Well I went with styrene and this is what I landed up with. The unit is a Soundtraxx DSD-090LC
The box is made of styrene and completely sealed, including the 4 speaker screw holes. The volume is poor at best (a quarter of that of my BLI 2-8-2 or Challenger). Is the box too small? or are these decoders lacking in umfff?
Help Please!
Fergie
Hi Fergie,
I may be incorrect about your situation but I posted the following info several times before. I even irked one poster, but here goes:
The Soundtraxx L and LC series decoders use an ampllifier that is smaller and less powerful than the amplifier that comes in the DSX and the old DSD150 series. This decoder was made for modelers on smaller budgets. So the result is that a locomotive will have the correct sounds coming from the decoder through the speaker, but you’re not going to have the dynamic “OOMPH!”[{(-_-)}] that you would get from a DSX. Even at low volume, the difference is noticeable. My ears immedietely noticed the difference when a friend of mine test-ran an LC equipped HO Kato CSX GE locomotive. As he ran it we noticed that the sound of the diesel engine was not that well pronounced and the horn, while sweet sounding was not very dynamic. Even with the volume level adjusted, the bell sound sounded sharper than the horn.
It was after e-mailing Bruce at Litchfield Station, a DCC installation specialistand and asking about the low sound response that we understood why it wasn’t so pronounced compared to a DSX or DSD150 equipped unit.
If you ever listen to a DSX decoder, you should be able to notice the difference right away! Of course with a DSX, you have to use a separate motor decoder in conjunction with it, like a Digitrax 163. Would likely fit in a tender though.
The old Soundtraxx DSD 150 was the “premeir” motor/sound decoder, but Soundtraxx discontinued it late in 2003 year to develop the new Tsunami motor/so
Maybe the speaker is compressing the air behind the speaker inside its enclousure and is preventing the speaker from osculating. How does it sound out of the enclosure? If it’s louder, the enclosure needs a port.
No offense taken Antonio. This was a present and after I posted this I went back and started to fiddle with the CV’s (oh joy) I got more sound out of the whistle, which in it’s self is good, would a second speaker in parallel be of any benifit?
gsetter: The load of coal in the tender looks more like swiss cheese and I also cut out the aft bulkhead under the coal shield so there’s plenty of portals for sound but thanks for the input.
So much for making the rafters shake!
Fergie
Actually Fergie I meant the enclosure or speaker box you built. Does it breathe?
I built a couple speaker enclosuers for my home stereo and the plans I used said the box has to breathe through a port in order for the speaker cone to move properly. Baffles were placed inside the enclosure to slow down the sound waves behind the speaker. The baffles prevent the sound waves behind the speaker from canceling out the sound waves comming from the front of the speaker. The port is a tube of a determined length to let air out but break up the sound waves.
Of course this is probably a moot point since tiny speakers are generally sealed on the back side.
However I think Antonio hit the spike on the head and you changing the CV’s helped.
Keep us posted!