I just bought an Athearn Genesis F3A-B set with DCC & sound. I have a Genesis F3A without a decoder that I’d like to operate with the sound units. Which decoder should I buy? Thanks for any suggestions. My LHS has not been helpful.
The Athearn Genesis have MRC Brilliance sound decoders in them. So if you want an exact match that would be the one. However, I hate the MRC Brilliance. They are hard to program, don’t control the train well, and sound horrible. I’ve been taking them out of my Genesis locomotives and replacing them with other brands.
With DCC almost any decoder can be speed curved to match any other unit. So really the specific decoder you choose isn’t important. It is how you program it to match the others that is the important part.
I have one friend who programs every locomotive (regardless of decoder type) to respond to the throttle in exactly the same way. He can hook any combinations of locomotives together and they will work as one.
There is a shot of a TCS installation over on the TCS site
http://www.tcsdcc.com/decoderpics/Athearn%20Genesis%20F3A/athearn_genesis_f3a.htm
any number of brands of decoder will work.
Thanks for the help guys