HO Sound

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Hey all,
Where do you get your sound units? Any suggestions on brand, model, etc?
Thanks in advance
Scott

2

http://www.litchfieldstation.com
http://www.tonystrains.com

You are basically limited to two brands, SoundTraxx or MRC if you’re talking about HO scale after-market sound systems.

For locomotives that have sound decoders already installed, your choices are Broadway Limited, Proto 2000, Atlas, or MRC.

3

Most recently I purchased a Broadway Limited to rip the sound unit out of, but I am not certain I understand the question.

I have purchased sound units at swap meets, through hobby stores, mail-order, and ebay. The one I mentioned above was mail-order.

Suggesstions on brand is hard not knowing what you want. Do you want prototypically accurate sound, high quality sound, loudness, cheapness, or easy installation? Steam or diesel? Hard core sounds or more novelty light hearted stuff like cows mooing or the conductor saying “Allllll Aboard”?

4

For diesels, I recommend either the sound P2Ks (I have the RI E6A - superb!) or the Atlas (which are the best on the market). BLI has fallen short on a lot of their diesels to date (although the more recent switcher shows improvement).

For steamers, BLI is good (but expensive !!!).

Buy from Tony’s Train Exchange or Modeltrainstuff (M.B. Klein).

5

I think www.gadgettom.com has sound decoders for sale, too. www.loystoys.com, also.

6

Who makes more accurate diesel sounds- Atlas or P2K?

soumodeler

The Southern Serves the South!

7

They both use the QSI sound decoder.

There have been severel threads running recently regarding sound. As of right now the choices are purchasing a sound equipped locomotive (Broadway, Atlas, P2K and Athearn) most of these get their sound decoders from QSI. For aftermarket sound installations, the current choice is Soundtraxx and MRC. However, I would hang on a bit as the market for Sound is about to change. Soundtraxx are in the process of releasing the new Tsunami decoder, QSI are about to release aftermarket decoders, MRC have announced a new better decoder than the current one, and by all accounts Digitrax are about to enter the sound decoder market. I am going to wait for a few months to see what shakes out.

8

Thanks for the links and ideas guys,
Sorry i haven’t been on lately
Thanks again
Scott