t really NEED sound in anything. Up until just a very few years ago you probably wouldn’t have thought of it. But…
Do you want sound? Yes, since you are not even mentioning ‘no sound’ as an alternative. I would recommend going with sound and powered A and B units. I am not a big diesel guy (I have 6 diesels total), and I do not have the best hearing, but I can easily tell the difference between one and two engines with sound, and unless you have a FLAT layout and/or run short trains, a powered B unit is likely a very good move. When you get up to an ABBA lash up you might can get away with a couple of silent dummies, but I would try to listen to a similar set-up if I could. None of this stuff is cheap anymore, and there is nothing worse than being disappointed in your new major purchase.
I wonder why someone - QSI, Soundtraxx, whoever, isn’t/hasn’t that I know of, offered ONE decoder with the sound of TWO engines for situations like yours that are NOT uncommon. Well, no I take that back, I know why, $'s. I wonder if you couldn’t do that with a Tsunami, QSI, or Loksound that you can download sounds into. Doing that could save some of you multiple lash up diesel guys major bucks I would think.
Good luck.
PCM http://www.precisioncraftmodels.com/ does for thier Baldwin Sharks anyway:
"Sound unit notes:
A-B sets: Both units powered with sound. Slave unit runs only with lead unit. "
Both units have motors and speakers, but only one decoder. The B-unit will not operate without the A-unit.
Some have complained about this - I do not understand why the complaints.
Two real locomotives both produce sound.
If both units in a consist have motors, and one has sound, the other needs sound too. Sound boards eat up appreciable power, and you’ll put a lot of strain on the mechanisms running one with sound and one without. IF they stay on the track.
If the B unit is unpowered, it becomes a quality of sound question. Two diesels will not be in phase with each other soundwise, leading to some interesting effects.
Dummy units generally don’t have gears in the trucks as they would only serve to act as drag. And I also agree that the sound coming from a single unit would differ greatly from the sound from two units.
DRUTHERS.
I’d ‘druther’ have an unpowered B unit with sound behind (or in the middle of) powered A"s. The dummy unit with sound can use the whole body as a baffle whereas the motor takes up valuable space. Sound will still appear soming from the A engine. unless you put your ear down near it.
Having a independent sound car allows me to mix it into various consists, not having to buy all sound equipped engines.
TO MAXIMIZE sound, separate the front wave from the back as far as possible. Example: intermountain ‘Smart Dummies’ (Units with track power available but no motor) - put in a floor and mount the speaker firing down. Back wave comes out grillwork, front wave into track and bounces out into room.
Genesis: Floor and speaker as above with motor (and gears) removed.
Stewart: Replace large solid fan with a ‘see thrue’. A Rectangular speaker now mounted firing up thru new open fan. Wire from wheels is needed to power speaker and sound module. If the topside speaker is sealed off, no floor ‘separator’ is necessary.
Again, all this allows bigger speakers, bigger sound by using entire body for front / back separation. You can actually get down to 500 hz - not so with those bottle cap baffles. Larger speakers move more air.
Jeffers I agree that TWO sound units use more power, but so do 2 engines, 2 interior lit cars, etc. Since they’re all track powered, the sum is the same - whether all in one car or spread out in 12. The power pack becomes the limitation.
Your point of NOT running sound equipped with non-sound equipped is well taken - because DUAL MODE sound units (such as QSI and LOK) use up the first 5 volts to identify and switch to DC or DCC.
TWO identical digital sound sources can ‘beat’ against each other (like tuning a guitar), but they also move 2X the air, and are marveous when double heading steam. I’m with Tom Stage on this one
Seems nobody really gave you a straightforward answer. I have 2 of the A units with sound, and plan on getting 2 of the B units with sound when they come out. As was stated on another thread, hearing 3 or 4 sound units working in unison is not QUITE the same as hearing 2 with sound and 2 “silent”. After all, real units do the same. Also, 4 sound decoders may not always be “in phase” with one another, just like real life. BTW, any locos that had 2 engines (such as E units) should have decoders that should make the sounds of 2 engines, using 2 speakers if possible for maximun realism.
I guess it all boils down to personal preference and your budget, but I believe that if you go ahead and get all 4 with sound, you’ll be glad you did.
Brad
Well.
If PCM says I need a B unit which is powered and has it’s own sound slaved to the A unit it is assigned to no problem.
I already acquired a F set of all powered ABBA with sound from Broadway and for me the next problem is that of power. How do I feed these 4 hungry children safely as they lug the train over the summit? A single digitrax Zephyer is not going to cut it without a power booster. Not on 2.5 amps.
Yes it’s expensive but I think it will be worth it to have each of the units doing some of the work of pulling the train instead of being deadweight dummies.
[Noe of my complaints is you can’t run a ABB lashup. B units must run with A Units as I understand it. You can run ABA or ABBA or AA but not ABBB etc. Bill
A-B sets: Both units powered with sound. Slave unit runs only with lead unit. "[/b]
Both units have motors and speakers, but only one decoder. The B-unit will not operate without the A-unit.
Some have complained about this - I do not understand why the complaints.
[
Would not the addition of another decoder add an extra $30 to the price of the B unit. Also, if you think about revinue generation they produced a product that you have to buy in sets. They can guaranty to sell all the B units.No more producing something that they may or may not sell. How many times do you see B units from many years ago still waiting for a home. If I were the manufacturer I would only sell in sets, sound or not.
twcenterprises - Safety Valve - billoberst
One cannot MIX sound equipped and non-sound equipped engines that are powered such as Genesis, Broadway, Proto 2000, and possibly InterMountain, as those units use QSI and LOK sound systems which are wired in SERIES with the motor. Anything wired in series with the motor - such as CV diodes - robs the motor of voltage, and hey RUN at different speeds.
DUMMY 'B’s - with or without sound - are pulled along , so will run at the speed set by the pulling engine. No conflict.
IDEALLY, an InterMountain ‘Smart Dummy’ (unit w/o motor and gears) has wiring for installing a sound module (any brand) without stealing power from the motor
2. allowing the entire body to be used as a ‘baffle’ 3. allowing a sound unit to be mixed into any consist without regard to speed conflicts 4. saving money. FEW layouts require more tham 2 engines
I one wants 'PULLING power, to go up a 10% grade or pull 80 cars, add another engine.
Guys,I have listen to some BLI steamers that had the sound coming from the tender instead of the boiler area and one could tell where the sound was coming from…My sounded equipped GP9s and RS1s sounded a lot better since the sound was coming from the hood-well cab really since that’s where I mounted the speakers-then the BLI steamer I heard…Now I am not sure the sound would be best in a B unit…I believe I would want the sound in both A units…I fully believe that would “surround” the B unit with sound and one could not tell the B unit was soundless.As far as a A-B consist I would prefer the sound to be in the A unit.
Well, the BLI M1a has a very big tender and the J1 even bigger. To all purposes it is like pulling a dummy “B” unit. However these steamers perform very well when equippted with a tire as to not require any help lugging a heavy tender.
If you have a powerful A unit a sound only B or similar will do well.
I had a Life Like trainset A unit that only had one truck powered with a pittman tower on it. The front truck was for pick up only. I got a dummy B unit for it (I was told that it was not needed to be powered at the time) and the total pulling performance went from bad to terrible when that monster B unit weighted everything down.
That is probably why I advocated no dummies in a power consist of Multipule Units.
Someone mentioned that it is possible for a manufactor to sell all the B units made and avoid “Littering” the stores with lonely B units without a home. I say that modelers would want A,B A,B,B or even ABBBB etc.
Install sound or run without sound in your B units as you please or can afford.
Remember, the real ones had sound.