I called Kato to ask why they don’t offer sound, and they said no plans because no demand. This is contrary to what I hear from 90% of modelers. I think sound with DCC really renewed my interest in the hobby.
I would not buy unless sound was factory installed. How do the rest of you guys feel about your future purchase. Sound or Silence?
Kato is going to offer sound factory installed. I dont know why you were told otherwise…
But installing sound isnt so hard. It is just like installing a regular decoder except with the added challenge of a speaker. The hardest part is making room for the speaker.
It might just be me but I don’t have any interest in more noise in my life. After listening all day to a shop full of racing engines, air tools, and radios blasting hard rock. the last thing I want is more noise. The pizza cutter wheels on the Atlas code 55 track is bad enough/
Well, there you have it; one says its a given, and the other says he likes the peace and quiet. When we discussed this in at least six threads since I joined, there are the gushers (yes, my hand is up), and there are the “puhleese!” crowd who are perfectly happy listening to the clickety-click and a nearby radio/television/nattering you-know-who.
I understand both sides of it…I really do. If I have power on, and am fixing or adjusting something, muting goes on right away. All those pumps, injectors, etc drive me crazy!
But when I am playing…ooooohhhhh yeahhhhhhhhhh!! [:D][yeah][tup][:P]
I’m with you Crandell, it’s great when I’m railfanning but when tinkering with track or something off it goes!!
I shutdown all my loco’s I’m not using.
Ken.
I would love to be able to have some sound… If. I have yet to hear any HO scale sound that really sounds like the real thing. Those little itsy bitsy speakers cannot reproduce the bass that is very much peresent in the real thing. Some have said well it should be like you are a hundred feet away. Well, if you are 100’ away what you will hear is the bass sounds as they travel much farther and are more pronounced in the sound as you move away from the source. The opposite is true with HO sound decoder systems. SpaceMouse needs to get to work on that subwoofer system tied into the layout he is always talking about. If you had a subwoofer in the room it would be more realistic sound as the bass is also much less directional than the treble.
Same here. If im working on the layout and testing stuff out then the sound goes off. Sometimes you can hear a track problem before you see it. But personally I think sound really enhances operation. I love coming to a meet or a grade crossing and being able to blast the horn a couple times. I agree that the prime mover sounds do leave something to be desired, But its getting better all the time.[:D]
I am hopiing to get a sound loco, any sound loco soon. Katos AC4400 in CP looks nice, and so does the BLI BN SD40-2.
Matthew
I just installed a Soundtraxx sound decoder into a Kato GE AC4400 last week and it was real easy! The speaker compartment is meant for the 1.1" round speaker and fits snug. I know that Digitrax has sound for these too but Soundtraxx is what is available at this time and they only cost $48 plus $5 for the speaker as opposed to the Digitrax which will cost about $66.
I like the sound but there’s no way all of my locos will be equipped. Just too expensive to do so and to have all of them rumbling or hissing at the same time would just be obnoxious…
Much in agreement that the quality isn’t there (but it’s still fun)… I’m 2 blocks from a main yard where they do a lot of switching at night and even in a closed house I can hear the rumbling diesels, the horns, the bells, and the coupler crash… Maybe Dr. Bose can design us a baffle that’ll fit in an HO locomotive.
It doesn’t really matter to me what Kato does… They haven’t produced anything I could use since the NW2…
Jeff
[swg]
i remember when lionel first added sound; i laughed and walked away.
mth improved sound, but the design defects left us with worthless junkers.
lionel came back with an improved version which was almost good enough, but not quite. mth leapfrogged them with improvements, and so it continues. sound will be good someday, but i will not buy it again until it does; technology is making it’s predecessors obsolete. i’ll wait until they get it figured out.
usually after about 20 minutes running, everyone wants the sound to go off. sound may be new, but it ain’t what got us here.
There is truth to that, especially to your last assertion…well put. However, I finally got down to see the hi-rail layout of a fellow, who asked me to come by last spring, just this Monday. His locos are sound-equipped and radio controlled. Nice, big, heavy locos…and surprisingly tinny sounds!! The QSI is much better.
I suppose a deeper bass effect would add to the experience, but what QSI and Lionel/BLI have accomplished is darned good.
I get all the sound I need off the grade crossing, a mile away. It’s a relatively busy double track main, and I can tell which way the wind is blowing, by how loud the trains are.
I own one sound loco. I bought it simply as an entertainment feature for when my grandkids visit the layout, otherwise I run it with the sound off. I definitely do not find sound a necessary or even desirable feature in an HO locomotive.
CNJ831
I used to think tht sound was an expensive toy, that wasn’t really neded to enhance the modeling experience. Used to. But I had the opportunity to run on two large home layouts, both fully equipped with sound in ALL engines. And the sound was supposed to be used fully, with proper whistling and bell ringing everywhere that it was required (and including the proper light usage). Both layouts were fully rostered with steam, which was great for a steam lover like me.
Whenever I’m around real trains, either steam or diesel, there’s one thing that I always notice: the sound. There’s always something going on within the belly of an engine which gives it life. Steam is especially rich in sounds, and I can hang around all day just listening to one percolate.
SOUND is what is generally missing from our models, to give them another layer of reality. Watching a train with a couple of diesels on the front end gliding nioselessly around a layout is a relatively barren view. Metal wheelsets clacking across rail joints helps, but sound in the engines really adds to the overall experience. Sound is eapecially important in steam engines, since they make so much noise. And without sound and smoke (which we can’t practically get in smaller scales) steam might as well be diesel (and that’s no good!). Listening to eight steamers puttering around in a division point yard, or hanging around in the ready tracks next to the coal dock, is a trip back in time. There’s no way any of us will see that level of historically correct steam action, so it;s up to the models to give us a glimpse of what that sort of activity would have looked and sounded like.
Yes, the small speakers are a bit lacking in the base, but that doesn’t matter as much with steam as it does with diesels. And with the new generation of QSI and Soundtraxx sound chips, even the base is getting better.
I’ve started adding sound to my steam fleet (in that respect, BLI’s USRA offerings have been a godsend). In fact, I’ve
I love sound, just not all the time. At train shows its kinda cool to show off and blow the horn and ring the bell at people while they watch your train go around. At the club its fun because some of the older guys don’t like it, its fun to iritate them, lol. At home on my own layout I usually only have the sound on for awhile and then turn it off. I plan on installing sound in my 3 Kato AC4400CW’s and I do plan on getting a sound equiped steam engine soon but that will probably be it for me.
The sound is nice but if your equipment is in a large room often the whole effect is at best minimal.
What I’d like to see is a defect detector which broadcasts random defect reports as your train passes. Most of the time it would obviously report “no defects” but think of the added realism if you get a “defect” from time to time. Interesting operating challenges.
Dunno who gave you that information about Kato, but their latest three releases have been designed for easy sound installation, and the first of the new Digitrax sound decoders is made specifically to plug and play in those new Katos. Plus they announced several new models that will be available with sound already insalled, using the same Digitrax decoder. So Kato is very much “on board” with sound.
–Randy
the next runs that Kato is doing in their KOBO line are going to have Digitrax and sound installed. AC4400’s, F40’s and SD38-2"s. Not as many numbers as the original runs, just what was left in the warehouse from them. something like $220 to $250 a shot.
I my opinion sound isn’t worth the cost. Isn’t realistic enough and I get bored with it after 5 minutes.Its just not something I want so this is to Kato; Thank you for sticking with “sound-friendly” only. Please stay there.
Kato is just late to the party. They are forced to offer sound or they will they lose sales in the future. Most of their models would be worth the trouble of installing sound and the fact they have the speaker cavity in the tank is the acknowlegement of sound is here to stay.
The after market sound is better than some ot the factory installed sound so don’t write it off so quickly. If you want the correct sound, the after market is much better than the toy train sound that is offered in some of the recent models.