Okay, maybe I am hard of hearing but just this last Saturday I took the family to the San Diego Model Train Museum and at the La Mesa Club they were running all their trains with sound, and it totally sounded like a bunch of static.
First off I’ve only heard an engine with sound demonstrated at my LHS where they would start it and then stop it to show all the great sounds.
I don’t know if it was the fact that all the engines pulling the train had sound or that the sound was at the wrong volume or what, but it just didn’t sound like a train.
I still am willing to try sound, for I have on backorder a Broadway limited AC6000CW with sound, so I will give it a chance.
What is everyone else’s opinion on sound? I guess if it sounded like crap then no one would be using it. Was it my problem or the operator’s, not having it set right, problem?
You’ll get varying opinions on this subject, neither is more correct than the other. That being said, I like sound. However, I can see where in a club setting with several of them running at once, it could get noisy. Some people, I’ve noticed, feel the need to crank up the volume. That usually will overdrive the speakers, and the whole experience of semi realistic sound goes to he!!. Think about railfanning… How many times to you see multiple trains moving at once? It’s usually just one, correct? Perhaps a multiple unit, but still only one train. So, again, my opinion, go for that AC6000CW, adjust the volume to a reasonable level, and enjoy the bells and horns.
I couldn’t agree with you more. I think that they just had their volumes a little to high and the sound was an overkill. To be honest, I can’t wait for my AC6000 to show up so that I may try sound.
Speaker size! Small speakers = small sound! Get the speakers out of the locomotives - get bigger speakers with subwoofers and stick 'em underneath the layout! Only then will you have realistic sound.
No, it also requires sound processors that produce low enough frequencies to send to the woofers and sub-woofers. One can hook up all the sub-woofers in the world and they will sit silent without a signal below 80 Hz. (using THX standards for the number here - I know many cheap home systems have “sub-woofers” that respond to anything below 150Hz., but choose a number. The concept still applys).
Unless your subwoofer can follow the loco(s) around the layout, and fade according to the scale distance, it will just sound like a locomotive that is 15 feet away…or right under your feet.
The key with sound locomotives, I have found, is to reduce the factory setting to about 40-60% for the overall volume, and then adjust individual sounds to suit your ears. A loco at the far side of a 20’ layout should not be heard over the one that is injectiing water or blowing steam two feet from your ears. If all volumes are set at 70% or above, it truly is a cacophony, and most unpleasant.
Zak, there is a big variation in the quality of sound available. I have a couple of the Soundtraxx LC (low cost?) series decoders installed in some steamers, and the chuff really does sound like a burst of static noise. The sound is in no way comparable to that from a QSI equipped steamer, or a Soundtraxx Tsunami equipped steamer. I don’t own any, but have heard some of the MRC first run sound decoders and they also have a very unrealsitic sound to them.
Anyway, the point being, that not all sound is created equal, so don’t be put off by one demonstration.
A properly set up sub, does not need to follow the locomotives around the table, the sound at low frequencies is omni-directional, and will usually appear to come from where-ever the mids and highs originate. Changes in volume as the train moves closer or away from the listener are a different matter.
The OP probably wans’t hearing static, instead the description closely matches distortion. This happens when the power amplifier cannot reproduce a signal which the pre-amp sends to it because it would require more amplitude than the amp is capable of.
The speaker cone normally follows a sine wave or variant when seen from the side, smooth movement, gradually slowing to a complete stop at each end of each excursion, then a slow start in the reverse direction.
When the power amp can’t reproduce the signal, it clips the top off the sine wave, turning a smooth rounded curve into a flat plateau with corners. These corners represent immediate halts to the quickly moving speaker cone, and the array of pressure waves emanating from the cone’s sudden stop resembles a click or pop. These are called transients. At audio frequencies, clipping can occur at every cycle, from 100 to 20,000 of them per second, and the result is a sound similar to static, overlaying the expected sound signals. In larger speakers, the mass of he paper cone can cause the speaker to tear itself apart when subjected to sudden stops and accelerations, but smaller cones, with less weight and therefore less momentum in relation to the tensile strength of the paper cone, tend to survive clipping for longer periods.
Two options here, turn the sound down until the amp can reproduce all of the incoming signals without distorting them, or else purchase a more powerful amplifier. A variant of option one, turning the sound down, would be to reduce the amount of lower frequencies in the signal. Bass waves require several times as much amplifier power to reproduce as mids and highs do.
The problem you are hearing is that people try to get way too much sound out of the little 3/4" speaker placed in the loco. As has been said the amplifier clips and causes distortion that will sound a bit like static at the frequencies most efficiently created by those little tweeters. A speaker that size can efficiently produce sound in the range of 2000 Hz up to 20,000 Hz. (That is short for Hertz. One hertz is one vibration per second.) The normal range of human hearing is listed, depending on who you read as 30Hz to 20,000Hz. Every time you double the number of Hz, you go up one octave. The standard tuning in music is A 440 (that is the A above Middle C on the piano, which is 261.6Hz) While most headphones are basically tweeter speakers, they are in close proximity to your ears and can produce the very low sounds. In the loco, you can’t really hear what little bass is produced so the sound is by nature rather thin and treble.
I do live sound and produce CD recordings locally for mostly schools and churches. I have yet to hear an onboard sound module that comes close to what I think a real live loco sounds like even at a distance as the bass travels much farther than the treble anyway. That is why you hear that clown in his car with the music turned way up 3 blocks away as: “THUMP BOOM THUMP THUMP”! Stand back a hundred feet or so from a working steam loco and what you hear is the bass. Get up close and you will hear the steam hiss and other higher sounds.
Someday, someone will figure out a way to get it right. But for now, I will pass on sound as I find it more of an anoyance than a pleasure.
I have 5 locomotives, four with sound… one not. I like sound IF it is turned down to around 40 to 50 %. There is no way in heck you’re going to get those deep bass sounds like the prototype from the models itty bitty speakers… not yet anyway… (maybe someone will come close(r) one day
I find that if there are several trains running on a layout, such as a club setup, and they all have sound, it doesn’t ‘sound’ so good.
Even on my home layout there are times I’ll hit the mute button on a running engine if I’m trying to concentrate on a problem.
But overall, I like sound.
Jarrell
I know, I probably should have quoted Aloco as well or instead. Not arguing with what is said as far as sound quality. Some pretty amazing things have been done in small spaces with sound but, short of G scale, I don’t think our locos are quite there yet. Sorry if I confused anyone…
I have Soundtraxx “Heartland Steam” mounted under the Yuba River Sub, with two speakers (one under each island) and I keep it pretty low for my ‘non-sound’ locos. for the BLI’s and Genesis locos I’ve got, I’ve programmed the locos low to match the under-table sounds, and I don’t get much distortion at all, if I choose to run multiple locos. One of the problems is that you’re not going to get much bass sound from the tender speakers, however turning them on low seems to allow a better bass/treble balance.
We’re not talking Home Entertainment Modules here, fellas–let’s face it, you’re not going to get “Carmina Burana” out of a Pennsy M1-a tender. But if you ‘scale’ the sound down, you’re going to get some interesting and rather subtle prototype wheezes and chugs.
Hey, my models are 1:87–so are the little plastic people listening to them, LOL!
Tom
I have just compleated my first sound install,It is an soundtraxx,I’am useing an 1" speaker in side of a PVC tube down through the bottom of the tender,It sounds good to me,The only goof is in the chuff cam on the left rear driver,The loco is an IHC 2-8-2 and I got the driver to hot and warped it! I have sence orderd some conductive paint ,and have an extria driver I can use,Thank God.All the fuctions work real good and to me sound good!![2c][^]
JIM
