As I am now doing sound system installs I’m starting to find the quality of sound differs from tender to tender. So the question begs to be asked:
How do you like your speakers? pointing up or down, single or double, 1/2" or 1".
Fergie
Ny BLI Niagara has it lying on it’s side (only the one), and facing forward in a cardboard cylinder, towards the cab (at least, that’s the way I found it before I sent it back for replacement work). It seemed to work okay, but I found the whistle to be raspy. I suspect the previous owner had done some rummaging around in the tender. I have not entered it since receiving it back two weeks ago, but can tell you that it sounds about the same, minus the rasp.
My BLI Hudson, the only other tender over which I was curious enough to look, has the speaker facing downward. On the other hand, my Lionel Challenger has two mounted on conically truncated plastic cylinders, but the speakers themselves are at a 45 deg angle relative to the top and bottom of the tender. Their cylinders are vertical, and their openings meet the bottom grate in the tender floor.
So, what else? The 45 deg angle lets you put in more speaker area, but the enclosure will be a trick one to anchor it all facing a given direction. As for the angle of incidence for the sound, itself, I don’t think that matters much. My Tsunami’s all fire upward through the coal, and they sound no harsher than those that fire in any other arrangement. I
realize that it may say more about the state of my ears than anything else…[:I]
How do you like your speakers?
Sunny side up [(-D]
As a former audiophile I can say that getting speakers with excellent magnets is very important.
Weak magnets will make the sound suck.
The other is that the walls are thick and immovable [I know it is not possible in a modle] to make the sound as ‘dead’ as possible. Meaning it comes out more pure.
Maybe stiffening the sides on the inside will help. I have no idea as I have never put sound into a model. I have however made my own speakers and even made surround sound headphones, yes complete with front, center and rear speakers and subwoofer.
The rest though the others can answer.
I hope that helps anyhow.
I still prefer my sound the old-fashioned way - mounting large speakers at various places under the layout. I’m way too familiar with the ‘bark’ of the normal-aspirated EMD 567B prime mover, and the deep rumble of a turbocharged 645, to want to spend my [scarce] money on those itty-bitty speakers that barely fit inside the shells of my diesels. But who knows, the Tsunami for Diesels may very well convince me to take out a second mortgage…[:O]
A good hard (like black plastic) enclosure for the speaker makes a huge difference. I also don’t worry about making holes to “let the sound out”. I have a C-628 I added sound to that had open cab windows near where the speaker was originally located. I found when I put glazing in the windows the bass sounds became much better. When I moved the speaker to the back of the unit where it was entirely sealed in, the sound was even better. The body becomes part of the speaker enclosure essentially.
wjstix very true, what you are doing is essentially the same way they make subwoofer so small now a days. By isolating it in an enclose with minimal outlets [holes] and the walls tighter [stronger] it resonates much better.
I would agree that the enclosure is very important. I’ve done quite a few sound installs now and have had the speakers sideways or down and that doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of difference, but a good enclosure definitely does. I usually use a small amount of RTV to seal up the edges of the speaker in the enclosure to prevent air leaks.
All of my steam engine installs fire downward through holes in the floor. For diesels I just let the sound come out the holes that are already there where the trucks attach. Usually the speaker goes in the cab.
I’ve done bout a dozen brass steamers so far, either Soundtraxx LC or Tsunami’s . I’ve settled down to my fav speaker being the Oval Miniatronics speaker, mounted in the base of the tender facing down. On old PFM and some others this is reallly easy, since the tender floor is perforated. Otherwise I just have to drill a lot of holes to let the sound out. Plus the speaker mounts with 4 screws, for a good secure mount.
As big as possible because size does matter, but not as much as the baffle or enclosure… If I remember the one below is a 3" x 1.5" and the center part of the body is the enclosure. It was the easiest “bass improvement” I’ve ever done. Took a whole hour, most of which was developing a “self sealing” body.
That is as opposed to the beast below. Gets really good bass for a 1" speaker. The pvc enclosure has 9" of chambers inside. Took about three months to make from conception to working model. I made some really stupid mistakes along the way and in the final product like mounting the sound processor right in front of the speaker. The speaker contacts are also INSIDE the enclosure, so If I ever burn it out … HA!
The next time I build one, I’ll get pictures before I paint it black.
Depends on the locomotive. A tender that has a coal hopper that is slanted toward the locomotive is absolutely wonderful as it projects the sound toward the locomotive itself. Be sure to use accoustically transparent coal.
The more air that can be moved the better the lower frequencies. Just remember that since pie are square two 1/2" speakers are not as good as a single 1". Also remember that speakers are inductance rather than resistance. Two 8 ohm speakers in parallel are 4 ohms to the sound processor, and two 8 ohms in series are (as expected) = 16. Make certain a given processor can deal either of those before hooking it up.
Once again the more air one can move the better the lower frequencies are going to be. If a 1" can fit why ev
So there you have it. The enclosure and magnetic strength are the top important things. The less the tender [loco etc] vibrate the better the sound. The more secure [4 instead of 2] the screws the better the sound.
Magents are what move the diaphram [I am keeping it simple here] and the better the magnets the more precise and hence better the sound will be.
I hope that helps.
Fergie,
I’ve installed quite a few speakers in my engines. The ones with the baffles always outperfom the one(s) without. If the speaker will fit in the baffle with the wires to the outside, I prefer to install it that way. The back of the speaker moves as much air as the front of the speaker, and I don’t like drilling holes in a sealed chamber to get wires inside it - kind of defeats the purpose of having a closed chamber, doesn’t it! Orientation of the speaker (up, down, sideways, etc.) doesn’t seem to matter much if the sound volume is there. It will get out. And by the way, the group I am in always sets the sound volume of the decoder down to about 30 % of the range when operating. The default is about 70% and is way too loud. I have hooked up multiple speakers on one decoder (for A-B-A and A-B-B-A lashups) and these work great.
Whatever size speaker - install good baffles.
Mark C.
I dont know too much about how speakers actually work, but I have installed a lot of them. What I do know is that I am impressed by the “Tony’s Dream Speakers (TDS)” speakers from tonys train exchange. There is usually a link to the speakers from any of the sound decoder pages. You can (and should) also buy baffles for any of those speakers. My favorite is the mini oval speaker with baffle. Its small but sounds great and is perfect for narrow hood diesels. Of which I have many.
A reminder that many sizes of small speakers are available from
Allied and Digi-Key for between $3 and $6.
Regarding back enclosures: if you can seal the front periphery of the
speaker to a hole or holes in the tender bottom or coal load, and if
the rest of the tender is fairly well sealed behind the speaker, no
separate back enclosure is needed. But poor seals will cause
cancellation of sound, more at the low end.
I have found that usually firing up through the coal results in a
bright sound, sometimes brighter than I want. But the Tsunami’s
equalizer can help with that.
Buzzing can be handled by adding stiffness and/or mass to interior
tender walls, such as epoxy (pool putty comes to mind) or sometimes
just thick tape; also braces.
To me, QSI decoders in BLI’s, etc. are pretty limited compared to
the Tsunami’s, and tend to sound too much alike. But on the plus
side, most BLI and other recent tender/diesel designs intended for
sound mount two speakers, often difficult in home installations. So
BLI’s can play quite loud, much louder than I want on my home layout.
I wonder if some have had success with buying BLI versions without
DCC/sound and putting Tsunamis and their own speakers in? The
interiors should be ready for two speakers, since BLI also sells
decoder/speaker upgrade kits.
I don’t have much experience with installing speakers in older-
design diesels where there may be very little room. What are some
ways you solved the problem?
Hal
This is my latest installation which I did earlier today and it has excellent sound!
The baffle is 1.6mm styrene and the space is made tight when the bottom plate is screwed on.
Fergie
I like for it to work.
BEST RESULTS:
STEAM - 1" - 3/4" Speaker, mounted face down, in Sealed tender.
ROAD DIESEL - Rectangular, firing UP through a see-thru fan, sealing off all other top openings, allowing the body to separate the front from the back wave.
CAB TYPE with see-thru gills. 1" speaker mounted on a sealed off wood ‘floor’ facing down, allowing back wave to exit via grills.
PASSENGER - Baggage car with forward-firing speaker through open doorway. Other end doorway can be closed or open.
FREIGHT - Stock car with 1" speaker mounted on wood baffle fitted to one side, allowing back wave to use ends, floor, & ceiling for baffle, and exit open side. Cutting the wood size to seal off the speaker and painting it flat black, makes it an excellent ‘head-end’ car.
All require metal contact with the rail. I find TOMAR wipers to give superior results over metal wheels.
‘Bottle Cap’ baffles raise the res. frequency of the driver and are strictly a last resort.
(Even though they are related) The speaker SIZE is what primarily moves air, and the ‘BAFFLING’ (front/back separation) more affects the ‘tone’.
NOTE: to “I lke it to work” jeffrey-wimberly. These ‘work’.
Texas,
When you refer to “acoustically transparent coal” I went, huh? Can you enlighten me?
Brian
They make certain types of grill material (I hesitate to call it foam) that is used for the front covers of stereo speaker cabinets. Find some that is black. Remove whatever is used for coal on the tender, and replace it with this material. After I get the main “coal” shape made, I usually just take some sissors and rough it up a bit. If it still doesn’t look good enough I’ll sprinkle (very lightly) some Woodland Scenics or real coal over the top and glue it into place. The less “stuff” you can put in front of the speaker the better.
Some of my first sound installs, circa 1980 or so, I just drilled many many many tiny holes through the plastic “coal” loads. Worked OK, but not nearly as good as the speaker enclosure cover material.
Another thing is a person’s ears. Different people hear differently. While sound seems to be a “new” thing to most people I’ve been dealing with it in HO for over 25 years now. The most technically correct sounding locomotives to me, are not other people’s favorites. Seems like many people like sound loud whether it is clear, full range, or correct.
And yet another P.S. Round speakers produce a more technically pure sound. On oval speakers the sides don’t move as far as the ends do.