I was thrilled to see the Digitrax announcement for the new SDH164D and SDN144PS full function sound decoders with an MSRP of only $49.95! Great motor control including BEMF, lots of functions and effects, plus several preloaded generic diesel and steam sounds. Finally! Has anyone purchased/installed one of these yet?
It will certainly be nice if the Digitrax decoders live up to their advertised claims. Competition does wonders for we purchasers.
I don’t think these decoders have even been released yet and may not be for a few months. Until they do hit the market I wouldn’t stick my neck out and call them a “Premium” decoder. I’ve removed Digitrax Sound FX decoders from Tower 55 models because they were too weak sounding compared to a QSI Revolution or Tsunami.
The “catch” with Digitrax sound processors is that they use “high” ohm speakers (32 ohms to be exact). While not as limiting as the 100 ohm things that Loksound use, it still limits what 3rd party options are available to work with. No, but I have one sitting in a box I’ve not yet had time to install. I’m reserving judgment until I get it installed, since the installation of the speaker is often much more important than the quality of the sound processor itself.
I’ll go out on a limb and predict that these will sell like $.99 hamburgers at a county fair. Digitrax makes darned good products, in my limited experience (including reading about its various products in forums here and there), and this sound decoder is sure to restore the adjective “Brilliance” to its rightful meaning…right, David? [(-D]
-Crandell
I believe that Mr. David has already said that this decoder has outdated sound technology in the following thread: http://cs.trains.com/trccs/themes/trc/forums/thread.aspx?ThreadID=168225
Or are we speaking of another Mr. David?
FALSE. I have an SFX-004 Soundbug and the speaker that came attached to it is 8 ohms. You can use 8 ohm speakers. Yes the description on the Digitrax site says 32 ohms but it’s definitely an 8 ohm speaker, says so right on the magnet. It seems they randomly throw speakers on the decoders when they ship them - would be nice if they just shipped them with no speaker at all. The one that came with the Soundbug might fit in an HO steam loco tender but it’s too big for a diesel.
–Randy
As for the usefulness of these decoders - they REALLY need to get more sound sets available. Designing new sound projects for the Digitrax decoders is harder than most because you need to know how to program the processor as well as carve up sound samples and do the audio editing. Most of the projects available for download in the Sound Depot are sub-par. One o the standouts is Fred Miller’s Peter Witt trolley car - part of this is because Fred wrote a ‘helper’ program for some of that complex programming. There’s actually a lot of capability in those decoders - accessing it is the hard part. Digitrax supposedly has hired a consultant to create additional sound projects, but per the Digitrax SOund Yahoo group he was down for some time undegoing back surgery plus the Digitrax work is not his primary employment. I wish they would either fully commit or just stop trying with a half-baked product that will only turn peopel off to the brand.
–Randy
No, you have it correct. But, when compared to David’s favourite kicking post…“brilliance” belongs somewhere else. [:D] A step at rehabilitating that term could just as well be when it is assigned to the new Digitrax sound decoder. It can be moved again later once we pass judgement here.
-Crandell
Digitrax sound decoders, even when they FIRST came out, were not “premium”…ever…far from it. When they came out, there were already far behind the sound quality curve, surpassed by QSI and Loksound…and even the yellow series of Soundtraxx.
However, their motor control has always been the quality Digitrax control, and will be as such for this decoder.
The problem with Digitrax and sound is that they intended it from the get-go to be a user-created product (in terms of sound files). They released the decoder, the programmer and a wopping 3 sound schemes. Horrible selection if you dont have those 3 locomotives.
Now-a-days, their sound files have expanded to a couple dozen, but the quality is just bad…horrible when compared to the QSI-U or the Tsunami. We as a community have just moved on.
For a fleet decoder, it is not a bad price, but you also have to consider your speaker and baffle options with this decoder. When you are putting that much effort into a decoder installation, I would suggest looking at a Tsunami or a Revolution or the new Loksound Select (same price point as the Rev and the Tsu). All three of those decoders use 8 ohm speakers.
The Digitrax frame work was designed for a 32 ohm speaker, and even though their new decoder uses 8 ohm speakers, they still run off of the same framework. The result is quiet, distorted sound.
Just a heads up on what to expect. It almost seems like a last-gasp for this old technology.
David B
LowER quality since it’s only 8 bit, yes. But quiet and distorted? Not at the same time. Crank up to max volume and it’s distorted liek every other sound decoder. Kick it down a few notches, and it’s not distorted any more than the input source, and PLENTY loud.
I really don’t understand all these people complaining that the Digitax decoders have no volume. The must all install them with no enclosures or something, but the volume level from the Soundbug I have is MORE than adequate as it can be heard in the next room even WITHOUT an enclosure.
You can get a a good idea of the difference between what the provide as the default sounds vs what the decoder is capable of by looking at the videos on the Digitrax site. The bottom one is just the default sound. The top one (SD40-2) is a completely custom one. Most of the options in the Sound Depot are like the bottom one, but a few, in a particular Fred Miller’s, are not. Problem is, Fred’s a traction modeler so unless you need trolley sounds…
–Randy
If they are anything like the 165 series/soundbug combo, I have to agree with the above post and David B.
A while back, I ordered a couple of those combos, plus a PR3 specifically for programming them.
To say the least, the experiece was frustrating. They actually had a good quality of sound, but as stated, the preloaded soundset selection was just short of non-existant, and difficult to navigate to boot. Support documentation in general was bad on the site as well.
Programming was altogether horrid, as the closest thing I can equate it with is writing VB (Visual Basic) script code.
Additionally, I wasn’t even impressed with the mot
Where did you buy you SDN144PS? here’s a copy of an email I got from Digitrax a few days a go?
RE: SDN144PS question
| From: | Techsupport (techsupport@digitrax.com) |
|---|---|
| Sent: | Tue 2/02/10 9:54 AM |
| To: |
LitchfieldStation.com sells the SDH164D for $39.89. But right now there out of stock. Still for somebody trying to get into sound might be the way to go.
…or it might put off that person from sound. When someone is getting into ANYTHING for the first time, quality is always the way to go. Low quality tends to put people off.
David B
Very true. It is the same in other hobbies, and in my experience with astronomy, those purchasing the department store Christmas telescopes are almost always soon quite disappointed. The lack of engineering and poor performance due to many shortcomings soon has the item collecting dust.
-Crandell
Some people are not rich and have to start on the low end and work their way up. Remember that those high end decoders now will end up in the cheap section on e-bay in 5 years, You know what your old computers are worth verses what you paid for them, same thing!
This is Digitrax, not MRC. The sound may not be as good as the decoders that cost 2-3x as much, but within the limitations of tiny speakers and not large enough enclosures the difference is NOT that great. Again it comes down to source quality - Digitrax DOES need to get better quality sounds in their Sound Depot or people will start getting turned off. There are some examples with better sounds but many are not available because the sound files are copywrite. Public domain QUALITY sound files are hard to come by, and I don’t see Digitrax sending people out to make recordings.
–Randy
I am far from rich, however I do make choices that I will love in the long run. If you want a 3 minute joy, get an MRC decoder…the Digitrax SFX will amount to about 30 minutes…a Tsunami gives countless hours of fun.
David B
Actually, the sound quality was fine, even very good, if a decent soundset was loaded.
However, the selection of soundsets was pitiful, the support documentation seriuosly lacking, and the programming interface learning curve and (lack of) ease of use was horrific (and I’m an IT analyst[:O]).
On top of all of that, I ran into decoder address sharing issues almost every time I tried to do aything with it, because it was two seperate decoders. These usually happened at 99% of a 5 minute sound update, and almost always required a complete reload from scratch after resetting the address. Perhaps at lease that will not be an issue on the new one.
There should be no issue programming IF you use a Digitrax motor decoder and the SOundbug, or one of the other Digitrax sound decders - the ONLY CV overlap is for common elements like the address. None of the sound CVs are the same as any used by the motor decoders, either for function effects or motor control like BEMF. This is another advantage they have over other dual decoder solutions such as plugging just about any brand motor decoder into a Blueline sound loco.
–Randy